prasantrin

Yay, me! I think I got some! Kitano Grocers didn't have it--in fact they had pretty pitiful offerings, in general. But Kobe Halal Food had pomegranate concentrate and it looked like what I needed, so I bought it. From my research on the web, it does appear to be the same thing as pomegranate molasses, so I think I'm set! And all for just Y500! Plus I scored a can of gulab jamun from the same store, and a couple of packs of puff pastry from Kobe Grocers, for just Y500 each. Today was my lucky day!

It helps that I'm single without three growing kids to support! I think that many of my friends are quite a bit older (and more established) has given me a warped view of what cheap is here. I actually rarely spend more than Y3000 for dinner, and usually spend in the Y1000-Y1500 range. Back to the original question... Like anzu and easternsun, I would spend much more time in Kansai if possible. In fact, I would fly into Osaka rather than Tokyo, and bypass Tokyo altogether, but that probably isn't possible at this point. And, like anzu, I'd spend most of my time in Kyoto. Kyoto was where I spent my first two years in Japan, so I am very partial to it . I know some reasonably-priced places to eat in Kyoto, but a number of the places I know aren't Japanese, but French, Italian, etc. I don't know if you'd be interested in those places. I do know a good tonkatsu place, and a good place for unaju if you're up for that. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at remembering names, just locations. Maybe I can make it to Kyoto before your trip, so I can give you specifics. I would also by-pass Osaka and Kobe. Those are the two places I visit most often (since I live right between them!), but I mostly do ex-pat-type stuff in those cities. There is actually very little in either place to interest tourists (in my opinion). Except, my favourite teppanyaki place is in Okamoto (the eastern part of Kobe, I think). If you're going to Himeji, it might be an easy stop on the JR line. It's really quite a bargain, especially if you go at lunch. But at lunchtime, the better wagyu options aren't offered. It's called Lapin. They have an English menu, and though they don't speak English terribly well, the staff is very friendly and helpful. It's also quite a small place, so you'd best make reservations if you're interested. I'd be happy to join you, too! It's one of my favourite places to eat!

It would also be useful to know how much a "splurge" is. In Japan, I consider a meal more than Y10 000 to be a splurge, but then I'm poor. My Japanese friends can spend more and still think it's reasonable. I would consider a dinner of Y4000-5000 per person to be about average, and less than Y3000 to be cheap. By knowing your budget a little more precisely, it would be easier to point you to appropriate places. And will you be just in Kyoto when you're in the Kansai area, or will you venture out to Osaka and/or Kobe, as well? I know a great teppanyaki place that is very reasonable for lunch. It's between Kobe and Osaka, and they have an English menu (a recent addition). Very friendly people there, too!

I always reheat it. Because it's so juicy, it tends to get soggy when it cools. A couple of minutes in the toaster oven and it's as good as new! I noticed that the seafood pizza is also gone from the Costco here. The frozen drinks seem to be seasonal, too. Right now it's mango, but it used to be mixed berry.

I am please to report that my beloved bulgogi bake is back at Costco!! It disappeared last fall, I assume because of the lack of cheap American beef. It was still missing at the beginning of July, but last week it was back! Gone was the chicken bake (no tears shed for that! I though it was horrible!), though. Here's a picture of the inside of a bulgogi bake. There's quite a bit of meat in it, and it's very juicy. If you haven't already tried it, you really much. While the priciest of Costco food offerings (Y399) it's at least 2 meals worth of food!

I had tried Kobe Grocers, Meidi-ya, and Tokyu Hands. Foreign Buyers Club has pomegranate juice to be had, so if I can't find the real stuff I'll try the recipe zaskar linked to (thanks!). I had never even heard of Kitano Groceries, so it's on my list of places to visit. And Kobe Halal Food is just a skip away, so I may as well try them, too. They didn't have it on their website (though they did have rose water) but they may still carry it, or be able to get it for me. The other option I was mulling was going to one of the Turkish restaurants and seeing if they had any to sell me or knew a source. There are a couple in Sannomiya, and at least one in Juso, so if nothing else, maybe I'll get some good meals out of my search! I was thinking of making this recipe from FoodMan's Lebanese Cooking Class, which inlcudes this recipe which calls for pomegranate molasses. There are lots of other recipes to try, too. Maybe tomorrow will be my lucky day to find it!

Generally, how many crusts would each of these recipes make? I was thinking of trying the cream cheese recipe, as I have a lot of cream cheese leftover, but not 6 pounds worth! And does cream cheese pastry freeze (unbaked) as well as non-cream cheese pastry? Or are there any special precautions one should take with it?

I've searched through the pinned food links, but could not find it, even amongst the Middle Eastern stores (at least one of which does not seem to carry any food at all!). Does anyone know where/if pomegranate molasses is available in Japan? I'd prefer a location in the Kansai area, though on-line would be fine, as well. It's looking more and more as though I should have brought some back from my trip to Minneapolis!

I don't know if it qualifies as "authentic," but my dinner at Steirereck in Vienna was one of the best meals I've ever had.

A number of years ago, I made pandesal from a recipe in The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking. It was a lot more like hard Portuguese or Italian buns than the soft, slight sweet and rich pandesal one buys nowadays. My grandmother (who would have been in her 90's now) commented that it was like the pandesal of her youth. I think the typical pandesal has evolved over the years. Most Filipinos, especially ex-pats, only know the sweetened type (which I, also, prefer--especially toasted and slathered with butter and/or dulce de leche). (Couldn't figure out if I could still do an e-Gullet link to Amazon, so I didn't do one. But if it's still possible, anyone with editing privileges is free to change my link!)

Cassava cake is one of my favourites! Why does that look so much better than any other Turon I've seen in Winnipeg? The turon in YWG always looks like it's been fried in old oil, and is somewhat anemic loooking I've never particularly cared for Filipino food, possibly because my mother couldn't cook it very well (for example, her adobo, while good in its own right, is a far cry from good Filipino adobo). But I've always loved Filipino desserts and snacks. Did you happen to find any carioca? It's my all-time favourite, especially when fresh out of the fryer/syrup. But it's getting harder and harder to find in Winnipeg.

My mother's dialect is Hiligaynon, so I asked her. She says:

Sausage rolls...yum! I finally got around to downloading the pictures to my computer, so I thought I'd show y'all what I ended up with. A tiny bit of background as it's somewhat relevant...I'm a Canadian ex-pat living in Japan. The sausage rolls I know from home are probably closer to British-style sausage rolls. I've never had a US-style sausage roll, though, so I can't compare. In Japan, good sausage meat (even cased) is not readily available, so I had to make my own sausage meat. I used a sausage spice mix (Penzey's breakfast sausage) and added more pepper, and some thyme and finely chopped onions. The sausage part was OK, but needed more pepper (my favourite sausage rolls from Winnipeg are heavily peppered). My first batch was a bit overdone. I was afraid of uncooked sausage meat, so I cut them a bit on the small side (about 3-4 cm each), and baked them at 210C for 30 minutes. I have a tiny gas convection oven so I usually lower temps and times for baking. But I wanted to make sure the meat was cooked thoroughly (I had defrosted it a couple of days earlier), so I erred on the high side. I liked the browning of the puff pastry, but when I reheat the rolls, it gets too dark. They were great out of the oven, though! As you can see from the inside picture, the sausage meat was rather dry. I think that was in part from the too-high temperature and too-long baking time, but also in part because of the 80% lean ground meats. But even with the lean ground meats, the pan was pretty soaked with grease. After seeing all this grease, I was worried. So I thought I'd use Wendy's suggestion of partially cooking the sausage the next time I made these. However, the rolls weren't greasy at all. Even upon cooling and reheating, there was no greasy flavour at all. I was quite impressed! The second batch of sausage rolls turned out a little better. These were formed at the same time as the first batch, but I stuck them in the fridge for a day, then baked them at 190C for 25 minutes. The meat is a little moister (more moist?), and the puff pastry has a little more softness to it. I prefer it that way. The meat is still a little dry, though. They reheat much better than the first batch, though. I've decided that my favourite part of sausage rolls is the brown/black crust that forms around the edges of the rolls. You know, the juice or whatever that bakes out of the meat, then hardens. It would be equivalent to fond...no? Very very tasty, and I think the sausage meat must be raw in order to achieve this. I have about 9 pieces left (from 18), so I have breakfast for at least two more days. Lucky me! Thanks for all the suggestions. I've settled on uncooked sausage meat, no snipping, and refrigerating before baking for my next attempt! And if I can ever stop myself from eating them so quickly (or wanting to eat them so quickly), I'll freeze before baking. But they're sooooo good!

A friend has dined there, and she said the place was amazing. Of course, "amazing" all depends on your frame of reference...

The thread on puff pastry, along with Jackal10's pork pie in the pie crust thread, has brought out a craving for sausage rolls. I searched the web for recipes, and settled on this one (which is actually a Delia Smith recipe but her site is down right now, so I can't link to her page directly). I have them in the oven as I type, but now am curious. I've never worked with puff pastry before, and I think I may have made some grave errors, so allow me to ask a few questions. Firstly, it's very hot here and as I was forming the rolls, I noticed that my puff pastry (store-bought, Bellamy brand from New Zealand, I think) became very very soft in just a short time. I put the pastry in the freezer for about 5 minutes (with the sausage meat already on it, but not yet rolled) to make it easier to work with, but even then, by the time the rolls got into the oven (a mere 5 minutes, I would guess), it was quite soft, again. Should I have refrigerated the rolls before baking? Or does the temperature of the pastry prior to baking make a difference in the final product? I forgot to snip the rolls before putting them in the oven. Is that step really necessary? I guess I'll find out shortly, but as a general rule, does one have to vent puff pastry? And if one does, should the slits be deep (down to the meat) or just superficial? During my search I found that some recipes called for raw sausage meat, but some required cooked meat. Which is preferable? I used a combination of ground pork and beef, both about 80% lean, and put it in raw. I noticed after 10 minutes of baking that there was a pool of grease around each roll, but I don't know if that's from the meat or the puff pastry. Lastly, if I want to freeze the rolls, is it better to bake and then freeze, or should I freeze and then bake? If the latter, do I defrost and bake or bake from frozen? Any suggestions for my next attempt?

To add, my favourite gingersnap recipe is this one by Emily Luchetti. It's the only gingersnap recipe I've ever liked--most are too soft, too sweet, or too plain (i.e. not enough ginger bite to them). I usually add candied ginger to it, to give it even more ginger flavour. I wonder if using candied ginger and candied orange peel with an orange cheesecake would be overkill... I'd try it!

Add my vote for gingersnaps, but add some crystallized orange peel into the mix. I love layers of the same flavour in one dessert.

Still on the topic of apples, but a slightly different vein... Which Japanese apples are best for pies and cakes? Stewing or poaching? Making apple butter? It's almost apple season, and I feel the need to bake a few apple-y tasting goodies!

Whether or not chopsticks were provided is irrelevant to the story. I was merely relaying a story about how I was treated by a customer, and the stupid things customers say (which is the topic). But if you must wonder, I did bring them, and they were used. After explaining about the use of chopsticks primarily with noodles in Thailand, I always offered to bring them, anyway. As someone of Asian descent, I prefer to break down stereotypes ("all Asians use chopsticks," for example) than propogate them, hence the explanation. But sometimes people just liked to use chopsticks (especially children) and I was fine with that. Frankly, I didn't care what they wanted to eat their food with...chopsticks, hands, feet, whatever. They could use whatever they wanted and I was happy to provide it if I could. But if they treated me without due respect, I was going to take offense. Edited to add: I just thought of another story about chopsticks and stupid things to say... Some friends and friends of friends and I were having dim sum. We were offered either chopsticks or forks and one friend of a friend said, "Oh, I use chopsticks all the time. My step-father is Filipino." For those wondering, culturally, Filipinos don't use chopsticks at all. Many don't even use them when eating Chinese food, and many (in the Philippines as well as a certain segment of the ex-pat population) don't even know how to use them.

True, but asking "Why aren't there any chopsticks?" in an accusatory tone is just as bad as (and sometimes worse than) telling. And the way I was being asked definitely not just an inquiry. Sometimes, though, they would just ask, "Can I have chopsticks?" though the tone was often, "You dumbass, where the hell are my chopsticks?" as though I intentionally took them away. To add, when I would explain that Thai people (including myself) usually only used chopsticks for certain noodle dishes and Chinese food, people usually gave me a look as though I were full of shit.

When my friend's Thai restaurant first opened, customers would say things like, "Well, why isn't there any broccoli or carrots in the curry?" and then complain that they were being ripped off, because the curries were mostly meat. Then they'd ask why there weren't any chopsticks...

I work at a private junior and senior high school. At the shakokan (cafeteria--I can't remember the common Japanese word for it, but at my school it is called shakokan), they have a variety of offerings to accomodate eating differences. However, only purely vegetarian (i.e. no animal flesh used in any part of the preparation) foods they offer are small salads or things like green beans with okara, simmered kabocha, onigiri, or other little simmered vegetable dishes. Sometimes there might be spaghetti with tomato sauce, but it will usually have meat in it. Other almost-vegetarian dishes might be soups made with dashi. At my school, however, most students bring their own lunches. The shakokan is more like a restaurant, and is used mostly by the college students, teachers, and staff members. At the one school I worked at which provided lunches, students who couldn't participate in the lunch program provided their own on the days they couldn't eat the school lunch. Monthly menus were printed up before the beginning of the month, so parents could plan for those days. The menus were quite complete, with all components to the meal and the ingredients listed (as well as a nutritional breakdown). Many of my vegetarian friends also gave in and started eating fish and fish-products when they moved to Japan. Especially when eating out with Japanese people, it was very difficult to maintain their lifestyle.

In fact, cheese is one of my kitty's favourite human foods! Particularly sharp cheddar. She'll even do a mouse imitation for a little nibble!

Is it just me, or does that link go to "Cheese Primer" by Steven Jenkins?

A friend's mother once made us Kraft Dinner mixed with ground beef, canned tomatoes, and green peppers. It was really good, and I hate Kraft Dinner! Another friend makes some kind of Bisquick hamburger pie. Never had it, never want to!