prasantrin

My favourite burger place--just a 20-minute bike ride from my house! It's called Awaji Burger, and it really is a little shack! They mostly do take-out, as they only have a small counter that seats six (and the counter is too high for the plastic lawn chairs they use for seating). During the winter the plastic wrap around the front helps keep the heat in (they just have a kerosene heater, plus the heat from the fryer and grill), but during the summer the front is completely open with just the bamboo shades to keep the sun out. The onions and eggs they use are from Awaji, hence the name, but I'm not sure about the beef (or whatever it is they use in their burgers--it might be a beef and pork mix). Yesterday I went all out (for me) and ordered a bacon cheese burger. I'm always wary of Japanese bacon (I prefer crispy American-style bacon), but this was really good. They use real cheese, which is definitely a plus. They put mayonnaise and barbecue sauce on their burgers, but I always get ketchup instead of the barbecue sauce. It's very messy to eat, but I love it! The burger plus the panko-coated onion rings in the back cost Y850 (the burger is Y500, cheese and bacon Y100 each, and onion rings were Y150). You can also get your burger topped with onion rings or an egg. The bike ride back to my place helps burn off some of the calories from the meal...

Hey! That still happens! Interestingly, it never happens to me when I'm alone because I look Japanese, but it does happen when I'm with friends who look more gaijin than I, and when I'm with my mother (who also looks Japanese, but once the staff hear us speaking English, they go into their routines). It mostly happens in Kyoto (especially at the Daimaru depachika, for some reason), but sometimes in Osaka, too. In Kansai we can get the oysters in the vinyl tubes, too. I can never get them open without spilling the water all over the place (and I keep forgetting to open them over the sink). I never liked oysters until I came to Japan. I love kaki fry, but my all-time favourite preparation is from my favourite teppanyaki place--grilled in butter, and lightly sprinkled with soy sauce and freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Yummmm!

Just a precaution, when I googled using their phone number (you get more precise hits using a phone number rather than a name), the number also came up as the fax number for some kind of GLBT organisation, and I found no reviews past 2006 (and much of what I read wasn't very positive). If the place still exists, let us know if it's any good. Maybe I can add it to my list!

This website gives an email address. Maybe they'll fax or email you a menu. I hate to toot my own horn, but I'm good!

I think there's a difference between "upscale" and "designer". But then, neither upscale nor designer mean the same as "quality" (the three are not necessarily exclusive of one another, but none infers the others). I don't know about the other places, but Williams-Sonoma will give you a discount on anything on your list that you didn't receive. They do have a range of products that could fit all budgets.

I think it's funny you have soap there. I used to, but my Japanese friends laughed at me, so I took it out. During winter it's way too cold to wash my hands with the toilet water, anyway! I must be an anomaly, but I find Japanese strawberries to be of far better quality than the ones I've had in Canada, and I think the bigger and usually more expensive ones really are packed with strawberry flavour. When I buy strawberries, I sniff all the baskets and buy the ones that smell the most like strawberries (people usually look at me strangely, but I don't really care). I know it's not the best, but instant pho cubes are not as difficult to find now (the paste-type in jars is even better), and the noodles are everywhere. When you need a pho fix, it certainly does the trick! Do you think you and your husband (I have actually seen a picture of him ages ago on your blog--which you forgot to mention was recently nominated for an award!) might ever move back to Canada, or elsewhere in the world?

I think this is key--no matter what other people say, which brand or model you're going to be happy depends entirely on you, sygyzy. You may as well buy one, try it out, and return it if you're not happy with it (or buy both and return the one you like least). Because despite all the questions and helpful answers, you're not going to know which is right for you until you try them. I have a Cuisinart, and I'm fine with it. I don't find the plastic bit Batard mentioned all that fragile, and I'm pretty careless with mine. The only thing I don't like about the Cuisinart is that the tube part doesn't come apart, so it takes a bit more care to clean.

Thanks canucklehead and Ah Leung! I'm just trying to get a handle on prices, so I can decide where to splurge. Cheap eats are plenty available, but we'd like to do a few higher-end places that my friend doesn't normally get to try (her husband is what Ah Leung affectionately refers to as one of the "commons", so he tends to balk at paying high prices for food). She just emailed that Yung Kee is also number one on her list of places to try (and her husband wants to come, too!), so that will be one of our splurge places, and I think either Victoria (is it really called Victoria Harbour, or is it Victoria City Seafood?) or Fook Lam will be our splurge dim sum place. I have at least 16 meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) in HK, so we can fit a few more in there somewhere, but the rest will probably be cheap eats and snacks.

My Hina Matsuri dinner: Stawberries and dango for dessert, a can of beer, quiche and salad, and a bento! My chirashizushi: tricoloured kamboko?? at the top (barely visible), crab legs, and a little piece of sashimi were the extras. The rice was mixed with peas and unagi, amongst other things. I liked the dango. I thought it would just be mochi, but it was filled with anko. Oops! I forgot the side dishes! Cherry-smoked ham and miso soup. My Hina Matsuri dinner was prepared by my neighbour/landlady. She does it for us every year, and it's one of the few things she actually cooks herself! It's a great honour to receive her bento, and I love all the extras she puts in--a can of beer! Who would have thought! I must confess, though, I don't really like chirashizushi. I try to eat as much of it as I can, but it usually isn't very much... I forgot to add--I didn't actually eat all of that last night. I wasn't very hungry as we held our high school graduation and party yesterday. I ate as much of the bento as I could (all the crab legs and I fished through the rice for the eel), and the dango. The quiche and salad, and strawberries will be my lunch today, and the ham will probably be eaten over a few days. I don't really drink beer, so I might have to give it away.

When making pasta salads or if freezing the pasta.

I had a cheese biscuit and sausage patty for breakfast. Sounds suspiciously like my dinner last night, but without the gravy. It'll probably be my dinner tonight, too!

I'm really looking forward to this! I loved ChefCrash's goat head topic--it was tres cool when he peeled the skin off the head. I'm a little sad you told them "no heads". If nothing else, you could have sent them to Chef Crash!

Tonight I made sausage patties, cheese biscuits and gravy. It was so good I ate two. I think I might have another biscuit, too!

I remember reading someone's account of going to a (small) restaurant a few times, becoming friendly with the cook, and then being allowed to cook with them. I can't remember if that was here on eGullet or elsewhere, but if you want something less tourist-oriented, that could be one way to get it (though it may take a little long). If your hotel has a kitchen, you could always bring up the idea with them.

I really really want to eat dim sum! It all looks so good! Ah Leung, how much did your lunch end up costing, if I may ask? Was all that food just for the two of you? And of the "posh" dim sum places you went to, which was your favourite in terms of quality of food (flavour)? And which dim sum place, posh or not, was your favourite over all? Thanks! But I think I'd rather have goose or duck than roast pigeon. My friend is gweilo (can I say that, or is that really rude?), but she can read Chinese OK (she can read Japanese very well, so although Chinese is different, she can usually figure meanings out), but her husband is HK-Chinese, and he lived in Shatin for many years, so he may already know about Lung Wah! I'll have to ask. My list now has 31 pages, by the way, but it hasn't been edited or formatted (there are probably duplicate recommendations in there somewhere). No worries, I was rude for both of us!

I found this one from Ling, but I think it was from before she and Henry started dating. Maybe the other one is in their foodblog?

If you browse around eGullet, Ling has posted some awesome pictures of homemade scallion pancakes. I think she may have posted her recipe, too, but I'm not sure.

I've not used that particular trash can, but I've used similar ones. They're OK, but sometimes they won't open when you want them to. It can be very annoying.

Ah Leung, fast-forwarding a bit, what was the famous dish you had at the Lung Wah Hotel in Shatin? My friend lives in Shatin, and I'm trying to figure out where to take her and her husband for a thank-you dinner or lunch (since I'll be staying with them, and since my friend is "ABSOLUTELY game for eating 24/7" with me ). I've been going through this topic, and I have 3-A4 pages of stuff already, and that doesn't even include the info in your teaser posts. I'm waiting for the full posts till I glean info from your trip (which gives you two weeks, Ah Leung! Get to it!).

Ya, but I'm in Japan. The only thing I have easy access to is the hoisin. Everything else I'd have to make! Maybe I can find a Shanghainese restaurant in HK.

I just looked it up. It was at the Ajinomoto Foundation for Dietary Culture, and it just finished yesterday! Maybe you can give them a call and see if they'll let you sneak in while they're taking everything down.

Is this a Vancouver-only type of dish, or would I be able to find it at any dim sum place in Hong Kong? I think I need some, and a trip to HK is a lot more likely than a trip to Vancouver!

I would have dropped a little biscuit dough on the pan, put the hot dog on, then dropped a bit more dough on top. No need for shaping (though you might need to spread the top dough a little), and you get good coverage of the hot dog that way. They may even keep their shape better that way, since you'll be handling them less. Hmmm...I'd try it, but I can't get decent hot dogs in Japan. Maybe I could slice some Johnsonville sausages into smaller pieces and pretend they're hot dogs?

I think the cake looks great (it looks so moist, even in the picture!), but I had never heard of Lazy Daisy cake in Canada. It's not even something we made in home ec. class, and we made a lot of "typical Canadian" recipes in that class. I wonder if it's more of an American thing?

I've never seen Japanese peanut butter, other than St. Cousair brand (all of their nut and sesame butters are quite nice, by the way, and I like their packaging ). Peanut cream is much, much more common and when I first came to Japan, it was all I could find unless I went to import shops (not that I looked much, because I don't really like peanut butter). Perhaps the recipe you found is for peanut cream rather than peanut butter? Is usually much sweeter and less peanut-y than peanut butter, and smoother, too.