Peter Green
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Posts posted by Peter Green
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Vietnam again with Nakji. Now that should be a good read.
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We brought back a couple of kilos from Korea.
We've used it pretty much anywhere that we want to introduce a really chewy flavour. Pajeon (Korean pancakes) was the latest, and we've sliced it thin and used in ramen.
We've also used it in risotto, and been happy with the texture it adds there.
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Thanks for this, Bekki!
Any shots of the market? Is it still there in the middle of SR?
Any comments on the bar scene? Who has pride of place in this day and age?
It's been far too long since I was last in Siem Reab.
I need more vacation time.
Peter
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We still eat like this (at least until my stock of foie gras runs out).
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Chris,
Further to Peter's post, I should add that if you want to do lunch, the dress code is down a couple of notches to "smart casual."
Thanks, Julian. I'd actually think that lunch would be the better option, as it is quite a deal (and it'll afford you a long, fun evening to expand over Thai food).
Also as a caution on the Oriental, they do reserve the right to toss you out if you show up in tatty shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops (but I've never seen them do this).
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What was the dress code? We're traveling with carry-on packs only, so if I need a jacket, I gotta wear it en route.
Chris,
It is jacket and tie. Depending on where this fits in your travels, you could always have something done up over there, rather than carting it all over the place.
Peter
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Hmmm.....sea urchin....how can I count the ways?
As sushi, of course. That's too numerous to count.
Marinated with spices the Korean way, and eaten with rice and a wrap of seaweed. This is one of the best (and easiest) banchan in our house.
Cut open with a dive knife and scooped out on the deck of a boat (perhaps the best way to eat it).
Done up as an emulsion by Herve at Beaulieu in Bangkok, and served as a sauce on a beautiful piece of cod.
Roy Yamaguchi's uni, truffle, and ginger jus drizzle over tai sashimi (although I was not too happy with this).
Yoshii Ryuichi's sea urchin egg cup, just a happy little thing.
And served as "sea urchin royal with cream of asparagus" by Santi Santamaria. (Whatever happened to that post?)
Okay, that's a start.......
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I was looking back on my notes from last year. I'd stopped by at Le Cordon Bleu's new facility in Bangkok.
They're requiring a set of Wusthof for their students, the same as was described in London. And when I dropped by in Seoul, it was the same. This is a requirement, as they want standardization in the tools the students are working with. I believe it was a 40 piece set.
There are a probably a number there that will see marginal use after school is finished, but I can appreciate the "better prepared" attitude. The knives themselves were all good quality (as you'd expect from Wusthof) so I don't really know what was going on with the US branch.
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March 29 – Drum roll, please
It was our last full day.
The TIAF was starting their public show, but I was actually feeling animed out.
Shocking, I admit.
Knowing how to get there, I urged Scud to attend, but he was hesitant….aw, hell, he was just lazy. But, then, we know where he gets that from, don't we.
Still, I couldn’t spend our last day in Japan just watching tv and making a mess of the room. We had to get out and do something.
So, we ate. No messing around, we knew where we were going.
Sushizanmai is the place I’d walked past the other day, dragging Scud down the hill on one of my ill-fated “let’s look just a little further”. Add that to my collection (still growing) of less inspired moments.
This place is, as expected, part of a chain, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in Japan. It’s roots are in Tsukiji, with the flagship store there taking very good reviews. One of those (I’ve lost the source) mentions that the owner – Kiyoshi Kimura (shades of Azumanga Daioh) – was a buyer before he opened the restaurant in the market.
Now, according to what I read, the shop in Tsukiji is a kaiten – conveyor belt – restaurant. That wasn’t the case here, we were dealing with a traditional cut-and-serve-to-order counter.
Fine by me.
Looking up the place on the internet now, I find that they also have a sushi school offering a license path that will take you through courses and an apprentice ship in a year and three quarters. Heck, after three years, you, too, could be a Branch Manager!
On that sobering note……..I asked for sake (only two more drinking days left!), and took what they gave me. Unfortunately, my notes for this are basically non-existent, so I’ll have to rely upon you folks to identify this make for me. The web page describes two types of sake – hot and cold.
We started with mackerel. Good, solid, fishy smell and taste, the way I like it.
Like magic, a salmon joined the school.
And, as per Sushi Sen there’s plenty of blow torch action to be had, both tuna and eel.
Scud was of a mind for more eel after the last night, and I wasn’t going to get in his way.
Sushizanmai has (I also read) a reputation as a popular choice for the office crowd in search of a relatively inexpensive sushi lunch. Standard sets were in popular demand, and I was quite happy to drool over them as they went up on the counter in front of me to head out to the tatami rooms (now, how happy the clients may have been to see me salivating at the counter is another matter).
Fast hands. That’s something you really appreciate when you’re watching a professional chef working the lunch crowd.
Along with the go boards of fish, there were also some bowls (donburi? Am I wrong) going out, the fish cuts laid out in stunning colour over top of the rice.
Oh, as we were saying, this is a popular lunch spot for the office crowd. It would also appear that lunch comes with power-napping options, as there was a couple at the corner of the bar who were flat out unconscious throughout our meal.
At least I assume they were asleep. I didn’t see fugu on the menu.
Ah, the simple goodness of eggs. Sea urchin and ikura. An uni each for Scud and I, and the salmon eggs just for me (the Boy isn’t a big fan of these, I don’t know why….he’s fine with beluga and sevruga….and he came up with one interesting match once of lumpfish on crispy bacon strips…but that’s another story).
Scud had to have a donburi, so one came loaded with tuna, crab meat, scallops, and ikura (which I took as my cut).
I was more interested in some of the odd bits that I found on the English menu. In the front was “rock seaweed”, and behind that leek sprouts, and I had to try more nattou, it’s brownish colour giving it the look of a wrapped up luggy.
The place was beginning to get packed, and I watched as a waiter tried to jostle the couple at the end of the bar awake.
I’d heard of people living in the internet/manga shops, but I hadn’t considered 24 hour sushi restaurants as an option when I’d been planning my accommodations.
Maybe next time.
(Honest, these shots were taken at different times. Check and you’ll see the knife has moved, even if the somnolents haven’t)
After this we figured we needed a little more to round us out, so it was a standard lunch plate for Scud and I to pick over.
We’d been eating for the better part of an hour, and, to Scud’s discomfort, I’d taken up with the fellow next to me whose English was very good. We got started on food, and then we were pouring each other drinks.
Scud hates it when I start talking with strangers, as it’s not something a proper Vancouverite does. Normally you should get to know someone from a distance for a certain period of time before making the round of formal introductions. Say, perhaps, 10 or 20 years.
But that doesn’t hold while traveling. Time’s too short. My new friend not only got us on much friendlier terms with the chef with his jokes, but also recommending the cherry trees down by the ANA Hotel next to us in Asakasa, and also filling us in on a good option for dinner (but more on that later).
So, our plans for the day were set. Even if it was overcast, we had to do the cherry blossoms.
Our first stop was just across the street from the Oakwood, a small park on the other side of the main drag. Sure enough, the trademark items were there: people having small picnics and enjoying the scenery, and film crews.
The film crew ran through the park, did about three takes, and then raced back out to the street to load into a mini-van, obviously off to the next shoot.
Scud and I just walked down the hill.
My friend’s advice was spot on. The avenues around the ANA were beautifully canopied, and the pedestrian walk over gave you even better vantages for viewing. We joined the throng and took our stills and video.
We figured we’d just walk on from here, and see what we could find. Asakasa has plenty of foreign food on hand,
But there was also plenty of casual local stuff (can it get more casual than this?).
We stopped to take in some of the shrines as we walked, which you are continually coming across in this city.
And we had a look at the newest icons of culture (Scud had refused to take in the Tata Museum. I was so bummed out).
And we admired the older government buildings.
Before you know it, you’re at the Palace. I’d been trying earlier in the week to get Scud to come down here, but he hadn’t been too interested. But now, just through ambling, we’d managed to get it in.
We had to make the approach from the Sakuradaemon, of course, bustling in with the tourists hordes out to see the petals.
We took in this, the last of our major sights, and then headed for home. It was time to pack the bags, and get ready for dinner.
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Didn't the waiter/waitress say something about what was written on the paper containing the chopsticks?
It roughly says that when they use natural eels, the liver in clear soup and grilled liver may have hooks in them. Please take care.
Natural eels are used in April through December.
Hi, Hiroyuki!
Yoonhi wanted to know, when they refer to "hooks" in the liver, are they referring to metal hooks from catching the eels, or to hookworms (parasites)?
If it's the parasite, how would you recognize it in your food once it's cooked?
Thanks,
Peter
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and 333 spells beer to me...
Bababa.....which again is either beer in Vietnam, or a wild night in New Zealand!
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..no knickers, no empties, wrappers etc, you are actually quite neat for chaps...
damned spelling
Well, we are Canadians, after all.
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My first reaction would be the same. Do a pan roast with butter and herbs, and allow to rest.
Alternatively, you could borrow a lawn mower and join this thread!
That did it, Yoonhi's gone to go and find her old food toxicology text.
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My first reaction would be the same. Do a pan roast with butter and herbs, and allow to rest.
Alternatively, you could borrow a lawn mower and join this thread!
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March 28 – Crashin’
Our beautiful apartment was beginning to show the wear of a week of the Green men (boys?).
Our walk home had taken us by way of the nearest 7-11 to top up on money, Nodaiwa having not been able to take our credit cards due to a phone failure. Luckily, I believe in traveling with a certain amount of cash, so this wasn’t a direct concern, but still necessitated us stopping by the Wall of Pocky
that I’d written of way back in
post #158. Are we really up to post 360 with this? I know we were concerned when we stuck on 333 for awhile. As Scud says "333....half evil".
It wasn’t particularly late, but we’d both had a full day of it. We watched a certain amount of Japanese TV, and when we hit the trauma level switched over to the computer to watch a Hellsing OVA that Scud had “found” on the internet.
I dug into my snack from Takashimaya that I’d brought home, and we called it an evening.
Well, maybe after a few more beers we called it an evening.
Note: edited to add more mess.....it's a guy thing
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Ouch! 200e of eels not touched! I don't feel bad at all now about spending what we did on that meal in Tokyo.
(interesting, too, that the quotes also mentioned Ryugin as a "destination"! How I lucked into getting there, I'll never know. I guess it's just my year)
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Y'know, I was going through the WGF thread to look up my notes on Sam Mason, and I realized that I didn't start posting on that event until the year after.
I really like Sam Mason.
I would happily spend money on any book he puts out.
For the sake of history, here're my notes from Bangkok's WGF6 in 2005
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L’Epicerie de Docteur Moreau
I have a new hero.
And his name is Sam Mason.
To begin, please understand that I am not a big fan of desserts. Oh, I can be tempted by this and that, and I’ve had a strange obsession with Turtles for the last month (which, thankfully, I cannot buy here), but, in most cases, I find that desserts get in the way of drinking. At least of wine. But more on that later.
Sam cuts a good figure. He was early on the ladies’ favourite for his youth and, more important, his tattoo.
For me, I liked his turn of phrase. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard someone say “god speed” to his assistant. Alas, I forget his foil’s name. Fran? Fran it shall be. In the light research I’d done earlier, I found he avoided sweets, and looked for the more challenging of contrasts in his flavours, having used my personal favourite, salt and vinegar chips at one point as a topping (it takes me back to Cairo).
Sam introduced his vision, Tim Robbins in style, “slightly creepy, slightly odd”, With a reliance on “hydrochlorides and other strange chemicals”.
We started off with a carrot lime ravioli, with coconut tapioca, and a lime sorbet. He started up with the lime mousse for the ravioli, which seemed like an excuse of sorts to send Fran off to the side whipping the lime syrup and gelatin up. Meanwhile he got the coconut tapioca on the go, successfully scalding his fingers on the unprotected metal handle of the boiling pot. From there he popped back to the exhausted Fran and took care of folding in the cream and dishing the mousse out into a tin to go in the fridge. The result at this time isn’t really a mousse, but more like a foamy gel. Then he went over the carrot wrap, using super-thin slices of carrot (cooked for 30minutes) in strips to box in the mousse. As he says, “you want some fun, make your people do 300 of these in an afternoon”. Work up a dry cumin caramel, top the ravioli, distribute the ingredients on a plate, and there you are, cursing ‘cause you touched that pot again.
“We’ll come back as soon as I get feeling in my fingers.”
The second one was a play on a theme, the deconstruction of a tart, which at first sounds like a particularly violent snuff film, but really works down to getting at the component pieces of a dessert. This one went by the name of eggless lemon custard with basil meringue.
Working on this, the key elements were the micri and the gellan. The gellan is heat stable, and particularly hard to hydrate, so it gets a seeing to with Mr. Buzzy, our hand blender. The gellan also doesn’t like acids (the lemon juice in the recipe) so you have to cool it fast after boiling it up, catching it “off guard” as Sam says. The micri you use to emulsify, but it can separate, so it’ll get hit later on.
Meanwhile, he blended down some basil and then whisked that up with egg white powder and fresh egg whites to get a beautiful green meringue. You could smell the basil from the cooking platform.
On the sauce side, he went back to everyone’s old favourite, xantham gum. It never really makes a firm gel, so this is his favoutite for adding viscosity to sauces. The other big draw is that you can thicken this cold, avoiding any changes that heat could cause in the flavour.
So, what did this end up like? Squeeze bottle action for a blueberry drizzle on the plate, a nice slab of lemon curd topped with crumbled tart dough, a lemon chip (very thin lemon slice covered in sugar and baked at 240 degrees), and a dollop of basil meringue sitting green on the side.
Then came the chocolate cream and Tonka ice cream on a bed of coffee soil. Now, I always understood that Tonka was a maker of fine children’s toys, specializing in heavy construction equipment that you could use to bury your sister’s toys. I find out, however, that Tonka beans are these wonderfully dark, very firm pods that put out this wonderful thick incense. While they remind you of vanilla, they taste more like cherry pods. They’re very popular with hippies for the purpose of incense. They are also completely illegal in the U.S. and Thailand. But Sam sees no reason to let that get in the way of cooking.
The chocolate cream is meant to approach a chocolate chantilly stabilized with gelatin. Egg yolks are used to bind, giving the gelatin a helping hand.
The coffee soil, a mix of chocolate and coffee grounds with some almond flour, butter, and salt, gives texture to the softer forms of the creams.. A nice touch is the apricot paper, blended fruit puree with some egg white. Spread it super thin on a sheet at around 100 degrees for 90 minutes. The draw on this is that it could be done with anything.
With that, Sam wrapped up the demo dishes and opened the floor to questions. I hate a silent room, so I asked him what else he was having fun with right now.
“Methyl cellulose”, was one of the answers. This will allow you to gell when hot, and he’s now working on such items as putting a liquid center into a crem brullee by filling from the bottom, heating up, and then putting in the fridge to allow the liquid to reform under the crème brullee.
More fun are the noodles. WD-50 is using carrageenans (phycocolloids obtained from members of the Hypneaceae, Phyllophoraceae, Solieriaceae, and Gigartinaceae of Rhodophyta) and agars to do wild stuff, emulsifying anything they can get their hands on to stretch it out as a basis for (pseudo) pasta. The big successes have been mango noodles, and prawn noodles, made out of 90% blended down prawn meat and 10% emulsifier.
The other one, that really got my attention, was current work on gluing meats. They’ve got some chemicals that are the basic building block that fixes the muscles in the body. Using these, you can seamlessly graft different muscles together, which leads to a whole new realm of chickens grafted onto salmon, lobsters connected bodily to tenderloins, dogs and cats living together…….
“Cool!”, says I. “It’s really getting Frankensteinish!”
“Better living through chemicals”, says Sam.
As a fluid comment, when the Grand Marnier came out alongside of the desserts, I opted to have it on ice, with a twist of orange. I’d wanted to try this given my experiences with Hennessy the year before. I can comment that the result is excellent. Like with a cognac, the cooling drops the more brutal volatiles out of the nose, and the background flavours of orange and spices can be isolated. Quite a civilized finish to the session.
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March 28 – That’s Amoray!
Well, actually it wouldn’t be moray eel, but the song works better this way.
We crashed comatose when we got back to the room, turning on the television, cracking some beers and cokes, and sifting through the twenty odd kilos of anime material we’d dragged back with us. I tell you, we were the object of unbridled envy on the subway, at least amongst the under 10 set who had their eyes glued on big carry-all bags with the anime characters on them.
I hadn’t been paying attention to the television, but Scud was firmly in couch potato mode. He called from the other end of the room:
“After 2 weeks here, Japanese TV still scares me.”
I looked. There was a main screen of dancing girls dressed as mushrooms, while separate windows in the corners had a giant rat and a very large cat doing gyrations of some sort.
At random a cut-away of a woman with odd hair and an apparent nervous disorder would spin across the screen.
I looked away.
Scud had been asking for eel. “Wait for Tokyo. Tokyo’s the place for eel,” said I.
Well, here we were, with only this night and the next left to us.
We’d better find some eel.
There was one not too far away, just down the hill in Higashi-Azuba, that I’d read about on Bento – Nodaiwa. I checked with the front desk, and they knew it, and recommended it as well. It’s an old converted rice barn, going back to the 1840’s, so it sounded like it would measure up on the funky-meter.
I like it when you come in from the cold and the dank to someplace cozy. This place was definitely cozy.
Worked over tables of dark, thick wood, well worn by the comings and goings of the decades, and worn down upholstery that’s almost as beaten up as me. No pretensions, no fuss.
And I get a mouse for my chopstick rest. Rodents and ricebarns just seem like a natural pairing.
This all just called for hot sake. Kikumasamune is what they carry, and that’s good enough for me.
We took the set menu of eel, just what the boy asked for.
The English menu referred to “spitchcock”, a term I’ve seen in passing, but never paid attention to. It refers to an eel, split and then broiled.
Our first tray was a bit of tuna on the left, a bowl of big, broad, starchy green beans under the yellow lid (the photo did not work out), and eel in a jelly – soft and warm.
The skin on this just holds back a bit, and the overall impression is of rich eel, with a slightly rubbery chewy feel as you bite into the jelly to get at the skin.
This place is just way comfortable. We’re served by a trio of older ladies, all dressed traditionally, and all bubbling with smiles and “dozo”s.
Ah, this is the perfect evening for this. Almost. Cold and wet is good, but it would be even better if it was snowing outside.
And, with our first selection done with, we move on to what’s behind door number two.
This is eel grilled – sirayaki – golden and crisp. Scud was in Heaven, with that rich smell that eel has about it just wrapped around us in that cozy little, dark room.
I hit the fish (heathen that I am) with just a hint of salt at our server’s suggestion. I’ve been pretty good about
Something I hadn’t really commented upon, but there were numerous times while eating that we would watch some piece of ceramic on our table just move itself to another position. The little smudged spot is where this bowl began its career on our table. Whether this agitation is the result of small earthquakes, passing underground trains, or hungry ghosts, I really can’t say, but it’s quite amusing for the two of us just to sit there and watch our table setting rearrange itself.
The chawanmushi inside wasn’t disturbed in the slightest, serenely waiting for us to dig in through the shredded nori and the sweet highlight of the candied orange peel and the crips greens to get at the body of the custard itself, hiding away more eel with sharksfin in its savoury body.
At one of the other six tables in here I spotted a manly-sized Sapporo on the table of two salarymen, and so switched over.
And then there was the broiled eel.
The broiled eel came with rice, pickles, and a soup in accompaniement.
This soup was done up from the liver of the eel, and had an aspect (my notes say) “of looking into a mountain pond after a small storm, greenery scattered over the surface, a slight disarray, but with a certain clarity as you see the rocky bottom.”
Scud was getting very excited about this.
And who wouldn’t get worked up over this? The glistening meat, the sweet sauce overpowering you with its weighty aroma?
I can feel the meat pulling away, the skin just tugging a bit in a forlorn goodbye, and then the taste of that rich flesh bulled up with the sweetness of the sauce……
Pickles and rice accompanied our eel and soup, but those are of little consequence in the face of the sheer luxury of eel.
And we finished with fruit.
Growing up, I had always been….disconcerted…at the presence of fruit as a dessert. It was always something we ate, generally between meals, not an item to be afforded pride of place at the crowning moment of a meal.
But one thing I was missing on this trip had been fresh fruit. Somehow it didn’t make it very often onto our menus, and, given the cost I’d observed in the markets, I can now appreciate how the cool, clean, palate refreshing power of a simple melon can be a wonderful thing.
Scud was happy.
I was happy.
Our serving ladies were happy (at least they smiled and bowed a lot).
A good meal.
It was time to go home.
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It's a shame you missed the Ghibli museum; my favourite part of it was a mock-up of Miyazaki's desk and study, and an artists' studio, with all the cells and paints. Very old-school.
But it does give me a reason to come back! (but it'll be Serena's turn next)
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March 28 – Geek Like Me
This was it. The main event. Our raison d’etre for this trip (at least in Scud’s view).
The Tokyo International Anime Fair.
This was the 8th fair, having started up in 2002. When this had shown up in the little bit of prep I did for this trip, it pretty much cemented Japan as our choice destination.
I won’t print Scud’s response when he heard about this. This is a family food site, after all.
But there’s the crux of the matter. This is a food site, so I need to be careful in what I post. I can’t very well drool on completely about anime and manga without some nod to the dietary.
Soooo…….
Here’s breakfast.
I’d been promising Scud that I’d do something with those pretty little potatoes I’d picked up a few days back, and I was running out of time. Plus, I’d been relatively disappointed in the spud we’d had at Asakusa the other day, so we needed something to put the mighty tuber back on its pedestal.
Breakfast, thus, was a matter of potatoes boiled in water heavily laden with salt and lemon. I like this as the lemon permeates the potato, and gives your taste buds a good wake up call.
Drained, you have the potato in all its glory. Nature’s perfect delivery system for salt, and capable of carrying a healthy dose of animal fat in the form of melted camembert cheese.
So, food obligations out of the way, let’s look at Big Sight, and the TIAF.
I won’t go into details on getting there. Leave it be said that things didn’t go well, and, decked out in business suits as we were, we ended up getting a bit wetter than I’d planned (“I was fine, it’s just you that sweats like beer mug on a hot day,” says the Boy).
Big Sight is, well….pretty big. I’m not 100% certain why, but it has a large saw sticking out of the lawn in front.
That’s outside of Big Sight. Inside there’s the rake of good fortune (kumade).
The rake of good fortune is the centrepiece of the November festivities on the Day of the Rooster and the Otori shrine. From what a read (on the conveniently attached sign) originally – in the Edo days - it was just the rake with the mask, but bits and pieces started getting added on, good luck charms refleccting the trends of the time. Looking at this I get overtones of scenes from both Akira and Paprika.
Saws, rakes, I’m tempted to go off on a monologue on the hardware store as arbiter of good fortune…..
Back to the TIAF.
Our plan actually worked. Given my (tenuous) links to the movie industry, we gained access as professionals (Scud as the bag carrier), our international passes ready for pick up at the desk. This placed us on the floor, at which point we could start looking at what was on offer.
The trade fair really covered three topics.
The first, and most important, was to give a head’s up on new projects that were coming available, and to try and work up distribution deals. The typical commercial anime will release a first season with 26 episodes, more or less containing a (hopefully) solid story with the opportunity for further expansion. This in comparison to the OVA, where the authors have a story to tell, and they’ll do it in whatever length they find appropriate (an example of this is the Hellsing OVA currently being wrapped up, which redid the anime and then moved on to get the whole manga worked through).
For those who liked Ghost In The Shell, Mamoru Oshii’s bringing out the adaptation of Mori Hiroshi’s Sky Crawlers.
And there was a new Lupin III being release, Green vs Red, in honour of his 40th anniversary (if you’re not familiar with it, the series tracks the exploits of the grandson of the famous French anti-hero, Lupin Arsene).
And they had Lupin’s car (but they wouldn’t let us pose in it).
And, in other upcoming work,Takashi Miike’s doing a revival of the old Yatterman, due out in 2009. That should be…..interesting.
The second element, and probably just as important, is to advertise available services, particularly with respect to projects that are already released. There are a lot of people out there who’ve had a piece of One Piece and Naruto, be it ever so small a part of the post production, who’ll leverage on that 15 seconds of fame (Warhol’s 15 minutes has been way discounted over the years) to get more work (and perhaps another few seconds).
Then there’re the schools. I probably spent more of my talking time here while Scud wandered around gawking, looking into which universities were doing what. Part of the TIAF is the search for new talent, and a lot of that is coming up from a collection of universities offering animation courses.
My concern is that perhaps too much of this is heading towards CGI work, which gets too wrapped up in the detailing, and loses track of the storyboarding, but that’s just me….
Some interesting concepts coming from those young folk.
Third, there’re the foreigners.
As you’d expect, the Korean studios were there. When you sit through the credits at the end of most anime (doesn’t everyone sit through all the credits on cartoons?) you’ll see a lot of Parks, Kims, and Chois in those rollers. But the Seoul crowd are so well integrated into the industry that you don’t really realize they’re there at times.
It was good to see the Maple Leaf out, with the Vancouver Film School, and the Taiwanese and Mainlanders were both out in force. The Chinese in particular are pushing their material fairly hard, but it still has a ways to go in terms of the storylines.
And fourth, there are the awards, where the industry not only looks for what’s the best of the year (Neon Genesis Evangelion:10 takes Best Animation) but also recognizes the folks that have been putting in the years putting together the products that keep some of us glued to our screens.
This goes beyond just the animators and writers to include the composers, design specialists, and even those who developed the paint for the cells (Shigeharu Kitamaru of Tayo Shikisai Inc).
Okay, so here’re some of the obligatory tourist shots.
Tezuka Osamu’s work is still very much in the forefront. They must have one of the richest character portfolios outside of Marvel Entertainment.
And Studio Ghibli had their own space (of course), with lots of the originals on display from the films (here’s some Nausicaa), as well as the Panda film that they’re currently showing (and we missed) at their museum.
We checked out the new technology, although immersion visualization is getting kind of old. It's good for the arcade systems, but it'll take a while to get us wearing 3D glasses in the house.
I keep hearing a Devo soundtrack in my head while I look at this.
This looked like it had the makings of an interesting anime. At least its in the spirit of the site.
There's a strong retro element in anime, countering the push for CGI that I'd mentioned earlier. In the same way that you see (and hear) a lot of vinyl in the bars (records, not couches), you also have a strong sense of tradition in the editing and work habits of some of the studios.
Old school.
Scud and I were approached by a TV crew part way through (“Hey! He’s bigger and sweatier than anybody else! Let’s use him!) but we begged out of the interview (“Why do you have so many bags? What do you have in there? How much do you weigh?”)
The walking, the standing, the watching was all getting pretty relentless. After several hours we broke for food. As expected, the convention centre was expensive, and the choices weren’t particularly thrilling. But you're trapped, so there's not much you can do about it. The Boy and I figured that noodles were the safest bet.
Scud had a simple bowl of ramen with vegetables, while I ordered the kim chi pork noodles. Concerned, they did inquire if I could eat “spicey food”. I let them know I was willing to take the chance.
Live on the edge, say I.
Removing the jacket, Scud was extremely impressed by how I had been able to recreate the coastline of Norway in sweatstains on my shirt.
As noodles go, they were fairly industrial. The pork had a nice fattiness to it, but the noodles themselves were “just there”. We'd been spoiled by the other places we'd been eating. Service, however, was excellent, handled by a working crew that all appeared to be in their 60’s or older. In fact, as a comment on the “greying of Japan”, you don’t see the young in the sort of jobs they used to cover – fast food. Service in these places (and I use the term “fast food” not just to cover McD’s and Co, but for the general assemblage of ramen places, bars, yakitori stands, etc) seems to fall more upon the elderly than the youth.
Scud and I were running down. We went back for another sweep to look into some of the material on display, check out some of the running sample clips, and get down more titles for future reference, but after about another 90 minutes we were ready to go.
There was a small sales area near the exit, and we did check it out in case there was anything interesting to pick up.
But Scud wasn’t willing to bring back one of the full-length Mine Fujiko pillow cases (about 5’5” long, and lots of room for padding), and he was pretty much convinced that the mouse pad would probably get him an appointment with the counsellors.
Oh, well.
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Hiroyuki,
I'm glad you reposted this one.
Given how much I enjoyed the rice, I can see how the popularity of this variety has so much staying power.
Cheers,
Peter
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I dunno about the rest of you, but I'm going to cut the lawn and start composting. I'm thinking small birds, maybe some fish or lizards.
Yoonhi's thinking salmonella.
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Are these on YouTube yet? (sheesh, I'm lazy...I could just go looking).
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Seiji Yamamoto’s father-in-law grows this for them in small batches. A northern rice (koshikani?), but this is grown in the South, on their farm in Shikoku.
I have to ask this before I go to bed: Is this koshihikari by any chance?? It's a specialty of my former town!
It could very well be. Can you tell me a bit more about it?
My note taking legibility seems to have a very direct inverse correlation to the time of the night and how much fun I've been having, and I could easily have dropped or messed up a syllable or two!
The rice had such a nice feel to it. Like I said, we went through seconds on this (we have no shame) and I didn't want to lose that flavour.
Travelogue: Spirited Away
in Japan: Dining
Posted
March 29 – The School of Blood and Guts
Talking over lunch at Sushizanmai, my new friend had been quizzing me on what I had and had not had the chance to eat. One of the holes in my cuisine was painfully apparent.
Horumon.
Really, I should have had this back in Osaka. That’s where it’s famous. He explained that the term itself is derived from “mon” for “mono” (thing) and the verb “horu”, meaning along the lines of “to put aside”.
Or, as the Right Honourable Anthony Bourdain would say, “the nasty bits”.
We were looking for something convenient, but still good. He recommended a place just around the corner, that used to be called Horumon Dojo, but had recently changed to a new name, but the insides were still the same.
A quick, arcane check of the cell phone, and he told me I was looking for Jyuan Restaurant. After we finished eating (and before we went on our Sakura walkabout) we verified the location.
So, when dinner time came around, it was a simple thing to cut out the back way, up past the cemetery, cut across the bows of a few pimps, and down the stairs to Jyuan.
(The Pimps of Roppongi Crossing would be an excellent name for a band, come to think of it. Either that or a title along the lines of “The Bridges of Madison County”……)
Scud and I were pretty early, so there wasn’t any problem with getting a spot to sit down. We found a good looking bit of counter, with a solid looking extractor fan above us, and started taking care of business.
This was all looking rather Korean. Extractor fans, benches….
And alcohol, let’s not forget alcohol! However, I can’t name a single grill joint in Seoul where I recall seeing wine, so maybe the parallels aren’t all there. Plus, you honestly don’t get the bottle variety with soju that you do with sake.
The menu was in English, but sake was just “sake”, so I ordered some, cold. What arrived was a great pour in a pretty little traditional wooden box.
I asked, and was told that this was hakusa (?) sake. It wasn’t as dry and refined as a lot of what I’d been having, but that wasn’t a problem. I was in a mood for some roughing about. Plus, spilling it just gave me an excuse to drink from the box.
And what a great menu! I was salivating from the moment I opened it and saw Large Intestine in pride of place.
They had stuff on here I’d only ever heard of in Jack the Ripper stories. Rumen; reticulum; omasum; abomasum (okay, it was the bovine version of Jack the Ripper); sweetbreads (I recognize those!); trachea (I’ve been punched in that, so I can add it to the recognition list); liver (got plenty of that); heart (less of that); main artery (I’ve driven on those); cheeks (I’m quite cheeky); large intestine (yes!); uterus (I know what they’re for); artery (smaller than the main, I take it); temple (another target); stomach (yup, plenty of that); Adam’s apple (now that’s different); pork loin (boring); rib (more boring).
Under specials they also had beef tongue, and aged beef tongue.
They also had kim chi.
This Korean connection thing is growing again.
For condiments we had cabbage (rather than lettuce), a very mild gochujang equivalent, something with a lot of sesame, and mayonnaise.
Gotta have mayo.
And then there was the grill itself, inserted in our table, charcoal glowing briskly beneath the wire mesh.
First up and on the grill were the sweetbreads. Plump and tasty. Along with these were the large intestine we’d ordered, long strips with a healthy marinade of garlic and sesame. Slices of leek came with this, but there was no raw garlic and chili peppers.
Next was the small intestine, what I’d call kopjang, tubes of interesting intestine slathered in a slightly sweet reddish sauce.
And then there was some more intestine.
By this point, the lack of garlic was really getting to us. Our knees were weak, and we were close to passing out. By dint of pictography, I managed to get the staff to understand that we needed some garlic.
What you see in this picture is a Roppongi $10 (1000 yen) serving of raw garlic.
Maybe I didn’t need it that bad. Heck, I would’ve brought my own bulbs with me on this trip if I’d known it was this dear!
Still, what’s done is done, so it goes on the grill. There’s some pork loin on there, too. It may be boring, but it’s good.
Anyways, all this called for more to drink. I asked for shochu, figuring that would be the closest to a mean soju binge, but what came instead was a thick, tangy, milky beverage.
I asked what it was, thinking perhaps an unfiltered, rough sake like we’d had in Kyoto.
“Makkoli” was the answer.
But this isn’t a Korean place?
I’m confused.
And when I get confused, I order more food. Next up was aged tongue. How old? I have no idea. But we figured if it was more expensive, it had to be better.
And then it was pork temple, not something I’ve tried before.
The drippings from the temple ignited on the charcoal, and soon a healthy, roaring fire was on the go. This was dealt with by bringing in ice cubes, and swapping out the grill.
They came out a little charred from the inferno, but, as Scud says “there’s nothing that a good dose of mayonnaise can’t fix”.
Spoken like a Canuck.
What else haven’t we had? Adam’s apple! These were pork, I believe. I’m assuming there’s a porcine gender reclassification clinic nearby. Nothing would surprise me in Roppongi.
This was also on the list of things my mother never cooked (Adam’s apple that is, although I don’t believe she ever whipped up a dish from cross dressing barnyard animals, either). Kind of gristly, actually, but we found if you finished them in the tin foil with the garlic for an extended period, they softened up a fair bit.
And we ordered some more loin (at Scud’s instigation).
And finally, with us grinding to a halt, we decided to take heart.
At this point, Scud called an end to the evening. We’d done impressive damage to a large amount of offal, and we both felt pretty good about it.
But tomorrow was our last day, and there was cleaning up to be done, and packing to be finalized.
So I sent Scud home to do those things while I went out for a drink.
I stopped back at the Hobgoblin for a pint of Old Speckled Hen. I must say, it wasn’t quite a legal pour, by any means, but I was still in a good mood, and took the opportunity to work over my notes in what I find now to be an almost illegible scrawl (as opposed to my normally illegible scrawl).
I was confused with regards to the dinner. Was what we’d had a typical Osakan zombie-fare night, or was this a place trying to be Korean? They didn’t speak any Korean (outside of “kim chi” and “makkoli”), and they insisted that they were not a Korean restaurant. Given the popularity of Korean food in Japan, I don’t think they’d be trying to hide this.
But the impression I had was very much one of an approximation to Korean cuisine. Is this just one of the legacies of Hideyoshi’s attempt at mainland conquest (not to be pulled off until some 300 years or so later?). Should I have been looking for noses on the menu?
My contemplation was cut short by a slight jarring of my stool, and a cry of “I told you not to touch me.” Looking down I saw some poor fellow on the floor, and a Brit at the bar in a somewhat agitated state.
Nothing like a punch up at the local.
Situations like this, you either drink up and leave, or put in your mouth guard.
Where did I leave that?
Next: Leavin’ On A Jet Plane