JasonTrue

I've only seen them at trade shows (in Tokyo). I'd be surprised if any place other than something like Blue C would be obvious about it (and I just don't go there because Chiso is right across the street); I don't know if Blue C uses them or not. What about the various Marineopolis locations (they all go by different names) or Todai? I think Uwajimaya does most of the sushi preparation offsite now (though I'm not quite sure); perhaps they could arrange a tour if they're using that kind of equipment.

Not to me. My memory has faded, but I think I preferred the old school stuff. The only "real" frozen yogurt I've had anytime in the last few years was at Ikea, which I get cravings for because it seems to have enough fat in it to have a pleasant creamy texture, but I'm not willing to put up with Ikea in order to get it. I've only been to the little place behind Cafe Zum Zum downtown (Yoberry?), but it tastes like reconstituted acidified powdered slurry to me. Some people on Yelp seem to think it tastes more like yogurt than the frozen yogurts of yore. I think that's because of the amplified acidity. I don't have a problem with the acidity; I like my yogurt a bit tarter than many people, but as far as I can tell, it isn't real yogurt. It may be "all natural", but it's all natural like yogurt coated pretzels or sour cream flavored potato chips. Does frozen yogurt this time around taste better than the stuff I used to eat 20 years ago? I've been so puzzled by the resurgance. ←

In Japan, you can find shichirin at department stores and probably Tokkyu Hands. In the US, they are harder to find, but if you have any trouble locating them, let me know. I don't normally sell shichirin but one of my California-based vendors has them, and they may have an office in the Netherlands that imports them. I don't think they were quite as expensive as the ones on the other thread, but the style was more like the simple clay-colored ones I've found brought to tables in restaurants in Japan. I really like them for outdoor summer dining. You'll also want to find a source for Japanese-style binchoutan, dense oak charcoal, though you might be able to get by with lump charcoal. It's readily available and reasonably cheap in Japan, though it looks like it's a bit expensive here.

We had a group of 24-26 people in the back room at Cafe Presse and found service mixed but mostly pleasant, though the waitress was probably not so thrilled with the unpredictable comings and goings of our group members. I found the prices quite reasonable, though it was a bit high for some of our starving student contingent; that being said, you can have something to nibble on and a glass of wine in the $13-16 range after tax and tip, and more substantial stuff is available, too.

I had this one in Tokyo, one of the nicest rosettas I've ever personally been served. Macchinesti was created by someone who learned from David Schomer of Vivace... they now have a location in Omotesando and another spot not terribly far from there.

I was thrilled by the hybrid "temptation" a couple weeks ago at Sosio's in Seattle. It's an orange-fleshed honeydew, or a smooth-fleshed canteloupe. It was incredibly sweet and aromatic. When I find a good one, I like the so-called Tuscan melons. They only seem to be great in the summer, but the ones I found last summer unfortunately generally disappointing.

Jainists and some other sects, including the Hare Krishnas, avoid onions, garlic, ginger and potatoes for religious reasons. Temple Buddhist cooking often excludes the onions and garlic because they supposed to arouse the passions, but the bulb and root vegetables are avoided by the Jains because harvesting requires killing the plant.

If the shop is selling knives that are available at retail stores, that may be the case, however, I don't think any of them were priced as low as the typical semi-fancy specialty knives available in the US (Henckels and the like). If you look at artisan knives made in the US, the price points are probably similar enough. I also seem to recall seeing a lot more carbon steel knives made by hand than you'd normally find at most other shops, which made things more expensive.

The restaurant supply district Kappabashi-doori near Asakusa has a number of small shops that offer Japanese cutlery. They can offer some good deals, though the prices are likely higher than you're used to paying even for brand-name knives. Because knife terminology is specialized, most Japanese won't be able to translate most of the information about the knives you'll see meaningfully. If you don't have help from a Japanese person who knows something about cutlery, you might have better luck in a department store like Takashimaya where staff will be able to explain the basic purpose of each knife and what's good about the offerings from different companies. Usually the kitchenware sections are in the upper floors of most department stores, but they have signs in English in the elevators. The selection is certainly different... Historically Japanese knives were designed for a slightly different cutting motion than European knives, though that may not matter much anymore. Also, you'll probably only find knives designed for things like cutting soba or udon in Japan. You'll probably find more carbon steel in the restaurant supply shops, and more stainless steel in department stores. Brand-name products, including those made by Japanese companies, tend to use imported steel from prestigious areas (Germany, for example) with shapes conventional for Japanese uses. Some have wooden handles and are all-metal. Osaka, a relatively quick train ride from Kyoto, has a restaurant supply district as well that's worth checking out. And often cheaper than Tokyo's, as I recall. If memory serves, Takayama has at least one or two shops selling handcrafted knives, but I can't say exactly where I found them.

Are you using the resin or the powder? The resin is much nicer.

I'm not sure if you're talking pre- or post-checkin, but on the 4th and 5th floors of the public access area there are a number of restaurants. I sometimes end up at an average pseudo-Italian place whose name I forget; I discovered there are a bunch of options just a bit down the hall, including a Thai offering that looks popular with airport employees, when I had more time on my hands. There are some family-restaurant type places inside of a more cafeteria-style section on one of the two restaurant-heavy floors. Soup Stock Tokyo has a location in the airport, which is a chain serving mostly Western-style soups that Hiromi likes enough to carry around a "point card" for. Once past immigration and inside the terminal I've never had anything I was excited about. I always try to eat before I become a completely captive audience, when I have the option. By "today" I suspect you mean now, and if you're Seattle-bound your flight has probably left already, in which case I'm sorry I wasn't much more help.

For dinner at Matt's there's usually something along the lines of a cannelini ragout or a gussied-up mac&cheese, but I haven't been in to Matt's for lunch yet... I think I'd probably keep walking if the only veg thing on the menu was a portabella sandwich, because I had enough of them in 1997. (Not that I avoid them, but I'm not exactly pounding down doors to eat them).

I'm a vegetarian so I'm perhaps not the best source for this, but doesn't the little market across from the Wallingford QFC that sells parmesan and olive oil and tupelo honey carry some Italian cured meats? I'm spacing out on the name of her shop... maybe Bella Cosa. It's directly across from Chocolati. Edited... oh, someone else did point that out. Nevermind, move along then... Unfortunately I shop at the QFC on 45th in Wallingford, which might be the worst QFC there is. I should just take the bus down to the Market. I didn't realize that the place on Roosevelt was still open. ←

I suggest using just shelled edamame for ice cream, as I suspect the edamame tofu will be too dilute to be very noticeable. Even the very high percentage edamame ice cream I made was fairly subtle. http://blog.jagaimo.com/archive/2006/07/01/2455.aspx has a photo

The durian mooncakes I tried from a Malaysian company were not terribly intense, but the flavor was very distinct and pronounced. Not to mention complex, even with all the sugar and flour and fat obscuring it. Briefly an Issaquah ice cream company (FarFar's Danish Ice Cream... not sure if they're still around) offered durian ice cream, but according to the newspaper article I spied about them, they always made sure that was the last one you sampled, because you wouldn't be able to taste anything else normally after that. Hmmmn.... maybe I just don't think the taste of durian is that distinctive! I've never eaten durian by itself, but durian cakes and candies I've tried don't have, to me, a distinctive flavor, either. Or maybe the durian is just so diluted that I can't taste it! ← I think either the taste is incredibly diluted or your palate isn't sensitive to it. Try eating a fresh durian some time, particularly one recently off a tree. The taste is very rich and creamy, a bit like maple sugar plus cream with a strong garlic aftertaste. Not exactly a weak-tasting fruit! ←

When I made ube cream as a cream puff filling the color was surprisingly vivid, just from roasted ube, cream and sugar. However, I know that purple almost-flavorless powders purporting to be "ube flavor" are probably far more common in commercial products. Tulip doesn't make sense to me as one of the reasons tulips achieved such popularity on Holland had to do with their rather unsensual lack of aroma.

Not ice cream, but I've usually used yuzu miso for tounyuu nabe (soy milk and tofu nabe). If it's a squeeze bottle, it was probably envisioned as a product for serving with something like slices of raw cucumbers. OT, shinju -- what do you do with yuzu miso? I picked up a squeeze bottle of it last week and am contemplating... Coincidentally, I also tasted some durian gelato yesterday in SF Chinatown -- it was on display with all the other gelatos, not separately. Very creamy, but still distinctively durian flavor. ←

Based on my experience with "white cheddar" flavored products, most manufacturers seem to choose a slightly sharper flavor profile than equivalent "cheddar" flavored products, attempting to mimic some of the longer-aged white cheddars. Not that you couldn't do that using annato seed-colored cheddar, but I think in the American culinary vocabulary, ordinary yellow cheddar is a mild to medium sharp cheese, and white cheddar tends to have a range of medium to quite sharp. Since most packaged cheddar-flavored products are really using a blend of dehydrated blue cheese and dehydrated cheddar (when any natural ingredients are involved at all), among other ingredients, the distinction is still mostly a matter of marketing and coloring. Except for perhaps Mimolette, most of the annato-colored cheddar cheese in supermarkets is fairly uninteresting and predictable, since the big manufacturers have sort of chosen a fairly homogenized flavor profile to call "cheddar". The only reason why white cheddar is particularly interesting is because there's a fair amount of variety and an increasing number of small producers with their own variations, in age and style. As a packaged product "flavor", "white cheddar" is mostly marketing, but I think that most companies making such products make some distinction between the target flavor profile of yellow and white cheddar. It's not JUST Retsin.

I have made sweet potato ice cream with satsumaimo and with more common varieties from the US... Usually I bake them first, so it's kind of a "yaki-imo" flavor. I haven't had much experience with azuki ice cream, but I have made kuromame chocolate ice cream. We used a fairly high proportion of beans. Rice gelato actually has rice in it, so the rice is quite noticeable... it's basically a vanilla gelato with grains of rice, kind of like a frozen version of rice pudding. I'm not sure if the base is cooked with the rice or if it's just what Germans call "milchreis" (rice cooked in milk) blended with a standard gelato base.

Actually I think these are borrowed from a couple of articles that appeared about a year or two ago somewhere else (Mainichi Shinbun, most likely), but it's possible the author has contributed some original text. Sweet potato ice cream is quite nice, and I make it myself. Rice is a common gelato flavor in the US and in Europe. A friend from Hokkaido liked potato ice cream but felt that the potato is generally almost unnoticeable. The persimmon one doesn't seem strange to me either, though I haven't made or eaten one. I might even be convinced to have the yaki-nasu. Miso would work if the balance were right; dengaku tofu or dengaku nasu are sweet-savory. Squash ice cream, mentioned as "unmarketable" near the bottom of that article, is actually quite nice, if made with a nice butternut squash or kabocha. It doesn't even need to be covered up with pumpkin pie spice. I still make that when the winter squashes start being nice. Since corn is naturally sweet I'd even try that; I believe another ice cream producer in the US is starting to market one, based on something I vaguely recall reading a week or so ago; I think it was originally test marketed in Mexico. The fish and raw meat ice creams are generally only sold in ryokan or omiyage shops as a curiosity. They're not aggressively marketed, but they are typically meant to highlight some locally popular ingredient. They probably owe their entire existence to the more quirky ice creams on Iron Chef. Yuck on most! Can't imagine these are actually marketed. I've seen sweet potato, rice, and corn ice cream though but haven't tried. Those fish ice cream sounds so disgusting! ←

I like them halved with caramelized figs (dry, soaked in some orange liqueur, or fresh), cooked, with some added white wine and a tiny bit of cornstarch, served with mascarpone. The mascarpone is particularly nice if mixed with candied ginger. I stole the concept from a Nadine Abensur book, and it's always a hit, even when I mess it up slightly. Hers is a little less soupy than mine (though the photos in her book were more liquidy than the original recipe would make possible). Kumquat marmelade or syrup is nice, even to make a hot "tea." They're also nice sliced finely and put on salads; if you're patient you can even extract enough juice for a vinaigrette.

Yes, I was wondering about that too since I never noticed any restaurants along 15th either. Either I misheard, or my original source misspoke. It turns out to be a place called Tibet First and it's apparently on 12th a bit north of 47th. The only information I've found so far, other from a quick conversation with the owner after tracking down the address, is on Yelp. http://www.yelp.com/biz/wiLgJvVRdINSc19L27_0PQ Do you mean the Ave? I don't think there are any restaurants on 15th, at least not until the Pizza hut on 65th. ←

Is anyone aware of a newish Tibetan restaurant along 15th in the U-District? I'm trying to track it down based on a tip from a friend, but no luck with a name or exact address so far.

That's my problem... I have had a yuzu chocolate just not theirs. It would likely be different than the mediocre Japanese chocolate I've had, I'm sure. OK, I'll put it on my list of things to do... Oh, you need to get over this! The good excuse would be that you haven't had a yuzu chocolate (at least that would be good enough excuse for me), and *need* to know what it tastes like! ←

Has anybody tried the chocolates at Venue in Ballard? I've been tempted by some of the flavors (yuzu!) but haven't had a good excuse to buy chocolate recently. (Who needs one? But I'm far less likely to buy some for myself unless I'm going to give a gift to someone else).