JasonTrue

Hiromi made houtou and I twisted up some konnyaku... hopefully I'll have a photo shortly. By the way, if anyone gets around to blogging something, let me know, I'm a bit of a slacker tonight so it will be another day or two.

That particular product, the low-fat roux, seems to have cocoa powder in it already.

Terra Chips in the US uses sweet potato, taro, purple potatoes, and a few other roots for one of their chip products.

Sorry, that should have been Bouchee. It apparently isn't one of my standby places I thought Au Bouchon was dead, did they reopen in Fremont & I missed it??? ←

Phinney Ridge is also home to Red Mill, and not far from Greenwood, which is home to Olive You and Gorditos, which all have their charms and are suitable for basic needs. I don't get to Carmelita very often, but I'm quite fond of it. I also forget about Paseo quite often and I think it's because 2 blocks is just too close. We wanted to go there mid-week, found out they were sold out of sandwiches, (the reason why we came), and almost ate at Persimmon (which suffers from the same problem for us), but then changed our minds and walked toward downtown Fremont, craving crepes. Before we quite made it to Au Bouchon, my girlfriend suddenly decided she wanted to go to Chiso. So our $7 sandwich morphed into $35/person dinner. My "standbys" for out-of-town guests are Lark, La Carta de Oaxaca, La Medusa, and Cafe Besalu for breakfast/brunch. But for lowbrow food Gorditos (I usually order the smallest stuff possible), and for my girlfriend, Red Mill, are favored "It's 8 o'clock, we have no groceries and we have no energy" spots.

I'm not quite sure but I bet the owners of that fantastic Persian bakery on Lake City Way would be able to point you the right direction...

I don't know why people need special okonomiyaki mixes. I just use flour and grated nagaimo, egg, and some salt, which is probably more natural and more like what you'd get in a decent okonomiyaki restaurant than any mixes you can buy. You can do the same thing with a roux; the Japanese curry roux is not a requirement, it's just a convenience. While I'm fairly certain many "curry shops" rely on this industrial sludge, it's really not at its essence much more than a classic roux (usually animal fat cooked at a low temperature with flour, or butter and flour) with added seasonings (turmeric, fenugreek, coriander seeds, cumin, maybe cinnamon, mustard seeds, and chilies, as a start), sometimes fruit or other flavor components, salt, and most likely, sugar. Low fat roux is not really roux, but I'm sure you can simulate it by using cornstarch and less fat.

I think the answer, as the Saturday Night Live skit goes, is volume. I spent some time with a friend in Nara and Wakayama, and in fact, we ate "everywhere", including, of course, in the car, at yatai, in restaurants, from samples at a wagashi shop, and near the front the steps of one of her friends'. We weren't eating while walking (maybe a pace or two), but we were eating frequently, with probably no more than an hour or two between nibbles of something. I certainly eat a lot of different things with other friends in Japan, but her habit of never being far from food was a bit of a surprise for me. My friend's secret to such indulgence while still maintaining a healthy weight was that she was eating relatively small portions of everything... in fact, she ate only a portion of what she ordered, and that was from much more modest servings typical of Japan than what Americans are accustomed to. She commented that she gets bored of the same flavor quickly. Americans like eating, rather than tasting. Accordingly, we often mistake "big" portions as "generous", instead of tedious. Our obesity problem is mostly the inability to recognize when we're getting full, or the inability to stop eating as long as we have food in front of us. Also, we drink more of our calories than most of the rest of the world, and there's not much of a signal from beverages that we are getting full.

Vivace eliminates the need for an express line by not serving drip coffee... They have a backup espresso machine though, at least at the Denny location.

At a tiny Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Kirkland, WA, I saw an item on the many that claimed to be made with Konnyaku, but it was processed in such a way that it bore no resemblance in texture to what I have seen in Japan. I don't know how those types are made, but I think there must be some options outside of the spectrum of Japanese-style offerings. I was able to find sashimi konnyaku at Uwajimaya about a year or two ago, but not recently... grr.

I think Vivace folk are fairly down-to-earth on average, and David even responded to some of my questions by email a few years back. Vivace clearly notes on their web site that they ship orders received by midnight Seattle time the following business day. If you ordered on Wednesday it might just be fate... While I'm a little surprised you haven't received any reply to a presumably politely worded complaint, I would make one suggestion from the perspective of an internet retailer. I'm usually conscientious enough to call and ask questions when I see something unusual. But if I'm at all busy (which is most of the time) I tend not to ask questions when the order doesn't seem terribly complicated. If the customer chooses something that doesn't make any sense, I usually try to call or reach them by email. However, if someone adds notes to their order, or sends an email first, I pay a lot of attention to their special requests. If it's important to you that you receive something on a specific date or under certain conditions, or if you want it to ship on a certain date, I'd suggest trying to reach them first. You can't get that kind of response from a megalithic company like Amazon, but smaller companies are usually accommodating. Usually the best day to place an internet order you want the same week is Sunday, assuming a 2-day shipping option and an in-stock product.

also keep in mind that even "msg-free" or additive free dashi-no-moto is not free of msg. It's just going to be free of the purified, crystalline product. Konbu (dried) is the food from which MSG was first isolated, as far as I recall; it's just in much more sensible quantities. You'll also find glutamates in other foods, especially cheeses, yeast extract, and chilies.

I think many Japanese like the lower acidity of the Caspian yogurt, and I find it doesn't need much, if any, sweetener like honey or jam. Also Japanese might like the texture, which shares some of the viscosity and elasticity of neba-neba foods. It's also popular in part because, unlike most yogurt cultures, it ferments at a lower temperature, the culture is very active, and it isn't very fussy, so anyone can make it. But I think, like many fermented foods, it requires at least weekly attention, refreshing with new milk; it keeps fermenting a little bit at refrigerator temperatures, and because of the milk, it can still spoil. Hiromi actually prefers the acidity of ordinary yogurt. I find that I don't put as much jam or other ingredients into the Caspian yogurt as I do with most plain yogurt, because it's milder and I want to taste some of the acidity. I do like that it's very thick and requires no starch or thickeners to stabilize it.

Are you referring to a Yixing clay teapot? There are a bunch of contributing factors to the flavor of tea, and the teapot plays a part, but the quality of the tea and the brewing technique are more important. The advantages of Yixing ware are more about its ability to retain heat (compared to porcelain) than anything else, though some people praise the low shrinkage of the clay during firing. I like both tetsubin and yixing ware for the heat retention, and Hagi ware (from Japan) when it comes to glazed earthenware. Heat retention does affect the quality of brewing; for yixing ware, you will probably want to pour hot water into an empty pot to warm it up before actually infusing the tea. If you have a small Yixing pot you may also be able to improve the aroma of your tea assuming you use a relatively high ratio of tea to water, and short infusions, but for the most part, the result can be accomplished with a small gaiwan, porcelain or otherwise. The other perceived benefit comes from the long term "seasoning" of the pot as some molecules of tea are apparently absorbed into the very porous clay, but you wouldn't notice that immediately, whether it improves the taste or not. The real benefit of having nice teaware is that good teaware improves your overall sensory experience. The visual appeal of the pot and your servingware has a real impact on your perception of the flavor of the tea, and on the sense memories triggered while you're drinking the tea. This is part of the reason why Japanese food tastes better when presented carefully on attractive, appropriate tableware, and at the other extreme, why blind taste tests for Cola don't have much affect on sales; people's perception of flavor is affected by their visual experience, including brand visuals, and what memories and thoughts that triggers.

Gaku Homma's dengaku sometimes includes egg yolks, and he basically uses a 4:1:1:1 ratio for everything else; 4 miso, 1 sugar, 1 mirin, 1 dashi (and up to one egg yolk, though I rarely use it). I'm not sure what the secret is either, as I've had spectacular and not-so-spectacular results. The better ones result when I'm paying attention to the sauce as it bubbles. It does need to cool enough that you can see what's happening with it. If you're not careful and attentive, it becomes candy, either when cooking the sauce or when broiling. I also emphasize good mirin and good miso. I try not to forget that I just set something under the broiler...

Speaking of rhubarb and yogurt, Hiromi and I received a small cup of Caspian sea yogurt from one of my Japanese colleagues two or three weeks ago. I've seen that it's quite popular in Japan. We used what we got as a starter for our own yogurt, and the milk fermented nicely at room temperature. It took a bit longer than we were expecting but became very thick (almost a neba-neba texture), and doesn't seem to have much evidence of whey separation that's common in yogurt. With one of the batches I made, I claimed most of the yogurt for the purpose of making frozen yogurt. Rhubarb has been looking very nice this season, and I picked up a stash of it and boiled it with sugar, pureed it, and when everything was chilled, I blended the yogurt, the rhubarb puree, and some cream. Then I put everything into my electric ice cream maker and waited... it turned out very nicely.

Thank you. I haven't often eaten non-tororo forms of nagaimo, but one time I had a dish of mostly raw vegetables and some very lightly sumibi-grilled nagaimo with various condiment options: mugi-miso, salt, and some kind of seasoned mayonnaise, at Yuuan in Nishi-Shinjuku. We got an incredible deal at the supermarket last week on nagaimo... I guess they don't sell a lot of it at that shop, which is a mainstream upscale supermarket owned by a Nikkei guy. They were listing it at $2.98 a pound on the sign in the produce department, about $3/lb less than typical at the Japanese supermarket in Seattle. Even better, it came out on the register at $2.98 per stick, for a piece about 2.5 lbs in weight. I wonder if someone misentered the pricing data... It was fresh and good quality, so it was a wonderful surprise.

I made this non-slimy dish, nagaimo no negimiso dengaku last night. It's put under the broiler (on low) with a bit of salt on one side for a few minutes, then flipped, and I added my dengaku miso. This time, after boiling the miso, mirin, and sugar, I added some minced negi. Then I topped the nagaimo, broiled it again until it bubbled, and served with some fresh chopped negi. It was a pleasant side dish... juicy, a little soft, and sweet-salty.

Fiddlehead fern fronds are available for a limited period in Seattle this time of year. I picked some up about two weeks ago and made this: Simmered fiddlehead fern fronds with homemade ganmodoki We have some more this week but I suspect the dish will be western-ish.

Fiddlehead fern fronds are appearing at Uwajimaya, and maybe at Sosio's. They usually have a 4-6 week season. Simmered fiddlehead fern fronds with homemade ganmodoki

My blog covers a fairly substantial amount of Japanese vegetarian food, though I confess I'm not always diligent about posting detailed recipes. In Japan the only places that reliably offer vegetarian food (and sometimes I'm afraid the term is used a bit loosely) are Buddhist temple food (shoujin ryouri) and to a lesser extent genmai ("brown rice") restaurants. It is not difficult to create vegetarian versions of Japanese dishes. For the more rustic dishes, the main complications are soup stock (I use dried konbu and either dried shiitake or dried porcini mushrooms, generally), and the tendency to use dried katsuobushi as a garnish. For more urban or contemporary food, meat is a bit more pervasive and used in larger quantities than was historically typical. However, it is a fair bit of work to find strictly vegetarian dishes. For various reasons, Japanese just aren't generally concerned about such things, even, in many cases, if their religion prefers vegetarianism. I find it easier in Kyoto and to some extent in western Japan, but I am usually flexible about surprises and about pervasive things like soup stock when someone else is cooking.

Wow... Earlier today I was just thinking that was the one exception to the cook-it-yourself universe, since I hadn't seen any kushiage place like that in Japan so far. Kushiyaki as do-it-yourself, I can imagine, but I can only imagine the liability insurance costs on a kushiage place in the U.S.... even the oil fondue at the otherwise unremarkable US-based Melting Pot chain seemed strictly engineered to minimize the possibility of disaster. The "chop it yourself" extremes of some U.S. restaurants probably wouldn't work too well in Japan, though... presentation is really the art of the chef in Japan, even if the guest has to "finish the job." Even in a humble okonomiyaki place the not-yet-grilled bowl of vegetables and other ingredients is generally fairly elegantly arranged.

It may just be the cook in me, but I tend to relish the experiences where dining out involves my participation. Even in cases where the cuisine doesn't revolve around a tabletop grill, Japanese food frequently requires some kind of participation by the guests. At the ryokan where I last stayed, we grilled our own vegetables (and fish, in my friend's case) on a small tabletop shichirin; I've experienced the same at all sorts of small and grand restaurants. Nabemono, too, require direct participation, at least in deciding when to take out the food, if not always requiring you to put the items into the pot. Restaurants that involve some kind of customer effort are at every end of the price spectrum in Japan, so it's not about the level of service or quality. Even at a very basic level, like dipping your zarusoba in tsuyu, or maybe deciding how much soy sauce to drizzle over your onsen-tamago at breakfast in the morning, require a more conscious involvement with the food than average American consumption patterns (ok, we have ketchup and salsa). I'm just fine with that. You certainly can get hand-holding at almost any okonomiyaki or monja restaurant, though. And you're not doing all of the work, just deciding when it's done.

The most expensive/fancy tempura places I have been to in Japan tended to have almost white results, although crispy. I'm not sure that these places are necessarily using a "batter", per se, as at least one technique description for tempura I've read starts with ice in an egg-water mixture followed by a dip in cold flour, though in my experience it takes a lot of practice to get that right. If you can't see the color of the vegetable or fish that you're frying, it's considered a bit of a flaw for tempura, but most casual tempura shops tend to have a coating a little bit more toward the golden end of the spectrum rather than white. Tonkatsu is another beast altogether.

Day 1: On opening day I didn't do a lot of trendspotting, since I had about 2 hours of conversations with vendors that I had planned ahead of time, but the Japanese section, where I was most of the time, had most of the usual suspects, large Japanese companies with huge booths, magic acts, and variations of familiar products. As usual, a fair portion of the Japanese section is dedicated to smaller regional companies, and this is where most of the interesting, if not particularly innovative, products are. The artisanal products include typical Japanese foods made with locally popular ingredients, such as soba made with konnyaku from Yamagata, rather than the more typical yamaimo. Natural foods seem to be growing in presence, as numerous companies promoted their "yuuki saibai" (organic or NDPR foods). The first year I went to FoodEx in 2004 this was mostly confined to a natural foods section outside the main Japanese company exhibition area, but now it's everywhere. I didn't yet notice any ingredients that showed a lot of increased presence, but it might just be a slight jadedness. In previous years, I saw a lot of kuromame and roasted azuki products, or foods with charcoal; these weren't being promoted as heavily as far as I've noticed in previous years. More stuff on my blog... I'm running a bit late today, so I'll try to comment a bit more when I get back.