buffy

How about some donburi dishes like oyako-don and gyu-don?

Here is my favorite French food word: pamplemousse. Also the Thai word for pineapple sounds so beautiful when said in Thai: saparot.

Peets coffee is a good bet in SF and also has reasonable shipping prices to Japan. I have it sent over regularly. Using express mail internatinal it is here in 3 or 4 days. Their decafs are also very good. I contacted Inteligentsia once about shipping to Japan and it was quite a bit more than shipping from Peets.

Hi Peter, If you crave okonomiyaki and have only had the Kansai style then I would suggest trying to find a place in Tokyo that serves the Hiroshima style. Very different but equally delicious.

Wow! Can you adopt me for a week? I hope you and your wife have a wonderful trip.

Robyn, That photo looks like okonomiyaki on a stick.

Yes Kristen that is the Hitachi. I have decided to go with the Mitsubishi like yours. So I guess you have sold three! I agree with you about the Helsio one. Hardly any width, but the physical size of the oven is quite big. I think the Hitachi might have too many working parts to go wrong-ie the internal water pumps, nozzles, etc., and like you I am more for the full flavor of the grilled meats. This will be the first oven I have purchased, so am excited. Up until now just had hand-me downs from friends.

Those biscuits look great! Can't wait to hear back about the pork. Thanks for the post and pictures. Yeah, the steam thing is interesting, too. Also looking at the oven by Hitachi tha features 'nano-steam', fine droplets of steam that are supposed to permeate the food being cooked. But after looking at your pictures, might go with the Mitsubishi instead.

torakris that oven looks great! Not a bad price it seems, either. I am anxious to find out how you like it. I am in the market for one now, too. Am using an ancient 1991 model convection/microwave that I got from a friend. Doesn't really cut it anymore. How big a turkey do you think you can get in a 32l oven?

It does seem kind of strange. I thought it might be due to that dye scare, too. I did find two other types of sauces by L&P, but not the original worcestershire sauce. Guess I have to wait until the end of March or make a trip up to Kansai!

Am I missing something here? Has it been pulled from the shelves in Japan? Went to 12 places looking for it last week- at least 8 of them have carried it in the past, but to no avail. Just took a quick look on the FBC site, too, and couldn't find it there, either.

Mmm, soba! I am partial to Izumo soba which gets it's name from the town of the same name in Shimane Prefecture. Usually you order either 3 or five of the small bowls, and often each bowl has different toppings, for example grated mountain potato, or a raw quail egg. I also like it hot topped with maitake mushroom tempura and roasted duck. I also highly recommend Izumo Shrine, one of my favorites in Japan. Izumo is a bit off the beaten track, but well worth a visit.

The Yatai along Nagahama-dori are wonderful. The specialty is the Nagahama ramen. Which is made, as Hiroyuki mentioned, with a thick pork based broth. You top it off yourself with pickled ginger and sesame seeds to taste. You can also order another serving of noodles to be put in your leftover broth. The Aso mountain range in Kyushu is beautiful and filled with wonderful hot springs. One of the local specialties in that area is basashi, or horse sashimi. As for getting to Tokyo cheaply, if you come on a tourist visa, how about getting a Japan Rail Pass for a week? You could also stop off in Kyoto and other areas of interest on the way up to Tokyo.

I like the 'squid on a stick' as I like to call it. Miyajima, in Hiroshima, is the home of 'momiji manju'. Basically taiyaki in the shape of a maple leaf. Always great fresh off the grill. As well as the red and white bean paste you can get a variety of flavors including chocolate, custard, strawberry and cheese. There are also many vendors selling Hiroshima's other delicacy on the street, oysters. Grilled on the half shell over charcoal. Too bad I am allergic to them because they sure look good. Momiji Manju

I second the Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. If you have rail passes, Hiroshima also makes a great day-trip from the Kansai area. As for good eats, there are plenty of them here. Check out the places section of this Hiroshima website for more specific restaurant ideas.

Being that Thanksgiving is coming up and it's hard to get turkey here, I might just have to give that turkey and truffle one a try!

Went to an Okinawan restaurant the other night. Was served Agu pork from Okinawa. Does anyone know anything about it, how it is raised, or what it is fed? Was some of the most delicious pork I have ever had. Tasted like it had been smoked, but had not. Had it stir fried with an Okinawan vegetable called 'inari'?? which when sliced reminded me a lot of white asparagus. Also then had it as shabu shabu boiled along with unpickled rakyo. Okinanwan soba noodles were then added to the broth...mmmm.

Been reading this thread just drooling. It's impossible to get anything close to a good burger in this area. I'm a guy who loves his burgers. I love what you are trying to do and just one thing comes to mind. If you are using beef fat for the fries you might turn away any vegetarians who might want to order fries with their fish burger, portabello burger or the like from your menu. I know it's supposed to be a burger place, but just wanted to throw that in. Good luck and I hope to be able to try one of your burgers someday!

I know Fall is coming when Kirin's Aki Aji beer hits the shelves! It's one of my favorites, but it always seems to be gone too soon. Also want to share a funny story regarding my first experience with Calpis. It was mid-July, I was 19 and flew into Narita to start a 6 month college exchange program. My Japanese was almost nil and this was my first visit to the country. I and a classmate were picked up at the airport by some Japanese friends who were students at our college in the US. I just remember how hot it was and how close all the houses were on the drive down to Yokohama. The car wasn't air-conditioned (this was 1984) and we were all sweating pretty hard. My Japanese friends kept saying they would love to drink some Calpis and were were going to go to their favorite coffee shop in Yokohama to drink some refreshing Calpis. My friend and I kept glancing back at eachother a little terrified. Neither of us had ever heard of Calpis, so both of us were hearing cow-piss. So we asked questions like...does everyone drink cow-piss in the summer? What does it taste like? etc. etc. We got to the coffee shop...Calpis was ordered for all.....my friend and I waited apprehensively. We both got a great laugh when the refreshing white Calpis arrived and it wasn't based on the liquid of a cow we were expecting! Yoghurt over cow urine anyday! Every time I drink it now I still remember that moment.

The annual sake festival will be held here in Hiroshima in a couple of weeks. Hiroshima is quite a large producer of sake and for about $10-15 you can try hundreds of different types of sake to your heart's content.....! A great festival! Hiroshima Sake Festival

There is a restaurant here that serves donburi with a French twist....foie gras donburi. Sauteed foie gras is combined with various Japanese mushrooms (shiitake, enoki and shimeji) in a wonderful basalmic flavored sauce. Rich but wonderful.

Hiroshima style okonomiyaki. Seems to me that most of the okonomiyaki I have encountered outside of Japan is the Kansai or Osaka style. Some of the kakigori desserts, especially those with the sweet bean paste.