nakji

Breathtaking, as ever. If I ever get down to Osaka, I'll be calling Rona up! Is it true that the blue circles in the bottom of the sake cup are to test for clarity?

There's a Daejanggeum theme restaurant in Shin-Okubo in Tokyo that my husband and I go to - they do a killer modum kimchi plate. The DVDs play in the background for the whole meal - which you can hardly hear for all the businessmen shouting toasts over their Jinro. I'd say "Old Boy", but it might hurt my avatar's feelings.

Cool beans! I never would have guessed China from those vineyards. I haven't been to Beijing in several years, but from what I remember, "Big Beige" is a good nickname for it. Is it still so dusty? Nice bibimbap. Is it from a Korean restaurant, or have the Chinese adopted it as a dish? It's really popular here in Japan as well.

Asian food + wine country = ......somewhere in Australia? Melbourne?

Well, the pork fat and bone fragment reminds me a bit of the great pork dishes I ate in Vietnam...I have no idea what the round things on the back of the plate are, either. Are they tea eggs?

I PM'd Helenjp this very same question this week, and she suggested we revive this topic. It's the season to think about gardening, I guess. Currently I'm trying to root a stem of cilantro in my windowsill, that's as far as I've gotten. I managed to pick up some soil and containers on the cheap in the Daiso Yokohama, but I have no idea where to find seeds. Anyone?

I don't know where we're going but this: ...certainly has my attention. Is it in Europe somewhere?

Oh, this is so beautiful! Why do my bentos never look as good? I'm breathlessly anticipating Tokyo pics now!

There are lots of interesting ideas and points here. Personally, one of the best things I've done for my health in the past few years is to move to Asia. Food portions are smaller, cities are set up to encourage walking and cycling and public transit; and to discourage the use of cars; food is still seasonal, and in many cases, snack food comes in smaller portions and at higher prices than in North America. When I visited Canada at Christmas for the first time in four years, I was shocked to realize how people's environment, especially a Canadian winter, can conspire to keep them unhealthy. We hear so much about how it's up to the individual to remain healthy - where is the role of society to help reinforce healthy lifestyles and choices? You can download for free a really fascinating podcast called "Sick People or Sick Societies?" from the CBC Radio One program, "Ideas" here which provides a lot of food for thought on this issue.

I started my own about three weeks ago. I just went over to Blogger, picked a layout, and off I went. It lets you upload photos, although I'm not sure how much memory they're offering, if you want to have a lot of pictures. Good luck! It's lots of fun.

Oh, boy. Someone is going to bang on our wall and tell us to keep it down in here! Men's Pocky is really the best, although I'm hoping they're going to come out with a sakura version for the cherry blossom season. What else have you been eating, Peter Green?

New York! How exciting! Your apartment looks beautiful. My husband's parents also keep their birds in the kitchen, but then, they never use their kitchen for actual cooking, so it's not a big problem for them. This is my favourite coffee, too. Can I ask what you do with your leftover cans? I have accumulated quite a few of them, and I don't want to throw them away, they seem too pretty. That I've never be able to figure out what category of garbage they belong to.

Ha! All the directions I ever get to places in Japan go a little like that. You know, "take the west exit, cross the street and go through the blue gate, then turn right at the giant onigiri/pufferfish/french fries." Can't wait til you get to Tokyo!

Well, it's probably a bit late to answer this, but it's a condiment you can eat with plain steamed rice. You don't have to heat it up, as far as I know. Oooh, meatballs. What's in the sauce, Ce'nedra?

Wow! A stunning feat. Adding the lime and cilantro flavours to the shrimp must have made for a great dish. I can taste how crunchy the shrimp must have been. The whole feast is amazing; I can't wait to see the rest of the dishes.

Wow, thanks, milgwimper. I wanted to make a big batch of these to tuck into bentos for lunch - my husband loves green onion, and I thought it would be a good filler. It was always the first pancan to be emptied at our table in Korean restaurants. I've been putting the green onion down first, then pouring the batter on, which may account for a lot of my problems. I will absolutely try your method, and check out the Naver site - I can read read Korean, although how much I'll understand is another question I'd still love to see a pictorial, though, (hint hint). kansa hamnidaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! eta: Dodie, we were posting at the same time. Thanks for the recipe! I'll post results!

I'm reviving this, because I tried to make pajeon this weekend, and they turned out pale and floppy, and kind of greasy, too. I don't have a bag of pajeon mix sitting around, so I used a 1:1 ration of flour and ice water, plus shredded negi, since that's what I had on hand. Does anyone have a better recipe? Anyone?

Wow! What an incredible looking bento! As a Canadian, I still feel surprise when Spring starts in early March, and I always want to get out and enjoy the weather while I can - there's some part of me that feels that even if it's warm and sunny one day, it could still snow again the next. What better way to celebrate than to get out and have a picnic! Can you describe how you make this? It sounds like something my husband would love. Hiroyuki, you always make me smile.

Wheeee! I can't wait! No recommendations, sadly, since abject poverty has meant I have eaten in a restaurant exactly twice since returning to Japan after Christmas. I shall live vicariously through your photos, as ever. I had to stop reading the Korea thread because it made me so homesick, but I shall have no such problem with this one.

There's a really good barbecued meat place at the Northern end of town - about 2k away from the tourist strip, which I can't remember the name of! It's featured in the Lonely Planet, though, and it's well known in town. It's got all sorts of cuts of meat which you barbecue on a pot of coals that they bring to your table. It's also featured in the Lonely Planet, so if you have a copy of that, you should be able to look it up. The fresh steamed seafood the hawkers sell on the beach isn't half bad either. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Wow, I totally used to eat that in Hanoi. My coworkers used to bring little cakes of it in, wrapped up in banana leaf. They ate it on festival days, I think, maybe the one for the spirit that lives in the hearth? The kitchen goddess? Anyway, I'm hazy on how they made it, but I think SuzySushi is the closest - it was dyed with some sort of seed. I know, because I bit down hard on a bit of it once and almost lost a tooth.

I used to shop at an Inegaya when I lived in Nishi-Tokyo! I found their english muffin supplies to be shockingly erratic as well. Where I live now, they're practically non-existent, so I stock up when I see them, and freeze them. Somehow, they just taste better than the plain old white bread. I agree about the conbini food. I usually pack a homemade bento for lunch every day, which causes a lot of surprise amongst my Japanese co-workers, since most of my foreign co-workers seem to live off conbini food. One of the ladies I work with told me that when a teacher brings in a conbini bento, and heats it up, it just smells like chemicals, but when the teachers bring their own food to heat up, it smells good. I have to agree.

I guess my irony wasn't clear! I would never put raw fish in a bento either Thanks! I'm glad you don't think the salmon was too risky. Because it was really, really good, and I'd like to make that more often. <edited for quotes>

Yeah, this so true. As sweet as the berries are here (and the ones I've tasted in the rest of Asia) they're never as dense and as purely sweet as the ones I've eaten out of the field in Canada. My birthday is in July, and I always associate it with strawberries, because that's when the good berry picking starts in Nova Scotia. Is there anything better than a berry eaten in the field, still hot from the sun? The berries in Canada seemed far less uniformly sweet, but had a natural feeling the ones here don't - here they seem like they're made of cotton, for all their sweetness. I will. Fujisawa is a quick detour if you're in the neighborhood of Kamakura. Nuts. Somehow I don't get NHK. I've been trying the same technique with Orange Page, though, and it's helped my food kanji tremendously. I'm really terribly at spoken Japanese, but I have a terror of being illiterate in any language, so I'm studying kanji at home. My coworkers find it hilarious that I can read, but can't say anything. No boyfriend or girlfriend for me to practice with, sadly!

As promised: I'm not happy with the dry-egg omelette - it wasn't nearly thin enough. The smoked salmon was great, though, and I can't believe I made sushi rice before going to work. I normally would be a bit hesitant to take raw fish in a bento, so that's the main reason I chose smoked salmon. At any rate, I only have a 20 minute commute on Mondays, and it's pretty cold here by the water! It went right into the fridge when I got to work. My co-worker was surprised I made my own chirashi sushi, and then was disappointed when she went out to get her own from the supermarket at lunch, and they were sold out. I promptly took some of mine out (It made a ton - that's an 800 ml box in the picture!) and gave it to her on a plate. I hope that wasn't too strange or anything, but she's had some dolls up for the last couple of weeks, and had puffed rice to give out to all the kids, so I didn't want her to miss out.