nakji

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.

So glad to have been of help! I was wondering why ours were so cheap, but then I thought maybe because I live near Izu or something. I'm going to a pho place tomorrow in Fujisawa that I've gotten a strong recommendation from some co-workers about. I'm a pretty harsh critic, having lived in Vietnam, so I'll let you know how it turns out. Are you the sort of person who'll make a field trip for good noodles? Your journey into Asia sounds a bit like mine. My husband and I just got on a plane one day, shocking our family, friends, and (suddenly former) employers and have never looked back. We never intended to stay, it just happened that way. Sometimes I don't know if I'll ever be able to feel comfortable in Canada again... I've been teaching myself Japanese home cooking, since imported foods are more expensive. Fortunately for us, my husband and I have no standard with which to compare my efforts! I learned nikkujyaga from Torakris's eGCI course, and Hiroyuki's threads on home cooking, especially the Soy, Dashi, and Mirin ratio thread have really helped me cook with confidence using Japanese ingredients. Helenjp's bento tips have saved me tons of money on conbini lunches. Without eGullet, I don't think I could have survived my first few months in Japan financially! What resources have you used to learn Japanese techniques and recipes?

Yay! Japan Forum represent! I had a bowl of strawberries for breakfast as well, since they're ridiculously cheap at the supermarket. 180 yen for a punnet of small ones - why does anyone ever buy the big ones? I think the small ones are sweeter.

I'm planning a chirashi-sushi bento tomorrow with smoked salmon. I'll post pictures if it turns out.

Yeah, I'm really happy with the 1,000 yen knife I bought at Muji. Sharpest knife I've ever owned, which I suppose is not saying much. But now Prasantrin has championed Aritsugu, I'll have to check it out. Check out 100 yen shops for fun gadgets. There's a big Daiso in Harajuku, on the main shopping street, which has a large selection.

What kind of mushrooms have you got there? It looks yummy. I've been on a fried rice for breakfast kick, as I use up leftovers from my bento making.

Yes! The bento thread could use more posts! I've struggled with the same problem for my bento photos. Recently I moved into a new apartment with great morning light, and my pictures have brightened considerably. In fact, some mornings, the light is too harsh and casts a lot of shadows. I'd like to know how to neutralize this. I've been experimenting more with low-light food photography in the evening with dinners, and I find a tripod makes all the difference - check out this photo. It was taken with only a lamp and 40W bulb as a light source, but a tripod makes it fairly light. The tripod takes up a little space when it's out, but can collapse and be tucked into the closet when not in use. (Theoretically, that is. Ours sits around and clutters up the place. I know for small spaces - I live in Japan. ) What kind of camera are you currently using?

That looks delicious. The bowl really brings out the colours! Very spring-like. I received Elizabeth Andoh's "Washoku" for Christmas, and I've been cooking my way through it. I've made Hiroyuki's nikomi hamburg recipe before, but the sauce requires ketchup, which I usually don't keep on hand. In Washoku, there's a recipe that only calls for soy sauce and sake, so I tried that. It was a hit, and I made my hamburgers a bit smaller than she calls for so I'd have some meatballs for the next day's bento. It came out perfectly, and I was quite proud of myself!

I had an "izakaya night" at home. Some salt yakitori and sauce yakitori, along with a green salad, and some carrot kinpira. Rice on the side, which isn't really izakaya-like, I guess, but was needed to round it out. I drank all the sake the night before, after a ridiculously frustrating day, so drinks were coke and Mitsuya cider. I guess it was only an izakaya night in my head.

They probably would mix well, but they're not available in my area. Garlic scapes, however, are 55 yen a bunch right now, which got me thinking. They're pretty crunchy on their own as well.

This is quite depressing. Any thoughts on appropriate bento fare for hina-matsuri? I was thinking chirashi-zushi. Thoughts?

I might try this with sake and a touch of wasabi in place of the sherry and dry mustard. And garlic scapes instead of the long beans. Hah! I'll keep the pork though. We'll see how it turns out.

Missed it! Where was it? I've been without internet for a month, and I feel like I lost a limb. Catching up on bento-ing, I invested in a Muji two-tier box for my husband, and it's been two bentos a day for the last 6 weeks. Thank goodness I work evenings, so I don't have to be up at 5:30am to make them. Some highlights: My husband loves sandwich bentos. I've been cooking through "Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen", and this uses the gingery ground chicken recipe. I like it a lot, but my husband complains that it's hard to eat. Next time he gets a spoon, like a pre-schooler. I also tried out the recipe for grilled omusubi. A nice change from plain rice. I like making udon noodles instead of rice sometimes - these are stir-fried with miso and ginger and some veg. It's really filling, which is important when you're away from home for 10 hours! This one was really tasty and used some leftover meatballs and grilled eggplant from dinner the night before. I boiled potatoes together with the edamame, and made mustard potato salad. It came together quite quickly, without a lot of clean up afterwards.

That looks amazing. I'd like to try that with garlic scapes. How did you do the glaze?

It's beautiful! What thoughtful students. Where did the box come from? Does the school keep a set on hand for the cooking classes, or did the students have to bring their own? And yet another question, what are the leaves used as garnish with the fish and lotus root, and on the rice?

I love this salad, too! It's so crunchy and delicious! I like it even more with a squirt of fresh lime and some chopped cilantro mixed in at the end. I can never get enough cilantro. Yeah, it's a big list, getting longer every year!

I recently did a Vietnamese feast for 14 after New Years. It was fun to show all my friends in Canada what I'd learned overseas. The thing that took the longest was the summer rolls - after I'd done all the prep, I farmed out the task of assembling them to an enthusiastic helper. I was thankful I did, because I hadn't made anything else in advance, and was prepping it all at my friend's house, as a kind of ad hoc cooking lesson. The chopping of the veg and the assembling of the mise en place took a couple of hours, but I was able to cook it all in 30 minutes (save the pork) once it was all ready. I also made a lemongrass tea by steeping lemongrass in hot water, and then cooling it. I served it with fresh lime juice and sugar over ice, and it was well received. I like Gewurtztraminer with Vietnamese food, but I prefer soju and beer with Korean dishes! Good luck, and I can't wait to see the pictures.

Stunning menu, Shalmanese! Is that a menu curled up in the background of the first photo? What kind of scallops did you use? And when are you inviting us all around for dinner?

Oh boy, does that ever look good! That would be a great twist on the traditional ground chicken and egg topping for Japanese bentos! Did you mention that you got the recipe from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen? It's on my short List of Books to be Acquired when I Finally Have a Kitchen Again. (Cross referenced with the List of Reasons I'm not Moving Again for at Least Three Years).

My mum's copy of the Purity Cookbook - it doesn't even have a cover anymore, but the spine is saved by the fact that it's spiral bound. All of the pages have odd notations and additional recipes stapled in. For years it was her go-to book for simple recipes, like pancakes, dill pickles, bread, etc. I read through it for a laugh over Christmas, but I found some recipes that I'll be able to make in Japan - squash and bacon croquettes, anyone?