Blether

The four large characters on the wrapping paper are 'Nisshin Ham', the company that runs the store. The label with the big red characters says "package contains fresh meat" in big characters, and "refrigerate immediately after unwrapping" (literally "immediately after taking out of the box"). The big black letters on the white paper band are "kuroge wagyu", 'black-haired Japanese cattle/beef'. The cover of the black booklet says "suteeki no oishii meshiagarikata", or "how to eat delicious steak", literally "the way of eating steak deliciously". Thanks for sharing such a special purchase - that's some serious 'shimofuri' (marbled) meat.

Good tabloid fodder that word, "apparently". All the way to saffie twice a month ? They don't even ask professional cabin staff to do it any more often. How big was this restaurant to supposedly support that sort of travel budget ? Was the intention just to make it ridiculously expensive ?

It's important to note that brining / marinading doesn't only involve compounds passing through cell membranes. The effects are much more about what passes up / into the spaces between cells.

Funnily enough, 'not completely full' is how it came, but yes, I like the flavour well enough. Not too spicy, and as well as the sesame I suspect a hint of star anise ? I like the idea of having it on salad - it having turned cold, maybe I'll try dressing some hot veggies. I've been eating my way through a big batch of Thai pork curry and haven't felt the need for much more spice in the last week or more.

I'm horribly ignorant when it comes to Chinese food, Prawmcrackers. Can you say what the dark red dressing on the finished rice is ? Is it the same as: ? I was given this as a take-away gift at a fancy Chinese restaurant recently (it's only open a few months and I think they are bottling it themselves). It says "special edible la-yu", and, I think, "sesame" and "chili", and suggests serving on rice or salad.

Sorry to those of you who saw the photo in Lunch - what'd ya have ?, but - huitres Ansel Adams:

Woo-hoo ! Prawncrackers ! And it's nearly dinner time.

I spied these oysters last night when I went out for fish. They're from the cold, clean waters of Iwate prefecture - as opposed to the, umm, nutrient-rich Hiroshima area. The shells were on the friable side, so when it came to opening they were a shucking nightmare, but after breaking two bottom shells in half and losing all the juice from the first oyster, I got a feel for them: - followed by some sliced parmesan between toast, and a quick stir-fry of leeks with a little home-salted-pork.

We don't have a chippy scene. What there is, is fish 'n chips served in British and Irish pubs - some mediocre, some reasonable and one or two rather good. Stand-outs for me are the chips at Dubliners - big, fat, crisp things with fluff all the way through (the fish is just OK-ish) - and fish & chips from the mobile van operatyed at events by the Nishi-Azabu pub Grail. Grail has sent its staff on tours of Scotland to familiarise themselves with the food & drink, but I've only visited the pub location once and the room itself didn't inspire me to go back. Did I remember once that there had been a Harry Ramsden's branch here ? I'm not sure, and if there was it didn't stay open long enough for me to get to it. On a related-yet-unrelated note, Pret a Manger were here for a while, and their sandwiches were an oasis of quality, but they didn't last long either. Something to do with inspired decisions like the one to rent a top central-Tokyo location (Fukoku Seimei building in Hibiya) and only open during the day ? I too often have a doomed hankering for a haggis supper.

Very nice, David Ross - both these meals, but especially for me, the first. Great picture. Sunday night and it was lazy comfort food, British style, after a busy day - fish, chips & beans. Frozen fries and tinned beans are reasonable solutions of their kind. Frozen breaded fish isn't so good, though, and I bought the sea bass fillet (still convenient) fresh for cutting up, and breaded it myself for shallow-frying: New camera, too (Fujifilm Finepix F80 EXR) that has done a better automatic job of the white balance in this location than the old F4500 ever did.

Thanks for raising an interesting subject. Trotters are readily available to me but all I've done with them is jelly for pies. This recipe for another version of pig's trotter cake makes an interesting comparison: he says hind feet for preference, but it doesn't sound like anything anywhere near even half a kilo of flesh.

Yes, your thinking makes sense. I have an impatient traveller's innate aversion to checking baggage. It does thaw in the cabin (more so than in the hold, I'm sure) but well-insulated it's still plenty cold even after that length of journey. (I don't know about you, but I'm mainly teasing the conversation out in the hope of beef photos )

Thanks ! That's exactly the sort of detail I hoped for. As I've mentioned before, if I had ever brought haggis and other treats back from the butcher's back in the wilds of Scotland {which would of course be against Japanese import restrictions), I'd have had it frozen overnight, wrapped it in the traditional newspaper and carried it on board, and it would have lasted the 16 hours door-to-door, no problem.

The Middle Kingdom, by way of Birmingham, methinks.

Good stuff. How did you go about packing it for the journey, and did you check or hand-carry ? How many hours was it ?

OB1, what cut are you hoping to buy, and how much do you expect to pay ? ETA: oops, you beat me to it, Helen... but I'll ask the question anyway. I'll also add that in the retail arena in Tokyo, Nisshin World Delicatessen (known to long-term ex-pat residents as Meat Rush, the name it started under) at Azabu-Juban, will give you good quality & service & reasonable pricing. You might want to give them a day or two to fill a 10kg order, or they might have what you want in stock. They have a lot of foreign customers and will serve you in English.

Thanks There's a name for doing the same thing with bechamel and tomato sauce, isn't there ? Sauce Aurore ?

Nice. How do you go about celery root creme ?

Ah yes, and even Tsunahachi serves an egg yolk tempura.

Sipping at my after-lunch coffee, I thought I'd look it up again. FPC, Penguin Books (USA) 1999, p. 187: Oeufs Frits. (fried eggs as known in the anglo world are oeufs sur le plat, au plat or au miroir.

The same method is in Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking, IIRC.

Lighting's great when you're with the right person. As for any apparent absence of people, I guess you're the only smart one among us - made sure he had money in the bank and a secure income before the flood came. Maybe the rest of us are busy, unexpectedly swimmming ! Looks good again. And you have to think the shrimp are happy. Everyone loves a good skewering.

Looks good, Rico.

May I offer a reply while you're waiting for Martin ? A friend of mine who set up a "Charcoal Chicken" restaurant in SEA, used an automotive windscreen wiper motor, and bicycle chain and sprockets.

The rest of the jellied yellowtail stock I made last week was looking at me accusingly from the fridge shelf. Beside it was an identical plastic container with two or three tinned tomatoes and lower down were again identical containers with (dashi not included) miso in them. Stock from blue fishes can be hard to pair up, but here were the beginnings of a plan. I sauteed a sliced clove of garlic briefly in a knob of butter, then mashed the toms up with the wooden spoon as I stirred them in. I added a tablespoon of miso once that had come to a simmer (sorry, miso soup purists), added the stock, tasted (salt OK; ground in some black pepper) and simmered for 5 or ten minutes. Back from the weekend I've no bread, so i zapped a 7-11 100yen frozen pilaf that I had on hand and blessed it with a medama-yaki (cooked eyeball, or to you and me, a fried egg).