torakris

Yesterday I spotted a box of a white peach Kit Kat, the flavor combination didn't appeal to me so I left in on the shelf next to the banana Kit Kat... white peach kit kat

Majra, I love looking at your bentos! Do they have some type of carrier so that the kids can carry them to school? Cartoon Network in Japan now has a recipe section with bentos featuring various characters from CN, currently it is Teen Titans. I am not sure how often it changes, so check back frequently! At the bottom of the page are links to previous bentos.

Take a look at the Bento Store on ebay, the prices are quite good (better than most other sites I have seen in the US) and she will combine shipping.

I think I have been in Japan too long... PET bottle sounds absolutely normal to me, but I am pretty sure in the US I referred to them as just plastic bottles.

Department store basements aren't food courts. The food that is bought is meant to be taken home (or back to the office) and eaten. If you do want to eat nearby check the floor directories (next the elevators or in pamphlet form near entrances) many department stores have open areas/play areas on the roof. Though your kids are a little old for the play areas there are also many benches/tables and a variety of vending machines up there as well. It could be quite cold up there next month but that is what those hot cans of tea and coffee in the vending machines are for.

As in most restaurants anywhere in the world I am sure this would be frowned upon. I would suggest going to the restaurant first and trying to find something on the menu, I am pretty sure you will be able to find something, even if it is just a bowl of rice or a side of french fries. If she is still hungry then stop somewhere on the way back and pick her up something to eat at the hotel.

Majra, I am sure your whole family will have a wonderful time and I am sure your daughter will be able to find plenty of things to eat. How much Japanese do you speak and read? If you don't speak much just remember sauce betsu betsu -- if you want it on the side sauce nashi -- if you don't want it all If no one reads very well you might want to go to places where you know what you are going to get. Examples are: convenience stores/department store basements/supermarkets: here you can see exactly what you will be getting restaurants with plastic food displays Every department store has a restaurant floor, most often the 5th floor, that have a variety of restaurants all with displays in the front. Many stores out on the street have plastic displays as well. family restaurants/chain restaurants These places are actually a good place to get a variety of decent priced food and they menus usually have pictures of the different dishes. Izakayas especially the chain ones, have large picture menus. These serve a variety of small dishes so she can pick at only the things she likes while everybody else can try many new things. Fast food McDonalds is everywhere and you can also find KFC and Wendy's as well as Japanese burger shops like MOS burger and Freshness Burger, most fast food places have a picture menu on the counter at each register. one dish restaurants I am sure there is a much better name for this, places like a yakitori shop, tonkatsu shop, ramen shop, etc that only serve one type of food. Tonkatsu is available pretty much anywhere, tonkatsu bentos can be picked up at pretty much any convenient store and the tonkatsu sandwiches are wonderful. Also look for karaage, japanese fried chicken, she will probably love this. This is also available in any convenience store or supermarket, in bentos or just on its own. Some threads you might want to take a look at if you haven't already: sandwiches supermarket eats convenience store eats Izakayas Family restaurants McDonald's Japan MOS burger Lotteria (Japanese burger chain) Nathan's Famous hot dogs General tips for those travelling to Japan and for some fun things to do: Food factory tours Food theme parks Yunessan Spa in Hakone (take a bath in coffee, wine or tea)

We paid about 110,000 yen ($902 at today's exchange rate) but it was on sale because the new model was coming out a month later and we also received a discount for paying cash. I think the $40 fee for the removal of our old refrigerator was also included. This is the information about it from National's website size: 685mm×643mm×1798mm sorry, you will have to covert that yourself

When I first moved to Japan 12 years ago I insisted on a freezer on the top refrigerator, there were only about 2 in the store and I picked the biggest one. It died a couple months ago and we were forced to buy a new one rather quickly. I never understood why refrigerators in Japan had so many doors but now that I own one I love it and will never go back to any other kind. This is my post from the Japanese kitchen thread: First a blurry shot of the outside The main refrigerator (top), notice the very short shelves though most of them are removable/adjustable the ice part and chill box(this can be a refrigerator or freezer as well with just a switch of the button) the vegetable drawer (I love this part) it is in a very easy to use part of the refrigerator and is huge with a top tray that runs the length and width of the drawer. This refrigerator had the largest freezer of all the refrigerators in the store, it is quite deep with a tray that like the vegetable drawer runs the length and width of the drawer.

As promised here are some pictures of the inside. First a blurry shot of the outside The main refrigerator (top), notice the very short shelves though most of them are removable/adjustable the ice part and chill box(this can be a refrigerator or freezer as well with just a switch of the button) the vegetable drawer (I love this part) it is in a very easy to use part of the refrigerator and is huge with a top tray that runs the length and width of the drawer. This refrigerator had the largest freezer of all the refrigerators in the store, it is quite deep with a tray that like the vegetable drawer runs the length and width of the drawer.

Friday 2/9 marked the debut of the chicken filet-o sadwich with a ginger sauce, I have to admit I am curious...

Here is a list of myouga recipes (in Japanese) to give you an idea of the many things you can do with it. Even if you can't read they all have nice pictures.

Myouga is incredibly fragrant and isn't particularly suited to cooking, definitely use it raw. I have one recipe here in RecipeGullet that calls for it. Use it anywhere you want a burst of flavor. It can be thinly sliced or minced, it can be fairly strong tasting so large chunks can be unpleasant, and added to tofu dishes, noodles, salads or even tossed in miso soup before serving. It is especially wonderful with cold eggplant salads and I like to mince it up with blanched okra tossed with a couple drops of soy sauce and served it on cold tofu.

Life would be difficult for me without a rice cooker. We eat rice with our meals about 5 to 7 times a week. The programmable timer was a feature I love, It can be set to remember two times. Push the button once and the rice is ready for me at 5:20am and perfect at 5:30 when I start to make my husband's lunch. Push the button twice and the rice will be ready at 6:00pm a life saver for me as I often spend the hour before that driving around to soccer, piano and hula practices. In Japan where many houses only have two burners (I am lucky as I have 3) a rice cooker is a necessity. Not everyone needs a top of the line model or even a rice cooker at all. It depends on your needs, what kind of rice you cook and how often you cook it.

I haven't had Caspian Sea yogurt in years. It was a huge fad a couple years ago but at that time you couldn't buy it you had to get some from a friend and then make your own. It was incredibly easy to make as you just mixed it with milk and let it sit at room temperature over night, no fussing about proper temperature. I let my batch go after an extended trip to the US and never went back to it. I really loved the texture of it but prefer a little more tang in my yogurt. One company is selling it now in regular yogurt packages, not the starter the real yogurt. I just recently noticed it on the shelves. Welcome to eGullet and the Japan Forum IcyBarbie! I found it! Fujicco's Caspian Sea yogurt (regular and drinkable types)

Fugu prices vary depending on the type and cut. Fugu can also be purchased at any supermarket, check out the fugu thread.

That's funny, one of my supermarket flyers is announcing Feb. 9 as Niku Day (meat day). Ni= 2 Ku=9

Fuzzy logic rice cookers are disappearing from the shelves as the IH cookers have now taken over. I purchase a pretty high end model about 2 years ago (in Japan) for about $250 and have never looked back. The rice does cook better and the brown rice comes out perfectly even with no soaking. There are different water levels for white and brown rice and the cooking time is different as well, my cooker takes 60 minutes for brown and 38 minutes for a regular white. It also has a speed function and can cook 2 cups in 14 minutes (5 cups takes 18). I really like the curry rice function (this makes rice to eat with curry not the curry itself), it takes 25 minutes and it isn't as sticky and a little firmer. Here is my post from when I first purchased it: I bought one of the new IH rice cookers a little over 2 months ago, it is a Sanyo that is most likely not available outside of Japan. I love it! It cooks brown rice better than any other rice cooker/pan method. You first pick the kind of rice from plain white, brown, sprouted, brown-sprouted, no wash, etc then you can choose the texture desired from things like normal, softer, harder, chewy, etc as well as special settings for okowa (sticky rice), rice to serve with curry rice (harder than average), sushi rice, etc. It also has the typical setting for okayu (rice gruel) and mixed rice dishes. It cooks Jasmine, Basmati and American long rice perfectly as well, they don't have setting for these kinds of rices but I just use the typical white rice setting. I find their normal rice is a bit soft for my liking to always set it to katame (firmer). The typical rice course cooks in 38 minutes quite a bit faster than my old fuzzy logic Zojirushi and the fast course can cook in 18 minutes and it makes incredible rice. It looks like this Best rice cooker thread

My 12 year old refrigerator died in August and we had to rush to the store to buy a new one. I wanted a mid range one with the largest freezer they had. I didn't realize it until now but I bought exactly the same refrigerator as Hiroyuki, even the color is the same. I love this thing! The chilling compartment is wonderful I keep my bacon, sausages, hard cheeses, katsuo block, etc in there. I also use it to keep fish fresher for a little longer if needed. Steven, I am not sure this refrigerator would do well in the US with out some changes. The shelves are really small and I have problems figuring out where to put my American sized items. I'll be back with pictures.

I had never heard the word Welsh onion until I came to Japan either, I probably would never use it to describe a negi as most people would have no idea what it is was. In the midwest part of the US at least scallions are about all they've got, when I need a negi in the US I would use a scallion over a leek every time. Maybe if we all keep using the term negi all the time, it will become as well known as daikon and kabocha and then we will no longer have to translate it.

Or maybe I am too much of an American... I believe the actual translation for the Japanese (naga) negi is Japanese bunching onion. I avoid using that word because it is long and most people wouldn't know what I was talking about. Where I come from in the US scallions are much more commonly used than leeks, especially in Asian cuisines, which is why I chose to use the word scallions. Of course it also depends on the day... I am sure I have referred to negi many different ways over the years.

When I was going through morning sickness with #2, I had serious craving for this sandwich.

The following is a post I made to the convenient eats thread in 11/04: For my convenient eats lunch this week, I decided to go to Natural Lawson (a "new" type of convenience store supposedly aimed at health-concious shoppers). This opened up about 2 years ago at the station near my house but I haven't made it in yet because there is absolutely no parking anywhere near it. I had this idea of a health foods convenience store, and sure enough upon walking in my eye catches the shelf of cookbooks next to all familiar magazines. Cookbooks are unusual in a convenience store and even more unusual is that they were all in the macrobiotic style focused on whole grains, tofu, vegetables,etc. Walking the aisles I see the familair conbini items snack foods, staples, etc but included among the staples are packs of hijiki, koya-dofu (dried tofu) and other various dried products I had never seen in a convenience store before. I had visions of bentos with brown rice, various pickles, fish and dried vegetable dishes and wow was I dissapointed! Not only were the bentos the same as any other convenince store in the country they actually looked worse! I finally decided on this These looked the most appetizing to me.... and I have to admit they were pretty good, on the left is a BLT with cheese on black sesame bread and on the right is a sandwich with chicken pastrami and marinated onion/carrot/bell peppers with lettuce and cucumbers as well. I haven't been into a Natural Lawson since and actually I don't even know if the one I did go to is still there.

Do you pickle them, or stop at boiling ? I don't think I've ever prepared beetroot from scratch, though I must've eaten my weight in industrial-strength-white-vinegar-pickled commercial bottled stuff as a kid. ← Now you are making me go off topic! The thread on roasting beets.

This was nice, though I thought they skimped on the filling a bit. charsui and scallion (negi) onigiri