torakris

I am glad to hear it! Maguro and natto was my first experience eating natto! That second dish looks really good, I might have to give that a try.

You should be able to find them anywhere! Most supermarkets will have a housewares section that sells them but for a bigger selection I always go to DIY/Home Center or a place like Ito Yokado or Jusco, I am not sure what stores they have down there.

Those little bits are referred to as tenkasu or agedama. I can't recall ever seeing them used in any roll I have eaten in Japan though. The do use tempura'd foods in rolls here.

We visited my husabnd's grandmother during the Golden Week holidays and were sent home with a couple packages of the local dangos.

Two new hi-chu flavors: lemon and shikuwasa (Okinawan citrus that has 100 other spellings...) both are good but I prefer the lime one from last summer.

I picked this up on a trip into a shop that stocked goods/foods from Okinawa. goya flavor Calpis

I am going to keep my eye out for this one! Have you tried it yet?

I agree with nagitokyo about Maisen, I actually prefer their sandwich (which can be bought almost anywhere including some department store basements) to the meal at the restaurant. While it is quite a good meal it was no different than the tonkatsu I had eaten anywhere else. There was nothing about it that stood out to me. Their sandwich, on the other hand, is really wonderful!

I don't have a snack budget, snacks go in to my monthly food budget which averages just over 40,000 yen a month. It may look like I buy a lot of snacks but it really isn't and except for the occasional box of new Pocky (which I only buy on sale) I almost never spend more than 100 yen per snack. The most I would spend a month in about 2000yen but it is probably much closer to 1000 yen. As to what I cooked for the show.... For my BBQ party my menu consisted of: homemade sausages slow roasted baby back ribs huli huli chicken potato fritatta zucchini fritatta chips with 2 kinds of salsa and guacamole shrimp ceviche salmon gravlax yaki-imo grilled eryngii and soramame yaki onigiri I cooked three dinners that they filmed and they chose the one I hadn't known they were even going to film. I was quite embarrassed that they showed that one because it was one of my really simple 'dinner in 15 minutes' meals. It was a really busy day and I threw together an umeboshi potato salad earlier in the day, then when we came home from soccer practice at 6:30 I tossed some chicken in a frypan with a teriyaki sauce, sliced up an avocado, shredded some baby spinach then tossed it all into a donburi bowl. I also did a quick celery kinpira that took all of 3 minutes. This dish has gotten unbelievable comments from my Japanese friends. Close to 20 people have told me how delicious that looked and to please share the recipe.

Walk into any Japanese noodle shop or restaurant and chances are you'll be eating with a pair of disposable wooden chopsticks from China but not for long. In a move that has cheered environmentalists but worried restaurant owners, China has slapped a 5 percent tax on the chopsticks over concerns of deforestation. The move is hitting hard at the Japanese, who consume a tremendous 25 billion sets of wooden chopsticks a year about 200 pairs per person. Some 97 percent of them come from China. Rest of the article here.

極めつけは謎の黄色のメモ帳。これを使いご近所を巻き込んで賢い節約をしている。 Oh that one! I use a lot of yellow notepads for various things..... That one was our shopping list for Costco, it really isn't as exciting as they make it sound. Our next trip is 5/23, I can post the list for that trip once we make it.

I never really thought there was an English word for tobi, but I just found this: Steeplejack I have never heard of the word myself though.... My yellow notepad with the contents of my refrigerator? Were you able to see the show?

tissue, that sounds really good (and so simple!) I picked up two packs of eryngii yesterday, I think I will try it tonight!

Romaji is taught to all students in the 4th grade, this is the chart they are taught with.

I might just have to make a trip to Osaka to try their okonomiyaki, I have never had anything but Tokyo style... nagitokyo, welcome to eGullet and the Japan forum! I just spent some time looking at your great blog! in your yoshoku (western foods) section alone you cover quite a few of the dishes we have recently been discussing, Sasebo burger, Turkey rice, omuraisu, etc. : http://travel.web.infoseek.co.jp/blog/archives/cat_14.html I can't wait to hear more from you.

Having never eaten okonomiyaki in Osaka I am not really sure of the exact differences between the general types in both areas. Most okonomiyaki restaurants in Tokyo though will give you a variety of options from the version with noodles inside, to negi-yaki (scallions insteead of cabbage) to monjyayaki (Tokyo's cousin to okonomiyaki). Not to long ago Food Zealot and I went to Sakuratei (in Jingu-Mae) and enjoyed a nice variety. Their English homepage can be found here, they also have menus in English. We both posted pictures on this thread.

I was wondering what that juicy thing was.... The flyer for one of the local supermarkets this morning had something called juicy orange (ジューシーオレンジ) on sale for 100yen each. Maybe I will give one a try when I head there on Weds to buy butter (on sale for 198yen).

OH MY GOD! I think that is probably the worst thing in the thread! Pink Margarine! PINK!!! MARGARINE!!!! Gah. ← why? why? oh God why?

They look a bit like fuki, what did they taste like? I would love to try them as a jam, I wonder if I can find them around here...

I often make a quick "salad" for dinner by dressing chunks of avocado with wasabi-joyu (a mixture of soy sauce and wasabi). Wasabi and soy are wonderful matches for avocado. I also do salads with more of a Southeast Asian flair by mixing slices of avocado with grapefruit slices and a simple nampla-lime-sugar-chile dressing.

I not sure if I am supposed to divulge the actual dates but I will be foodblogging for one week of my summer trip to the US. Hopefully we can get it to coincide with a Cleveland eGullet get together.... I, too, will be interested in carpooling if I can't get my brother to go with me.

Can you get a picture of this please....?

I wonder if you guys ate the actual konnyaku imo before it had been processed into the konnyaku as we all know it or a very freshly processed kind of konnyaku. If I am not mistaken the actual konnyaku tuber is a relative to the taro. a picture of the konnyaku imo and some very fresh konnyaku

Very well, and thanks for thinking of me. I'm looking forward to seeing you again. Will you be bringing any family or friends this year? ← Alex (whose name isn't really Alex.... ) I am really hoping my brother and possibly his girfriend can join me this year. If not I will probably be coming up alone. I will give a definite head count in a couple weeks. Can you tell I am really excited about this event? I had a really great time last year.

Yeah!