torakris

Bento making has also just gotten easier! Recent years have seen a huge influx of frozen bento foods but they all needed to be heated with either a microwave or toaster oven. Now Nissui has introduced some frozen bento foods that do not need to be heated, just give them 1 1/2 hours to defrost and you are ready to go. The current line-up Is it really too hard to pull out a frypan???

This site shows some of the goods needed to make kawaii (cute) bento.

These are some of the creepiest bentos I have ever seen.

I just noticed the new Choya (umeshu) line up includes a brandy based umeshu targeted to men and a carbonated umeshu with kokutou (black raw sugar) in a can. I would love to try the second one...... I recently had Kirin's ume flavored chu-hi and really enjoyed it, my favorite was the yuzu flavored one though. Kirin chu-hi line up Next month Kirin will be introducing 2 tea based chu-hi, right here.

I just found the coolest site! It is all in Japanese but with pictures of every step, this guy has about 30 versions of his homemade ramen and almost all of the recipes are made completely from scratch. Including the soup, noodles, yakibuta, menma, etc. EDITED to add the link to the site....

I am pretty sure that menma is the about the only bamboo topping used by ramen-ya.

The food halls of Japan are wonderful. They are called depachika (short for department store basement) in Japanese and after 15 years here I still have not tired of them.

Looking on Japanese sites I have learned that menma is actually made from a specific bamboo called machiku 麻竹. It is steamed, salted and then fermented this is the menma we are most familiar with but it is also sold dried and water packed. Almost all of it comes into Japan from Chian and Taiwan.

I never thought about making menma..... I could only find one recipe in English, but it calls for dried (salted) bamboo shoots. Can you read Japanese? and welcome to eGullet and the Japan Forum!

I checked her recipe and found it called for beef... I'm a Kanto man, born and bred in Tokyo. For me, niku-jaga is supposed to be made with pork, not beef! ← How about that? I have several recipes and none of them call for pork so now I have learned something new. I'll have to try it with pork. ← I made it with pork once but actually prefer it with beef. I made it last night, with beef!! It was gone before you could blink your eye, kids really love it.

I ended up at McDonald's today and ordered the new Ebi (shrimp) filet-o sandwich with sweet chili sauce. I was pleasantly surprised! I had tried the ebi filet-o when it first came out and didn't care for it. They must have redone it because it was much better with large pieces of shrimp and a lot of them at that. The sweet chili sauce was a wonderful contrast. Limited time only!!

Steam ovens are the current rage in Japan, though here they are touted more for their healthy benefits of cooking foods with less fat. Here is a description of them. I just bought a new steam oven about 2 months ago but have yet to use the steam function...

Wow! Thanks, that primer is incredible not to mention incredibly goregous. I am assuming that will be part of your book? Not currently living in the US, I am not sure how available they are. I know I will probably not be able to find them in Japan. If you give something like a spiciness rating we can figure out what to substitute.

Nametake!

Less odoriferous 'natto' gains favor in Taiwan "Natto," a traditional Japanese staple made from fermented soy beans, has rarely graced dining tables in Taiwan because of its pungent aroma. But the sticky dish's fortunes may be changing, especially since Li Fu-yuan, a 76-year-old food maker, has created an "improved" variety. After reproducing the look, if not the stink, of real natto, he went public with his achievement at a food exhibition, where it raised little interest. Surprisingly, Li's "vitality natto" later became the hit of the season when severe acute respiratory syndrome broke out and took several lives in Taiwan.

Takoyaki proving an unexpected hit in Britain Christophers' success belies a hesitant start. He feared octopus might not appeal to many Britons, so he experimented with dumplings filled with vegetables, chocolate and chicken. But his test marketing of the authentic takoyaki with students and the general public proved to be a hit. "We found that the most popular one was the traditional takoyaki with octopus. A lot of people were willing to try it and there was a very positive reaction," Christophers said.

Cool! This a great idea and I hope many people can help. I may be able to make it next week as I am out of most of the ingredients... A question on the dried chiles, just how large is large? When I think of large chiles I think of ancho...

We have had a couple dog meat threads, here is one of them.

and let's not forget some previous strange food threads! whip cream and watermelon in your miso soup Theme restaurants

I have no idea of what bitter melon is called in Korean, but John that looks incredible! Defintely share the recipe when you get back and enjoy your trip!

I wish the Okinawa restaurant close to me was better... they used way too much oil in everything. Definitely try the slow simmered pork belly called rafuti. Okinawan soba is also really good, my favorite is soki soba with long simmered bone in pork as a garnish. soki soba

No Perlow trip would be complete without pictures. Thanks Jason! Those soft shell crabs look incredible!!

The suribachi is really the best way to do it, but I have also had good results with my microplane.... I use the 2 way grater one, 3rd one down. I think your yamaimo was fine , you just tried to grate it too finely.

Ed, as always thank you for another very informative post. I wonder why the Japanese don't use beef stock as much as other Asian countries?

Hey I was going to start this thread!! That guy that does the 'hall of Strange Foods' is hysterical, he sure does find some interesting things.