Photographer Russell Wong and his wife are KyotoFoodie fans. Hey, thanks!
When he came to town, he took me out for dinner — twice! His wife even called and asked if he was having dinner with KyotoFoodie. He kindly gave me a copy of his book. Thanks, Russell!
I tried to line him up with some snow and bamboo forest to shoot, but I failed to make it snow. Sorry Russell!
Russell is a lot of fun to hang with and told me a bit about how to shoot portraits, which is something that I want to do more of and get good at. Check out his site at the link below.
www.russelwongphoto.com
4 weeks ago
The last meal I had while in the Japanese New Year’s celebration mood was a breakfast of sukiyaki. I love sukiyaki! I cooked this with udon and heaps of nanohana rape blossoms. Yum!
1 month ago
I was in Tokyo for several days on business and I was kindly invited to dinner at a Kyoto-style oden restaurant (and then a magic bar). The night was extremely cold blustery and oden was the perfect hot and hearty, at home kind of meal to combat the onset or winter. If you are a regular reader of KyotoFoodie you will probably know that Kyoto cuisine is all about dashi (broth) — and water. In Tokyo they don’t have good water, so they can’t make good dashi.
Shochu is often drunk in Japan mixed with hot water. It is quite pleasant for a winter evening drink. Hot plus alcohol is the perfect combination. Recently shochu mixed with hot Chinese oolong tea and sometimes even green tea has become common, but not a favorite of mine. This restaurant kind of out did itself with this homage to Kyoto — shochu and hot dashi soup stock!
I was incredulous when I heard what my mates were drinking. I ordered one up and was very surprised. I was expecting something weird, but it was actually very good. I think the point is that the dashi is fairly light and the shochu used is mugi (barley) shochu.
Restaurant: Raku (Kyoto-style Oden) 楽 京風おでん
東京都新宿区丹町５番地
03-3351-2328
access: Yotsuyasanchome Station on Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line
Magic Bar: Ginza Hachi-ji 銀座 八時
東京都新宿区荒木町８番地
03-3225-8000
http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g636103
access: Yotsuyasanchome Station on Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line
2 months ago
Last winter I made my first nukadoko, the pickling bed for nukazuke. It made a lot of amazing tsukemono but when summer came I didn’t mix it enough and it developed a bit of mold on the surface. I let it sit in the refrigerator all summer full of cucumbers. While the cucumbers might have been especially tasty and sour, I threw them out, with all but a handful of nukadoko from the very bottom of the pickling pot. Yesterday, I made up a fresh batch of nukadoko and used a bit of the old as starter.
In the photo above there is un-roasted nuka in the plastic bag and roasted nuka and salt in the pots. Basically you need 400g of salt, 2k of nuka and 2 liters of water to get started.
Our KyotoFoodie article on How to Make Nukazuke: Nukadoko Pickling Bed has everything you need to know to make your own Japanese nukazuke pickles.
3 months ago
Some years ago I discovered Marco Polo Tea from Mariage Frères and recently became acquainted with Marco Polo Tea flavored jelly. The flavors are out of this world! I bought some kokuto bread (Okinawa ‘black sugar’) just for this jelly.
3 months ago
For Cheri’s 8th birthday, she got a huge piece of beef. I was almost as long as she is! That is a lot of beef. She didn’t seem to mind that it was Aussie beef, rather than real wagyu. But hey, she watches the news, she knows that there is a recession on!
Happy birthday Cheri Beagle! May you have many more!
4 months ago
火伝 is one of my favorite, late night convenience store junk food providers. 火伝 is from a storied old company in Niigata and they have a clever and nearly endless number of seasonal and regional potato chip-like junk foods. Theirs is mostly cracker-like deep fried mochi.
This one is ponzu, a citrus vinegar and soy sauce that makes all sorts of things including grilled fish yummy.
5 months ago
If I hadn’t known that it was whisky, I might not have guessed. I mean, I knew it is hard liquor, but what kind of liquor exactly escaped me.
Now I knew that it wasn’t going to be stellar at the rock bottom price I bought it for — 700 and some odd yen for 750 ml. That is beyond cheap! But I did think that it would at least make reasonable whisky and water to take what is left of summer off the nights.
On the positive side, next time that I want to make marmalade with whisky instead of water, I know the brand to use.
The other upside is the glass. I got this glass from a guest from Switzerland recently. It is a pretty awesome glass, indeed!
What a great glass!
Did someone change the meaning of ‘finest’ and not tell me?
I am guessing that this is a beagle.
I know that this is a beagle because I sleep with her every night!
5 months ago
Nostalgic Japanese Carbonated Drink Flavored Kit Kat for Summer
Japan is the king of weird but very tasty junk food. Kit Kit in particular goes to town in Japan with regional, seasonal, limited edition flavors. The flavor variations come out in rapid succession and usually make you stop and think, Wow, I would have never thought of that on!
This Kit Kat is ramune flavored. Ramune is Japan’s original carbonated soft drink. It is a take on lemonade but to a Westerner it might taste a bit more like bubble gum.
Ramune is synonymous with summer in Japan as it is thirst quenching.
This is the kind of thing that I am interested in eating just once in my life. It really tasted like something made in a laboratory. This Kit Kat tasted like it was made with chemicals, pretty good ones, but chemicals never the less.
6 months ago
