Tuesday, February 3, 2015

A loss, hiatus, and somewhat of a return.

My laptop died. It fell ill for a while, but I didn't suspect the seriousness of the condition at all. It was fine and then one day I found it unresponsive. We tried our best to revive it.. but despite our best efforts, it was declared dead on January 18th at 12:07a.m. I was so reluctant to pull the plug, but it had to be done. I am still in denial. I just can't believe it. It was alive and working just the day before. It was still young... 

Due to the unfortunate circumstances, I have been neglecting this blog. My laptop and I, we started this blog together. It will be hard to continue without it. But this post is my first effort to move on. 

As my blog was created to share my food adventures, I have an obligation to write something about food. Here it is:

Just the other day, I finally discovered Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup in the import foods grocery store called Jupiter in the underground shopping area, CRYSTA, in Shinsaibashi. 


It's not too difficult to find the Campbell's brand in major Japanese supermarkets. However, I find they only have a few types of soups and the same ones in every place they're found. Usually, these are potage, cream corn, minestrone, and clam chowder. So the discovery of chicken noodle soup was pretty exciting, since I was craving it during my cold a few weeks back. 

So, there you go. They do have chicken noodle soup in Japan. 

If only I had found it before my laptop passed on... I could have treated it better. I didn't even have a chance to say "goodbye."

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

White Strawberries!!

I'm walking along the marketplace just outside exit #10 of Nippombashi station and I discover these incredible-smelling white strawberries! I had never seen or heard of them before, but apparently, they are not all that rare. Also known as "pineberries," the aroma itself is enough to stop you in your tracks. You can smell the sweetness from quite a distance away. They're a bit expensive, as you can see below. One pack was selling for 1,680-yen plus tax or two packs for 3,000-yen plus tax.


There was a sign that read that these white strawberries are only grown from two farms in Japan and the sweetness is three to five times more than that of a normal red strawberry! I was a bit weirded out by the color at first, since they look like they're sick, but I really wanted to taste them. So, I came home with one pack and readied them to eat asap.



My... dear.. gawdd..... First of all, when you open the door and enter a room with a bowl of these in your hand, the sweet, pineapple-like scent wafts right in and fills up the whole place. The texture on the outside is the same as a red strawberry, but when you bite into it you can tell that it's softer - almost like a cantaloupe. The taste is fantastic! It's like a mix of strawberry and pineapple without any hint of tartness. I crave for more, but we can't really afford to indulge in these special fruits every week, unless we allocated all of our budget to go toward a white strawberry diet. Hmmm...


One thing I did notice about Japan is its love for rare and special fruits. I once saw a pair of mangoes selling for almost 10,000-yen in a grocery store. I also read an article about the highest selling black watermelon that went for over $6,100 and "Yubari" cantaloupes that sold for $23,500! 

The Japanese sure do love their fruits. Fruits in general cost a lot more in Japan than anywhere else I've been. But if you do your research and explore a bit, it's not too difficult to find marketplaces where fruits and vegetable prices vary and you can score a good deal

For example, our closest chain grocery store sells a bag of around seven mikans (Japanese mandarin oranges or tangerines) for roughly 400 ~ 500-yen. However, if we walk a little further away, there is a big marketplace where boxes of mikans sell for just about 300-yen! There is absolutely no sacrifice in flavor, either. I have found that all fruits in Japan are sweet and delicious!

So if you find an expensive luxury fruit somewhere and you really want to give it a try, I'm certain you won't be disappointed, but I'd recommend that you take a look around for better deals first.

Takeru no Steak

On Saturday, January 10th, hubby and I stopped by a bookstore in Umeda and bought a couple magazines featuring many of the different restaurants in the particular areas surrounding our home. We decided to randomly select a restaurant by flipping through the pages and pointing at one.

We landed on Takeru no Steak, which specializes in the one kilogram steak bowl. Despite being warned to reduce his intake of red meats during his annual health check, hubby was more than happy to beeline over there.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, they were sold out of the 1-kg steak bowl. Then again, we did arrive around 9:40 P.M. A friend of ours informed me that the first five people to order the 1-kg steak can get it for just 940-yen! One day..... one day........ we'll get hubby's BMI down and we'll head there for breakfast. XD

Anyway, this place is located within the Tenjinbashi-suji shopping arcade 5-chome in the street heading the East-West directions. You can see from the storefront that it's definitely a beef place.



The interior was small, which is not unusual for all the small and delicious restaurants in the Tenma area. By doing a quick lookaround, it looked like there were roughly nine seats at the counter and a table for four in the back. I was very happy to see that this was a non-smoking place - which is rare for this kind of small establishment in Japan.

It's really too bad that Japan has yet to ban smoking from public areas in this day and age. Hopefully, this will change in the near future so we can all enjoy our food with all the senses without the smell of tobacco smoke interfering with our experience.

Along the top of the walls were autographs from various celebrities, which is always a good sign. There were hangers on the wall behind the counter for coats and slots beneath the counter to put your bags. I love that most every place in Japan makes it standard to have someplace to put your things.

The music was an interesting mix of early American 80s pop. It's not something you hear too often in Japan. The old soul in hubby was groovin'.


The signs on the glass explained the different spices and sauces that were available to use with your steak. You'll find no A1 sauce here, but you may never need it again after tasting all the flavors made specifically for what you are eating. (If you absolutely cannot let go of A1, the next closest thing is Tonkatsu sauce. I personally recommend the Bulldog brand).


The server brought out this Takeru sauce, which was a mixture of onion and soy sauce base, to have with your steak. It was very light flavored, not really onion-y or salty at all. The onions were grated, so there weren't any chunks of onion inside.


There was also this little bin of sauces at the table. I didn't bother to use any of these, aside from the garlic chips and dressing for my salad. I highly recommend the garlic chips sprinkled on top of your steak (the red lid).


There are aprons available as well for the messy eaters. The little sign on the utensil box says you can get the soup, salad, and unlimited rice refills for 210-yen during dinnertime only. We went for this option. When you say "set" we say "go." ^-^


With the seductive sound of meat sizzling in the background, I proceeded to order the 200g "double" size Chuck Eye. Although the staff asks how you would like it cooked, they don't hesitate to tell you how it should be cooked. So I ordered mine medium-rare, as that's how they suggested it, and hubby ordered his 200g Harami steak medium-well. 

We got the "cup" of soup and salad first. The soup is good by itself, but also good to add a few garlic chips or pepper. The salad wasn't too special. It was just your average mix of cabbage and other veggies.


Then, we got our sizzling hot plates of steak... complete with a slice of butter melting on top. I'm looking at these photos again and my stomach is growling. -,-;;

My Chuck Eye was really juicy and soft. It was perfectly cooked as they recommended. The little bit of butter added to the simple salt and pepper seasoning and made it delicious on its own. I sprinkled some garlic chips on top and had a few bites with the Takeru sauce. Yumm~~ There was no ketchup for the potato wedges, but that's just the American in me I have to work on suppressing. 


Perhaps because hubby's steak was cooked medium-well, it was more chewy and the texture was more "stringy," for lack of a better work. It was good, but we both prefer not having to chew so much. 


But for 1,300 ~ 1,400-yen per plate, we were more than happy. You could never get steak like this in the states for this price!

All in all, we will definitely go back someday because I have my eye on the rib roast. But we don't know if we'll ever make it back because of the overwhelming number of other tempting restaurants occupying every square meter of Osaka. The only thing we worry about is whether we'll be able to visit all of them before we die. Won't that be a shame.

*Tip: Go as early as possible to try to get one of their limited 1-kg steak dishes. 

Takeru no Steak - Tenma
タケルのステーキ
Address: 5-6-22 Tenjinbashi, Kita-Ku, Osaka
Phone: 06-6357-2929 (Seems to be a play on words: 2929 = "ni ku ni ku" = "meat meat")
Hours: 11:00 ~ 23:00 (Last order 22:30), Lunch 11:00 ~ 17:30



Dreams and Rice

I am coming to realize that when one big dream comes true, many little dreams also start coming true.

Real happiness, with a side of rice.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Safety On-the-Go

There's never a shortage of interesting things to see when you visit Japan. For example, this condom dispenser on the side of a narrow street lined with late-night eateries in Tenma.


Japan doesn't like to inconvenience paying customers. It's night, there's food, there's beer, but drugstores are closed... "What more can we do to make customers happy?" BAM! A condom machine, available 24/7, for your convenience.

Cafe du Monde - Umeda

There's nothing like the bittersweet taste of an icy Vietnamese coffee after a hot meal. It's my absolute favorite, any time of day. The caffeine keeps me up watching Youtube until 4 A.M., but that's okay - there are plenty of videos of cats diving into soda boxes to keep me entertained.

The first thing that worried me about moving to the far east was whether or not I'd be able to have this drug-like elixir when I needed it. That, and the 3000 calorie Chipotle burrito.

The concept of "Vietnamese Coffee" does seem to exist in Japan. However, the one I tried in a chain cafe was just a watery cup of.... I don't know. But it wasn't even good coffee. So I did some research and discovered that there was an actual Cafe du Monde coffee shop right here in Osaka.

Vietnamese coffee is made using a specific coffee drip, condensed milk, and a very strong, espresso-like coffee. The brand that seems to be used everywhere in the states is Cafe du Monde's "Coffee and Chicory" from New Orleans.

*I found this photo online.*

So when I saw that I could get this brand within a 20-minute walk from my house, I was ecstatic! Hubby and I went to check out the cafe today, and though they did not sell Vietnamese coffee, they had plenty of other drinks and of course, their special French beignets! Soft, warm, powdery sweet.



Hubby got the Iced Premium Cafe Au Lait, which was very milky, and I got the regular coffee (size M). We got a side of strawberry jam for the beignets, which cost a little extra. All were very good and the black coffee was not super watered down like most of the coffee I've had here so far. The beignets were not too sweet as the only sweetness came from the powdered sugar on top. I would definitely go back for the coffee.

You'll find that people in Japan tend to drink coffee more often as a hobby than as a part of the daily routine as many do in the U.S. Since Asians are not traditionally coffee drinkers, the coffee will be much less bold than it is in other parts of the world. Personally, I like my coffee mild, but not watered down. The only exception is when I have my bold Vietnamese iced coffee; And Cafe du Monde is THE coffee for that.

*Tip: When you order drinks or food sizes in Japan, they usually don't say "small," "medium," or "large." Instead, you want to say, "S size," "M size," or "L size."

Cafe du Monde - Umeda, Osaka City

カフェ・デュ・モンド茶屋町ショップ

Address: 6-25 Chayamachi, Kita Ward, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture 530-0013, Japan
Phone: 06-6372-5015
Hours: 7:30 ~ 23:00

A late start.

A fortune teller once told me that the only job that would make me happy is one in which I would travel the world and use my creative mind. She suggested journalism. One year and five months later, I escaped the American Midwest and bought new hangers for my cardigans smack dab in the heart of foodie central - Osaka, Japan. Two months in, I've finally decided to write.

Thank God, I came equipped with a Japanese hubby. Although, one year of high school Japanese enables me to find the toilet on my own. I could start talking about how Japanese toilets range from prehistoric squatters to ones that have more buttons than a 747 cockpit, but I will reserve those details for a later post.

Right now, I'd simply like to welcome you to read about the things I eat from now on. Live and Eat, Osaka!!