Balloon Shapes By Cops » Japanese Food and Drink

Valentines Dinner in Ashiya and Bennys Burger

Silentjim — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:32:05 +0000

Last Sunday Aki and I went to igrek Bellport, a posh French restaurant near Ashiya Marina – where the rich types in Ashiya park their yachts.

It’s a little pricey but well worth it with a selection of fantastic French food.

Fish Starter

It’s a little unfair to be calling the above creation a fish starter but it was predominately fish and did appear quite near the start of our many coursed meal (we started with a few oysters just to warm the appetite up).
Then came some soup thing (wasn’t a big fan of that, the it was layered, the top part tasting like Heinz vegetable soup – delicious – but the bottom part was an unusual brown swirly texturey thing which I left).
The two mains (for there were two), were more fish and then…
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Read the rest of Valentines Dinner in Ashiya and Bennys Burger (247 words)

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Post tags: Burgers, Eating Out in Japan, French Restaurant

Setsubun No Hi – Or Eat Long Sushi Day

Silentjim — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:01:02 +0000

Today is “Setsubun no hi” in Japan which means you’re supposed to throw beans out of a window to cast out “oni” or “demons” and eat ridiculously long maki sushi while facing this years lucky direction (South-SouthWest this year) and not speaking.

We don’t have any beans (and I’m not wasting any of my precious baked beans!) but we did eat this sushi…

Ridiculously Long Sushi

Are you sure that’s Juice?

Silentjim — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:35:29 +0000

I had my yearly medical checkup last month and suffice to say the results came back and weren’t too good.
I’m fat according to the Japanese medical profession.

“METABO” it said in big letters (it’s what they call Metabolic Syndrome).

(Although the criteria they use to define Metabo is a lot stricter than in England and the US, there I’d be alright…(well, I like to believe that anyway).

A girl at work had just done a 3day “Fasting” diet she called it, but basically you only drink vegetable juice for 3 days, with no food. Guaranteed to lose weight.

So I thought I’d give that a go…

First day was fine, hungry obviously, but no big problems. I was drinking the vegetable juice from the supermarket and it was all very pleasant.

Day two, Aki offered to make one of the “official” diet juice recipes (lots of cabbage, spinach, half a banana and soy milk).

Unfortunately we don’t have a juicer…only a mixer…so after some straining through a sieve we got…

Juice or Soup?

Is that juice? Or soup?

Truth be told, despite the unusual (rough) texture, it actually didn’t taste that bad (I put some ice cubes in it to water it down a bit).

The third day I went back to the vegetable juice from a bottle, but after having a two day headache and absolutely no strength anymore, I crumbled and gave up on the third (and last day)!

Tucked in to some good old tomato soup and toast that evening!
I managed to lose nearly 3 kilo though!

Now in the process of putting it all back on

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Shinkansen to Tokyo

Silentjim — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:15:10 +0000

The other week I had to go to Tokyo for a business trip, which meant I had to take the early bullet train (shinkansen), and get up at the ungodly hour of 4:30am!

I wrote this on the train on that morning:

——————-
Waiting for the 6:32 am bullet train to Tokyo. I’m surprised at how many trains there are to Tokyo and West at this time of the morning.

About every 8 minutes a train sees to depart like a normal rush hour but 2 hours early (I guess all the salarymen need to be in Tokyo for the 9 o’clock meeting start time).

As the Nozomi train pulls in with its absurdly long sloping nose it arrives like something literally from the future. Perfectly smooth and sleek like a white tube with port-holes.

It pulls in and you’re just greeted with white sides of the train (perfectly proportioned so you can see none of the engines from where you’re standing on the platform), the door slides open and you step in.

The inside is deceptively spacious. More leg room than a Business Class flight, with wide aisles (seats are 2 and then 3 across) and wide enough seasts for maybe even a Sumo wrestler.

But the most impressive aspect has to be the smooth, quiet engine. Almost imperceptible, just the relaxing click of the train tracks which soon vanishes as you leave the station area.

Quieter than a car and as smooth as a monorail. Lovely.

And the best thing…about 2 and a half hours later, it pulls in to Tokyo station at exactly the time stated on the ticket. Not a minute early or late.

————————–
Well, all I can say is, my prose is a lot more flowery at 6:30 am.

I wasn’t able to get a picture of the train, but did take this shot of my bento (boxed meal) I had on the way back.
Tasted quite nice too.

Bento on the Bullet Train

oh, and in case you’ve ever wondered what a Japanese Business Hotel room looks like (a businesss hotel is a cheap, no frills, tiny hotel room for travelling salarymen – but a good cheap alternative for tourists too!)

Japanese business hotel

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Post tags: Bento, Bullet Train, Business Hotel, Shinkansen

Kayaking and a Bit of Raw Meat

Silentjim — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:45:44 +0000

Just last weekend we finally got around to trying out the kayaking down at Ashiya Marina.

For those that don’t know, Ashiya is on the sea and although it’s not like a beachy resort type of place (as there are a lot of factories around), it does have a couple of beaches, although swimming in the sea is not recommended.

Down at the Marina they have subsidised canoeing and yachting, so you can rent a kayak for 1hour for about £2 (￥350), which is a pretty good deal.

I had canoed when I was a teenager, but never in a kayak, and it was Aki’s first time, so just a little bit nervous. Especially seeing as it was out in the sea bay.

After a quick lesson on how to paddle we were told to pick a kayak and take it to the edge of the water. Not realising there was any other option I got in and appeared to have picked the Japanese, lady size canoe. I could jam one leg in, the other was sticking out painfully. This did my balance a world of good and after a minute or so of me desperately trying to keep my balance and not go under, while an old guy was shouting “Put your legs in“, and me shouting back “Muri!” (impossible), I scrambled back to the shore and managed to prise myself out of the miniatue canoe.

They very kindly then helped me find a gaijin sized boat, and off I went again. This time, perfectly balanced and kayaking like a pro (not a pro kayaker mind, maybe a pro wrestler, or a professional computer programmer, something like that).

There then followed a very pleasant 90 minutes paddling about in the sea. We’re planning on doing it again, maybe a couple of times a month.

—————

As part of the Japanese governments plan to boost economy in the on going financial crisis, everyone in Japan (including foreign residents, which is nice) are being given ￥12000 each to spend. Well, like about 60odd percent of Japanese people (according to a survey in the paper), we spent one half of the cash on a slap up　meal at a yakiniku (bbq) restaurant!

And marvellous it was too.

I even tried some raw beef mixed with raw egg…

Raw Beef and Egg

looks nice huh?
Actually I only had a tiny spoonful, I wasn’t that brave, although it did taste quite nice, but only in small amounts I think.
Here’s me sampling it…

Me Eating Raw Beef

Looking at the photo, I’m not sure what’s worse, me eating raw meat, or the shocking Christian Slater, batman cowl, hairstyle I’m developing. When did that start receding so much??

Anyway, here’s another picture of probably the best meat of the evening, misuji (I think), it’s part of the shoulder, and it just melts in the mouth.
Amazing.

Misuji (I think)

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