Japanese bento (弁当)

Before I went to Japan, I made a wish list and one of them is try the railroad bento. I made a list of specialized bentos for the cities that I might stop-by or list.

This tiny food box can have so many variations.  Each train station has specialized bentos that made from local produces. One of the train stations from Hokaido is famous for the stuffed squid. The squid is stuffed with sticky rice then cooked in soy based broth. Sendai offers its famous ox tongue bento. There are even books listing popular and famous railroad bentos. The bento containers are collectable for fans. Some of them are offered limited number everyday, seasonal or during certain time. 

Somehow everytime I arrived the train station was last minute which didn't give me much time to look for the bento selling spot. (sigh!!!)

I got my first bento in the department store in front of Sin-Osaka. It looked like it was from a well-known restaurant. The dishes were maily soy-based. I am not a big rice eater, but the rice was just sooooo....... good. Outstanding! That's the only word I can think of. The taste and texture are definitely different from the good quality Japanese rice I bought in Asian supermarket. 

These were the bentos I got from department store in Himeji. I rushed into the store and grabbed these 2 within 10 minutes in a very speedy way. The arrangement looked so appetizing. According to my cousin, the best time to get good deal on these bentos are few hours before the department stores close. These vendors have to clean the house. Everything left for the day has to go. When my cousin was an exchange student in Japan, she would take the advantage of buying bentos for her lunch and dinner for the next day. It was a very good deal. The downside was the place could get very packed. Since everyone is out hunting for the good bargain. Isetan department store is a well-know store. The one in Kyoto station is busy enough during non-weekend day time. When we went there at night for cheap bargain, the place was jam packed.  

Instead of coke, I had a very in-style drink -- green tea. It came from vending machine and was warm. Pretty cool!

During my trip, I had few other bentos, but I just forgot to take pictures. Yes I am getting my Alzheimer early.

homemade vanilla extract

I first came across this idea from a Florida lady's blog. Later I found out that this has surfed around bloggers for a while. I never bought a real vanilla extract in my life, even though I baked a lot sometimes. I just couldn't see myself spend $20 for a small bottle when I can pay $2 for an imitated one.

I happened to have some vanilla pods on hand, but not the alcohol. Fortunately, certain brand vodka was on sale in the supermarket and it was a small bottle. After I finished all the labor work I realized that the alcohol content is too high. It supposed to be in between 37.5 (??)-40%. Well, since I am such an adventurous person and I am not in the mood of digging out all the pods. Next day I got the 40% vodka and made a small bottle. Let's see how these come out. Mystery will be solved after 8 weeks. 

food I wanna eat in Japan -- Tokushima ramen in Kyoto station

Kyoto Train Station, view from top terrace

Since I didn't have much time, my cousin suggested me Ramen Alley located in Kyoto Train Station. The place should satisfy my craving because it accommodates regional ramens around Japan and the quality shouldn't be bad. With target in mind, I headed to the station not too early but early enough to avoid the crowd.

you will know you are
heading to the right place.

early hours in ramen alley

 There are other food choices in ramen alley, cafe, hambuger (not the chain one), takoyaki and (green)tea place. For green tea, I would suggest Giontsujiri (茶寮都路里) located at 6F of Isetan department store. (It has various locations.) The green tea sundae was so good. That will be another story to tell. 
 

ramen display outside the store
This one is Osaka style
(大阪上方ざんまい屋)

I walked around the alley few times. It is not a big place but with so many choices I could have. Since I am a greedy person, the Eeny, meeny, miny, moe thing still couldn't help. For someone like me who doesn't understand Japanese, all the restaurants have displays showcasing the dishes. There are vending machines outside each store. You put money in and receive a ticket back. The waiter will take the ticket once you walk into the store. 

I finally settled for this one -- Tokushima ramen (徳島 ラーメン東大) Up until now I still don't know why I chose this one. Probably because I kind know the characteristics of other regions' ramen even though I haven't tried them all yet. And I had no clue what Tokushima stands for until I got back home. It was an accident of google surfing and I came across of this region's special ramen. (It is one of the prefectures in Shikoku island. I know Kagawa Prefecture is famous for Sanuki udon (讃岐うどん) because of wheat production in the area.)

The spice rack on the table

pickled plum, it was very salty.

In case you wonder why there's a
bowl of eggs on the table. These
are free. It says on the right
bottom of the menu.
Traditionally, it adds into
the noodle soup.

   

menu

(picture taken from internet)

Ta-da, here comes the noodle I ordered, 徳島ﾗｰﾒﾝ in small size. It looked very different from the ramen soup I know because the broth was so dark and brown. The broth tasted so rich and salty. These soup for ramen all have been simmered on top of the stove for hours. But this one tasted different and it felt like the soup came from stewed meat stock. Unlike big thinly sliced meat of Sapporo or Tokyo ramen, this is thinly sliced pork strip. Eggs are added to the soup to ease the richness of the soup. Because of the richness and saltiness of the broth, the noodle soup is eaten along with rice. To me that's kind weird. I have enough carb from a bowl of soup already, no need to have more. Thank god I was not in Atkins diet.

I usually finish food I ordered if I eat out, but this one I just couldn't do it. I poured some water in my soup already, but it's still too salty for me. Still, it was very YUMY! Overall, lit was a lucky accidental choice.

basket for my jacket

People started to line up during lunch hours

Check out the place if you are ever there: ramen alley

The easy way to freeze tomatoes

If you read my previous article, then you know I have a fetish of using freezer. Somehow I never did on tomatoes until one winter I just bought way too much. I just cann't resisit the price, particularly during winter. I know I can do the canning, but I don't have that many cans on hand.

Basically, I did the whole nine yard things. Cut the corss on the bottomw of the tomatoes, put in a pot with boiling water, remove the tomatoes from the pot and immerge them into ice cold water. Then peel the skin off.

One day, I was talking to one of my customers and he said his cousin does that all the time when she has too many tomatoes coming from her garden. These tomatoes seem to ripe in the same time. She washes these tomatoes clean and put them in the freezer for later use when the tomatoes are $5 per pound during winter. Whenever needed, she put these tomatoes in hot water and peel the skin off.

just took out from the freezer

I cut crosses on the bottom of the tomatoes before I put them in the freezer. I find the tomatoes with crosses are much easier to peel the skin off than these without marks. But some luncky ones will crack themselves in the freezer without cuts. On the safe side, I prefer to spend few seconds to do the labor work.

the left one cracked itself in the freezer

cut side down in the water for easy handling

Soak the tomatoes in hot water just for few seconds. IThe skin is so eary to peel off, but the flesh is still frozen. I made tomato slushy once from the frozen tomatoes. Cutting them has to be very careful because they are hard to handle while frozen. 

Voila, mission accomplished!! These are ready for cooking.