Time to say goodbye -- Gourmet trip toTsujiki Market

        

I almost cannot catch skyliner to the airport because I miscalculated the travel time. Everything all worked out. Thank god.



I didn't know that Nartia also carries this Kyoto product. It is oil absorbing paper. According to my cousin it is fantastic. I bought it while I was in Kyoto, but it still stays in my drawer.

Since I still had sometimes on hand before the flight took off, my target was to find the sumo mug. I am not quite sure I will find it because it was a long time ago. My cousin asked me to buy this mug for him as a gift for his then ambiguous girlfriend. I also bought one but gave to someone.



My friend in Okinawa said this mug represents the Japanese culture. If she has the chance to come to Narita, she would get one too.



My first meal from Mos Burger, pork chop cutlet sandwich with corn soup, since I landed. What a difference!!! If I could, I would just stay at home and sleep if there was no soap class early in the morning. I supposed to get into the airport around 10pmish, but the flight was circled in the air for almost 2 hours because the whole airport was all backed up. There was typhoon the day before. Even though it did not cause any severe damages, it still affected some areas such as transportation. At least I got my ticket worth -- the extra 2 hours flying in the air.

trip to Tokyo -- Gourmet trip to Tsujiki Market

Rumor has it that Tsujiki Market will be relocating because of the 2020 Olympics. My first time being in Tokyo was in my senior college year. I was lucky to stay in friend's apartment. His parents own a rental apartment and it was vacant when me and my friend were visiting. But I was sick for 3 days while being in Tokyo only for 5 days. The rest of the trip I did go to Tsujiki Market and Tokyo Disney. I can never forget the brown rice tea and green tea I had in the market and the cheap ramen. Ah............

I managed to get a late flight to Tokyo (No flights on Sunday), that means that I have to leave in the middle of my soap making class.



I took some food from VIP lounge just in case plane food won't satisfy me.Plus, I have no idea what time I will be arriving in my hotel. I get moody when I am hungry.



My gourmet tour will be starting soon........

Fois gras with balsamic vinegar dressing

This can of fois gras has been sitting in my pantry forever. I suffered on the net and finalized easier version. 

Coasted fois gras slices with flour and brown both sides in a skillet. Take them out and put on a plate. Pour in balsamic vinegar in the same skillet and reduce to thick consistency. Drizzle the dressing on top of the fois gras. Voila.  

Yum, it is very taste. I know it is a bit insane to have it for breakfast. 

okinawa trip -- gyuan BBQ

last sunday was the store's grand opening. apparently the business was good for the first day. i know i worked hard and almost lost my voice on the first hour when the customers packed the store.

the reward for everyone was open menu and open bar in Gyuan.

Okinawa -- first day

Market these days is so boring. Nothing new. Angel said her friend is opening a brand new duty-free shop in okinawa and is short of staff. The store is experiencing difficulty of having people willing to work there. It is not big city like Tokyo or Osaka. Not much is going on in small town plus the weather is pretty much the same all season round.


   


  
Airplane's VIP Lounge


It is just another excuse to travel. Ha......................


  

The store manager came to pick us up and helped us settled down in the company's apartment.

Angel's nephew took us out for late dinner, marugame udon.


 I had it before when I was in Kyoto. It is the same situation, late night dinner. But as long I have good food, I am a happy camper.









   

before and after the snow

Mother nature changes her mind so fast. The day before it was sunny, and the next day......

 

 

Montreal Chinatown.

it's a sad news! Mazuka is closed.

I cannot believe it closed and the space is for rent. I've been looked forward to having perogi and potato pancake for a while.

Mazuka was one of my favorite restaurants in Montreal. The beet soup was so good and stil makes me mouth watering. Yummmmm........... Still miss it. I still remembered friend of mine took me there the first time. It was in winter and we sat next to the French door. It was snowing outside and soup was served hot inside. Later I took some of my friends there, everyboday all loved it.

While surfing on the web, I realized the restaurant was hit by the recession and closed for few years. I wish these people the best.

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.