Finally time for Food!

Hi there!

Well it's time for that post.  Japan is a fascinating place for the foodie in me and the food is pretty, let me say, different here.  While many more people know Japanese food than knew Zanzibari food, I'm going to tell you about my experiences here nevertheless.  Maybe you'll see something that we can try together when I get back to America!  One thing I've struggled with a lot in Japan is the lack of eating and drinking while walking or doing anything publicly.  The Japanese are very private, and this extends to food as well.  You don't eat a burrito or drink a coffee while you walk to work, so eating on the go is uncomfortable.  Definitely something to get used to, especially once I realized how different it was during my few days in Korea, where everyone had coffee and a snack in the streets.  

And I've had some nice fancy meals too!

Snackies:

The snacks are probably the best part of Japanese food.  A staple of casual food culture are "konbini" which are the convenience stores like 7-11, Family Mart, and Lawsons.  These konbinis are open 24/7 since they must always be convenient.  Since this is Japan, everyone is incredibly nice and polite, so whenever you walk into any konbini or restaurant or store or literally anywhere, you are greeted.  Also, you can buy just about anything your heart desires at konbinis, from snacks to booze to toiletries to full-fledged meals.  And the best part of buying the meals from konbini is that they'll warm up your meal for you and give you a towel and chopsticks to eat it with.  The options are literally endless.

Bugles still exist in Japan, and they're teriyaki flavored!

These mushrooms are a gift from the heavens.  A cookie stem with a chocolate head, it's bliss.

Look at that little mushroom!

Japan loves European food (mostly French but they do spread out) so they're not hard to find!

Sweets in Japan aren't very sweet which is a huge relief from how sweet things are in America.  And most sweets are made from some form of rice.  These are rice balls lightly sweetened.

Japan absolutely loves Kit Kats.  These are matcha (green tea) flavored

And these are sake flavored.  Eat enough and you'll get drunk.  Seriously.

These are apparently bean-like sweets.  I don't really know what they are but they're amazing.

Red bean paste is a common sweet here and is in almost everything.  I'm not a fan of it but it's okay in small portions.

Food:

Those balls are takoyaki.  They're rice balls filled with bits of octopus and are probably the most famous street food.

Japan is also famous for their over-the-top ice cream parfaits and the hype is worth it.

Of course, sushi.

Matcha (green tea) ice cream with matcha powder sprinkling.  The best ice cream ever.

This is tayaki.  This pastry is filled with anything from red bean paste to sweet potato to custard.  Except the red bean, they're amazing.

Soba (buckwheat) noodles and shrimp, veggie, and seaweed tempura.  Restaurants and businesses here can also be hundreds of years old.  This is one of the oldest restaurants in the world, sitting at 551 years ago, founded in 1465.

Sweets and matcha

This was some bread filled with matcha ice cream and I devoured it.

Also at konbini you can buy full-on meals.  This bento box was prepared so nicely!

Soba (rice noodles) in a hot broth.  Great warming dish, I really need to find a place that sells this in Colorado, since it would be perfect for skiing lunch.

This is okonomiyaki.  That translates literally to "fried choices".  It's a rice flour with bacon on top.

And alas, the famous Kobe beef.  It's cooked on a hibachi and pre-cut up for you so you can eat with chopsticks.  It's amazingly tender and the best meat you'll ever eat.  Order it rare.

Grocery Shopping:

So grocery shopping is a bit weird in Japan.  I struggle really hard with it since everything's in Japanese and in Japanese only so sometimes I just look at the labels on things thinking that maybe if I look at it long enough it'll just translate but it never does.  Also, be sure to bring your own grocery bags or get charged lots of money!  And be ready to bag your own groceries.  Be prepared to spend an arm and a leg on fruits and veggies though.  If it's not a $9 bushel of grapes or a $3 apple, it's a square watermelon for $18!  

Pro tip: If you want to save a bit of money, go later in the day.  Since the Japanese value freshness more than anything else, the longer food sits out, the more discounted it gets.    

Drinking:

There's plenty of seasonal brews to choose from at konbinis.  I just loved the design of this one.

There are very few craft breweries in Japan, but of course I found one!

Matcha tea + Kahlua cocktail

Sake of course.  Still not a fan of sake, but I keep trying and keep not liking it.

And finally, a whisky tasting at Yamazaki Whisky, who have won more international whisky competitions than any other distillery, so aka the best whisky in the world!

This is only a snapshot of all the options in Japan, but I've already posted too much.  I hope y'all learned a bit of something since I certainly have while eating all of this!  Thanks!

Kim

Very Sharp, Very Knife

Hello!

If you've read many of my blog posts, you know I usually write about cultural aspects of where I'm traveling instead of just telling you that I went somewhere, ate something, and saw some cool stuff because I find that boring.  But today, I'm going to tell you a story.  I guess it has a cultural background, though, since this is very Japanese and something you find only in Japan.

Food is great though!  These are takoyaki, pan fried balls of rice flour with pieces of octopus inside!

Everyone who knows me knows I love to cook.  I especially love good knives.  So it comes as no surprise that I would buy Japanese knives while here.  So today I'm going to tell you about the most amazing place to buy handmade Japanese best-in-the-world knives that's far from the business of the more touristy areas of Kyoto.

I'll be the first to say that I did not stumble across this place by myself.  One of my professors in Denver teaches at Doshisha Business School and she got the info on where to go that's not the one super touristy knife place.  These knives are just as good as those (AND CHEAPER).

The first barrier as to why this shop isn't as visited as the main tourist one is that it's hard to find.  I basically wandered around a general area looking for one small sign outside of one small building.  Naturally, I went in circles for a while until actually finding it.  When I walked in, I was greeted immediately, as is customary in Japan, and I was amazed at how many knives there were in such a small space.  The entire shop is probably the size of my dorm room and has hundreds of knives, scissors, shears, anything sharp, and not just stuff for the kitchen either (hair scissors, thread scissors, and more).

This is 90% of the shop, and there's another whole wall of knives, floor to ceiling, to the right

Anyway, it's a father and son (at least that's what I gathered) who run the shop and the father spoke enough English to tell me how he makes the knives and showed me the three layers of steel he puts together to make the knives.  It's obvious he loves his craft and has been doing it for a long time.  And just to drive home the point that his knives will last a lifetime, he showed me a knife his wife had for over 40 years that's significantly smaller than it was when it was new but still just as sharp.  Even though the best Japanese knives are expensive, they're the only knives you'll ever need and they last a lifetime.

See that knife on the left?  That used to look like the one on the right and is still super sharp even though it's been grated down over the last 41 years by the owner's wife.

Once I decided on the knives I wanted (two for me, two for gifts), it took me a while to figure out that I was being asked which name I wanted inscribed onto the opposite side of the knife.  So I wrote out my name so that it could be phonetically converted into Japanese.  I just thought he would take the knives I took out of the cabinet and inscribe them.  Nope.  These were just the models.  His son comes from the back (there was a back in this tiny place?) with never-been-touched individual pieces and the father then spends a good 20 minutes washing them, drying them, sharpening them, and making sure they're sharp by gently dragging them through a newspaper and watching them effortlessly slice the newspaper in half.  It was amazing.  He just put so much care into each knife, and then to inscribe my name, takes out a nail (it looked basically like a small flathead screwdriver) and a small hammer to hand scribe my name in Japanese onto the knife.  I don't know what I expected but it sure wasn't that.  

He's hand engraving my name in Japanese onto my knives!

After inscribing each knife, he hands them to his son who places them in perfectly-formed boxes and wraps them in beautiful paper.  While I'm waiting for all of this (since it takes a while to do a craft properly!), I'm asked how I heard about this place, and I mentioned it was because of my professor, and I explained that I'm a student at Doshisha.  He hands me a guestbook to which I take it as "find the person who recommended you come here" which I did!  The guestbook was so cool because not only did it have people from all over the world writing how much they loved their experience here, but this man took the time to write down what each person bought below their signature, so he was able to show me what my professor bought when she was here a few months ago.  I also signed the guestbook, expressing how happy I am to have these beautiful works of art and how excited I am to cook with them!

Such beautiful packaging!  Thanks for taking some of the Christmas wrapping chores away from me!

My knives are all packed and I'm ready to pay and take them out the door, and I say thank you many more times than is necessary in both English and Japanese (because I never feel as though I can express how thankful I am for something in any other language but English) but I really feel as though I got the point across by how much I was smiling.  As I was heading out the door, the son said "Wait!" and I though I forgot my wallet or something, but he was stopping me to give me a cookie.

Look for this sign with the scissors in black with a bit of yellow

This sign!

Needless to say, I love these people and everyone should bring their business here.  Directions below:

The name of the place is Hayakawa Hamonoten.  From the Shijo station off the Karasuma subway line (subway stop K09), head East on Ayanokoji Dori for three blocks until you get to Sakai-machi Dori.  Turn right (South) on Sakai-machi and it will be on your right.  The location is on Sakai-machi Dori between Ayanokoji and Bukkoji Dori.  Google Maps location is below.  Look for the sign outside!  

If you can read Japanese, check out their website at www.hayakawa.ws/hamonoten 


Arigato!
Kim

The Post You've Been Waiting For

Hamjambo!

So if you know me, you know I love everything about food: the smell, restaurants, cooking, and especially eating.  I know that once I come back from Zanzibar, after friends and family tell me how tan I'm getting (which is pretty tan if I must say so myself), they'll ask me about what I learned to cook.  Meals in Zanzibar are different than anywhere else I have visited, so I thought it would be cool to, instead of just saying the food I'm eating, to take you all through the steps of a Zanzibari meal.

Firstly, you are invited to a friend's home for dinner.  Dinner is eaten pretty late here, anywhere between 7 and 10 pm (that's 1 and 4 usiku in Swahili time), so you show up around seven thirty because Swahili time is never on-time.  The most important thing is that you take your shoes off when you enter - in Islam, shoes are considered dirty and shouldn't be worn in the house.  Also, if this is a formal occasion, you should dress for it.  That means full headscarf and makeup (and for the mzungus, makeup to make you look Arabic).  For Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday celebrating the end of hajj (the pilgrimmage to Mecca), I had my makeup (over)done by my host mom.  See below.

Anyway, back to the meal.  You need to greet your host with a handshake (people use the "limp fish" handshake technique or just a low high-five basically) and you hold on until you've finished multiple rounds of greetings.  There's no appetizers set out, no glass of wine (Muslims don't drink alcohol), just a floor mat and pillows or if you're lucky, a couch.  Eventually, you hear "Chakula tayari!" (food's ready!) and you head for the dining room.  You'd expect a dining room like at home with miscellaneous paintings on the walls and a table and chairs in the middle.  Wrong.  There's an eating mat spread out on the floor with some plastic on top for food spillage, which will definitely happen.  No chairs, no table; you sit on the floor cross-legged around all your friends and family.

The food spread out before you is like nothing you've ever seen: breads, beans, some veggie things, something that looks like a fat pyramid, mounds and mounds of rice, potatoes (the potatoes here are incredibly sweet), fruits, and that one thing you know you love - chapatti.  Chapatti is a wonderful food, it's a flat bread that's buttery and flaky and I almost don't want to know how it's made because I know it's going to be extremely unhealthy.  You do a second count of the people in the room and look at the amount of food for those people and think that there's no way that double the amount of people could finish the meal in front of you.  Wrong again.

Those breads: chapatti, coconut bread, and boflo (bread loaves)
Beans: I hated beans before I came here, now I love them.  Still have no idea how to make them.
Veggies: peas in a curry coconut sauce, pilau which is a soup with potatoes, meats, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and whatever else you want basically
Fat Pyramids: they're called samosas and they're incredible.  They're usually come in beef or veggie form, and they're basically the meat and veggies wrapped up in filo dough, similar to what they use to make baklava in Greek recipes
Rice: a staple of a Zanzibari diet.

One of the first things I learned in Zanzibar was to always serve yourself, don't let a Zanzibari do it because you will get your dinner plate covered in rice with the top of the mound rising about six inches off the plate (and that's no exaggeration), and then you get pilau and other stuff on top of it.

Oh, and did I mention that Zanzibaris don't use silverware?  It is common and accepted to eat with your hands.  It is both a cultural and religious belief - that Mungu (God) made us to eat with our hands and he gave our hands something that makes the food taste sweet that you lose if you use silverware.  My first time eating with my hands was an absolute disaster, there was rice everywhere but in my belly.  I've picked up on some of the techniques now though, and I can almost finish a plate like a Zanzibari.

So you've been eating with your hands all these foods you've never seen before, and are ready to birth your food baby when your host grabs your plate and you think you're finished.  Haha, NOPE.  An equally huge portion of rice, pilau, meats, and everything else gets piled back on your plate.  Your expression just drops as you realize that you might actually throw up if you keep eating.  A helpful phrase is "nimeshiba", meaning "I am full", but that actually means nothing to Zanzibaris and you have to eat more food anyway.  And once you're actually done and there's no more food to be piled on your plate, it's time for chai!  Chai (communal name for all tea in Kiswahili) here is delicious and spicy and served extremely hot, which is great on super hot and humid days!

And by the way, cooking is done on the floor as well.  So hope your leg muscles are ready for a bunch of squats!

Anyway, once you're finished with absolutely everything, it's time to head back home, so you thank your host with goodbyes that are longer than the greetings, put your shoes back on, and pass out on your bed from all the food you ate.  Time to do it again tomorrow night!

Asante sana kwa kusoma!

Kim

Coffee, Buzz Buzz

Hello!

So I've been on a bit of food crunch blog posts lately, and I'm continuing that with one of the most popular beverages in the world: coffee!   I first had my taste of coffee while being an orientation leader for the University of Denver's freshman orientation week my sophomore year.  I would go to bed at around 2 am, and then have to be somewhere the next day at 6:30 am, so I was in desperate need of caffeine that week.  First tasting coffee, I started with lattes, and quickly progressed to drinking black coffee since I love the taste so much.  And that's important to me - I drink coffee because I really enjoy the taste, the caffeine is just an added benefit!

This summer, one of my roommates had a Keurig K-cup brewer, and I've been wanting to try some new coffee flavours for a while now.  So I went to Amazon and found a 20-pack of all different flavours and brands of coffees and had it immediately shipped to me.  Below, I break down the coffees, what I thought, and taste notes, along with a "coffee bean" rating on how much I liked it on a scale of 1 to 5 coffee beans.  Check them out, and find something new to try!

Brown Gold Brand:

Flavor: 100% Brazilian Extra Bold
Hot/Iced: Iced
Buy Again?: Maybe
Taste Notes: Definitely an extra bold coffee, almost black when brewed.  I definitely think it would have been better as a hot coffee.  Was a good dark blend, but nothing special with the taste.

Flavor: 100% Colombian Medium
Hot/Iced: Hot
Buy Again?: Yes
Taste Notes: Another coffee with nothing too special in terms of flavor, but has a really fresh and just-ground taste.  Actually pretty bold for a medium roast.

Caza Trail Brand:

Flavor: Donut Shop Brand

Hot/Iced: Hot

Buy Again?: Yup

Taste Notes: Good, more bitter coffee, very strong flavor.  It has a nice balance of being a bitter coffee but not super bitter to the point where you need to add more creamer than you have coffee.  

Flavor: Kona Blend

Hot/Iced: Iced

Buy Again?: No

Taste Notes: There's barely any flavor to this. 

Flavor: Coastal Blend

Hot/Iced: Hot 

Buy Again?: Yes

Taste Notes: Was pretty doubtful of this flavor since I wasn't a huge fan of the one above from the same brand, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one.  The flavor is really good and it mixed well with my French Vanilla creamer.  

Coffee People Brand:

Flavor: Black Tiger

Hot/Iced: Hot

Buy Again?: Maybe

Taste Notes: Actually not that strong of a coffee smell when brewed, but the coffee is VERY bitter - almost too bitter for me, and that's including creamer.  Coffee is very crisp, not much of an aftertaste, but just really bitter.  

Donut House Brand:

Flavor: Cinnamon Roll

Hot/Iced: Iced

Buy Again?: No

Taste Notes: The smell is fantastic, it smells like you have cinnamon rolls baking in your house.  But when tasting it, there's barely any coffee taste, it's just like a punch in the face from the cinnamon.  I've found that Donut Shop has very strong coffee flavors, but this was too much for me.  

Flavor: Original

Hot/Iced: Hot

Buy Again?: Yes

Taste Notes: Another one of my favorite coffees in this pack.  A really nice, clean, and smooth medium roast that was a bit sweeter, which I really liked.  I also would have really liked to try this coffee iced, so I guess I'll have to buy more!

Emeril's Gourmet Coffee Brand:

Flavor: Big Easy Bold 

Hot/Iced: Hot

Buy Again?: Maybe

Taste Notes: Basically, if you want bold coffee, this is it.  

Green Mountain Coffee Brand:

Flavor: Breakfast Blend

Hot/Iced: Hot

Buy Again?: Yes

Taste Notes: I'm biased to Green Mountain Coffee, I generally really like their coffee and I've had this one before this experiment, so I knew I was going to like it.  Nothing special coffee flavor, but I really liked waking up to this.  

Grove Square Blend:

Flavor: Hazelnut Cappuccino 

Hot/Iced: Hot

Buy Again?: Yes

Taste Notes: The smell was not so much coffee as it was the hazelnut.  Nice to change it up from bitter coffees with this sweeter one.  The hazelnut flavor was not as strong as you would have thought from the smell, but it's just enough.  I wish I had it iced though.  

Flavor: Pumpkin Spice Cappuccino

Hot/Iced: Hot 

Buy Again?: No 

Taste Notes: Good spicy flavor, but don't really get any of the coffee flavor.  Actually a pretty watery flavor to be honest.  The spices are the dominant flavor, and they're pretty overpowering.  

Flavor: French Vanilla Cappuccino 

Hot/Iced: Hot 

Buy Again?: No 

Taste Notes: Can't taste the coffee in this one either, and it's way too sweet.  You can only taste the vanilla flavor.  

Marley Coffee Brand:

Flavor: Medium 

Hot/Iced: Hot 

Buy Again?: Yup 

Taste Notes: Very strong aroma, I thought this one was going to be pretty bitter, but it wasn't, it was a really good medium roast.  Nice balance since it wasn't sweet but wasn't overpowering bitter.  

Flavor: Light 

Hot/Iced: Hot 

Buy Again?: Maybe

Taste Notes: The flavor is good but not as good as the medium roast.  I like stronger coffee flavors, and this wasn't my favorite, but still not too bad.  

Martinson Brand: 

Flavor: Dark Roast 

Hot/Iced: Iced 

Buy Again?: Sure 

Taste Notes: Very strong aroma, and a strong flavor to match.  Good for wanting coffee, but not wanting all the sweet crap that coffee shops put in their drinks.  

Flavor: Vanilla Velvet 

Hot/Iced: Hot 

Buy Again?: Yup!

Taste Notes: Smells like a coffee shop, and it tastes awesome!  Little bit sweeter than a regular coffee (obviously, it has vanilla in it), and I think it would be really good iced as well.  This was I think my favorite coffee in the mix.  

Flavor: Pumpkin Pie 

Hot/Iced: Hot 

Buy Again?: Maybe 

Taste Notes: I had higher expectations for this coffee since I liked the vanilla flavored one, but it wasn't too bad.  Maybe it was because I was drinking pumpkin coffee in August?  Might give it another try in the fall when the flavor is more in season.  But there was definitely a nice mix of coffee flavor and pumpkin and spices.  

Newman's Own Organic: 

Flavor: Newman's Special Blend 

Hot/Iced: Iced 

Buy Again?: Maybe 

Taste Notes: I really liked the flavor of it - but I definitely think it would have been better hot than iced.  Actually a pretty bold flavor for it not being titled "extra bold" or anything.  

Tim Horton's Brand:

Flavor: 100% Arabica 

Hot/Iced: Iced 

Buy Again?: No 

Taste Notes: Smells like cheap coffee.  Tastes like cheap diner coffee.  

Thanks for reading!
Kim