Love at second sight.

In my last post, I ranted about how gross Mentaiko (明太子) was.

It's not you, it's me...

The way it looked, the way it tasted… Eating it with Natto was plain nasty, and I was sure it was all Mentaiko’s fault.

Coming home tonight, I did my usual brainstorming exercise on what to eat for dinner… and I saw the left over sac of Mentaiko. Damn, I thought, and it’s expiring today. I had a dilemma of whether to chuck it away or not. But it cost 250 yen! So 125 yen right here…. with this money, I can buy an item from 100 yen store with 20 yen surplus! OKAY, FINE. It’s like getting on a scary coaster, you just gotta do it.

Since I was trying to save money and had ONLY a piece of bread for lunch (130 yen! I hate counting how much I spend, it’s worse than counting calories…  ), my stomach told me I needed A LOT of meat, or carbs- which ever is available. I took out the only 2 packs of udon left in my fridge and gave Mentaiko a second chance..

Ingredients: One sac of Mentaiko, 2 packs of Udon, some Onion and Golden Needle Mushrooms

Cut up the stuff and fry the onions with golden needles...

Put the Udon in and squeeze out the Mentaiko (think milking a cow), don't waste a tiny bit! It's 125 yen!

Fry 'em! I have no butter, so I added some milk in... otherwise it would be too dry.

Voila! An easy 15 mins dinner... Mentaiko at its finest!

Thank god I had 2 packs of Udon… It was so savoury that I licked up the whole pan, just to not waste a single bit of fish roe! The udon and Mentaiko just complements each other! Since Mentaiko is already marinated and full of flavours, it’s not necessary to add any salt at all. I am in love with it now. Gonna buy more after I get paid and try to eat it in different ways. A few ideas I have now…

1. Eat with crackers/toast

2. Pan fry plain Mentaiko (inspired by the burnt bits on the rim of the pan, was sooooo good)

3. Mentaiko Tofu salad

After a good meal, gotta drink some plum wine, cheers 😀

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Snow view from office.

WTF, I thought Spring was coming since it kind of warmed up last week. Yet it started snowing today!!! Not the flaky type too… Plus the strong wind, I almost froze to death this morning walking to the station… This must be a rare case because I saw many of my colleagues taking photos throughout the day. I hate snow, I just do.

A parking lot of bikes at a nearby apartment

Damn, I want a bike. The cheapest I see is 7000 yen...

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Yesterday I went to check out a Foreigner Association close by the Yokosuka Chuo station. It was my lucky day! I was just gonna visit the office to ask about Japanese classes. I got there 5:45pm and there was a class starting at 6pm! Apparently there’s no registration involved… There were 3 students including me, and 4 teachers LOL And it cost only 1000yen for a term (3 months, weekly)!! So it’s pretty much private lesson and costs close to nothing. I checked out the schedules of other classes (different locations, but close by) and there are only night classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. IS THIS PERFECT OR WHAT? I am busy on Wed (badminton) and Thurs (Jap@ Yokohama) anyway…  So I will go to ALL classes on those three days from now on! I swear I’m gonna work to hard on Jap.. and watch only Jap dramas XD

So one of my ‘classmates’ – a girl of from Shanghai… apparently, her husband works at my company too! He was an intern before and became a fulltime last year. They live in a dorm a block away from mine! She’s been in Japan for a year, and she can converse in Japanese. She said her husband did it in just 3 months!

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Some good news,

• My credit card application got approved, so I can soon pay bills with my Jap card (no need to worry about 2% transaction fee using canadian cards)
• I MAY get paid on March 9th, so if I can survive one more week, it’d be all good (plus my supervisor said he would lend me $$)
• Since $ is “no longer” an issue, I will stick with my weekend travel plans (Roppongi 六本木 for an interactive design exhibition, and Meguro目黒 for two museums: Parasites and Gajoen(雅叙園).