This is my latest creation: Frozen wrinkled Daikon (white radish)
Oh, and frozen expired tofu too.
I have simply bought too much food in my previous grocery shopping spree. Since I haven’t been cooking much in the past week, most food was just lying helplessly in the fridge… forgotten and expired. Some (even the pumpkin) became frozen.. Remember the grapefruits that I bought early last month? there are still 2 left… I cut one up this morning, barely any juice left. As I’m writing this, I suddenly remember the bananas.. they must have turned into charcoals by now.
Anyway, I tried to not be もったいない (wasteful) so I dumped all the expired goodies into my miso soup for lunch today. Tasted as good as they were fresh, except for the radish…. no matter how long I cooked it, it was still crunchy like those pickled ones you find the supermarket… Is it supposed to be that way? I was dreaming of those steamed soft melt-in-your-mouth radish with soy sauce.
——
White Day in Japan was several days ago. As a tradition, guys would give gifts to ladies, as a return for the Valentine’s chocolates. It’s a custom that ladies at work would give chocolates to their male colleagues on Valentines day, to show gratitude. The Jap term for this is 義理チョコ. What I received from some colleagues… though I did not give them any chocolates :-<
Some chocolates from AB-san
Mamadors from O-san, they are just white bean cakes. They are bought from Shinjuku... Japanese really know how to do business.. with all these different "editions" of the same sweets.
Home baked cookies from Mayor-san.. he bakes way better than I can lol
Now I really wanna buy a oven, to bake things and share the edible ones with my coworkers. And I need a rice cooker too.. I am very sick of udon/spagetti now. With a rice cooker, I can finally eat Natto with rice and make congee once in a while too! Plus rice cookers save so much cooking time! A bowl of hot rice, Natto and some soy sauce can satisfy me!
Saw these on Amazon JP- I love how Amazon can deliver to convenient stores, so I can pick up after work.
炊飯器 3合 一人暮らし 1380 Yen! for a mini rice cooker
KOIZUMI ホワイト 1582 Yen! for a toaster oven
Can a 1000W toaster oven bake anything other than toasts??
———
Oh and also on White Day, our office had a worker’s strike! It was rumoured to begin on Monday, but somehow got delayed.
So what is a strike really like in Japan?
It's 5pm and office was almost empty.
WTF right? Yeah, a strike in Japan (or maybe just in my company) is basically employees have to leave work by 5pm. Which is a normal time for North Americans to leave work (assuming arrive work at 9am). Plus, many employees here arrive earlier than 9! Some didn’t even want to go, as they had unfinished work. =_=;;
The higher people settled things fast too, people were back to their “normal” work hours the next day haha
So Canadian teachers who are on strike now.. consider yourselves “lucky”, because you don’t have to work at all(besides protesting on streets)!
———-
Some random musings…
I am craving for steaks and pizzas recently. So one day after work, I went for a American restaurant, hoping for a steak fix. I saw they were advertising with gigantic posters of meat. I walked in and ordered the same thing.
I was stupid.. they weren't steaks at all.. they were just hamburgs (hamburger patty). Argh... and every bite was soft and oily. Portion was little too, each piece is half size of my palm! I needed something to rince the fattiness in my mouth and fill my half empty stomach... so I went for crepe afterwards -_- But yeah, Japanese love hamburgs. And I guess if I really want steaks, I'd better go to some fancy steak houses.
For my Pizza fix, I saw this All you can eat Pizza/pasta place in Yokohama the other day... They have many flavors, even sweet ones such as "chocolate banana".. can't wait to try!
Chicken-katsu set dinner at 大戸屋. Went there twice this week. Economical with good portion and I LOVE the plum sauce and sweet radish on top of the chicken. I'm usually stuffed after eating here.
When lining up to order at 大戸屋, the waiter usually ask how much rice the customer want. I didn’t know how to express different sizes in Japanese, but lucky me! The guy lining up in front of me ordered the same thing… And I copied what he said haha- “Omori 大盛り” If he was a girl, then I’d probably end up saying “Small bowl please” lol The bowl was big, but wasn’t filled… Useful meal size phrases I found on a site.
Although 並(nami), 大(dai) will works on most of the place, but others would depend on each restaurants.
- For Small – 小 (shou), ミニ (mini), 半分(hanbun), 少なめ (sukuname), S (エス) …
- For Normal – 並 (nami), 普通（ふつう）, 中(chuu), M (エム)…
- For Big – 大 (dai), 大盛り (oomori), 多め (oome), L (エル)…
- For Special Big – 1.5盛 (ittengo mori) (sukiya invented it)
- For extra Big – 特盛 (tokumori), 特大(tokudai), …
- For extreme Big – 鬼盛 (onimori), (超)巨大盛 (chou kyodai mori), バカ盛り (baka mori), 激盛り (geki mori), メガ盛り (Mega mori), ….
———-
Finally, I’m currently planning a Hanami(花見) weekend trip to Kyoto in early April. Night buses are cheap (7600 yen) round trip.. but all hostel rooms are full! !! I’ll try my luck again, if not I’d delay the trip for one or two weeks.. hopefully the cherry blossoms aren’t gone yet!
Been raining alot lately.. if weather is nice tmr, I’d probably go to Akiba and Ueno.. to check out ricecookers and cameras for my bro.
Blah. 