30 days challenges: food - Day 7: Onigiri

Nothing really fancy today, I went to the conbini and bought some Onigiris.

Day 7: Onigiri

Onigiri are pretty simple, it's rice pressed together, surrounding some kind of ingredient, usually fish, surrounded by nori.

Usually Onigiri have a triangle form, but this one, which is my favourite, is made like a hockey puck.

30 days challenges: food - Day 6: Shabu-Shabu

Today was my friends birthday. We both love Shabu-Shabu, so we went to one of our favourite restaurants in Tokyo, MK.

Day 6: Shabu-Shabu

Shabu-Shubu is a kind of Nabe (hot-pot),  or like a fondue. You have a pot in the middle, you cook food in it, and eat it. Shabu-Shabu's pot contain an almost tasteless soup, depending on the place, sometimes it's just water, usually there's some konbu (a kind of algae), or some other dashi based soup. Shabu-Shabu's taste doesn't come from the soup, but from the sauces you dip the meat/vegetables/noodles in. There's usually 2 of these sauce: Ponzu (which is heavenly delicious) and a sesame based sauce.

I love ponzu, and I love Shabu-Shabu, it is probably my favourite Japanese meal.

30 days challenges: food - Day 5: Melon Pan

It's not the first time I talk about Melon Pan on this blog. I first learned about melon Pan in Shakugan no Shana, so the first time I came to japan, I was excited to eat one, loved it, and ate one almost every days. When I came back to Canada, I still wanted to have melon pans. Same thing happened in my second trip. But somehow, since I started living here, I don't like Melon Pans so much anymore.
Oh well, they are still good and cheap, but I don't crave for them anymore

30 days challenges: food - Day 4: Hiyashi Soba

Today I went to Akiba (another post on this will come this week) and ate lunch with a friend.
It was a really hot day, so we tried something cold!

Day 4: Hiyashi Soba (cold ramen)

If you think soba is a thin brown noodle, you're right, but it's not the only definition to soba. Soba actually includes all thin noodles, so a lot of noodle made meal have the word "soba" in it.

It looks kinda like a normal ramen, but it's cold, and there's less soup, just a little at the bottom, and the soup taste a lot stronger than usual. It's always weird to eat something you're used to eat hot, cold. But it was really enjoyable, especially in this hot day. I'll probably eat this again this summer!

Asakusa Sumida River Hanabi Matsuri

Today I went to the Hanabi Matsuri (fireworks festival) of the Sumida River, in Asakusa. I've been asking people to take me to a matsuri for a while, one like in Anime, with Stalls and Firworkd, well aparently this one is one of the biggest. And god was it huge, there was a LOT of people, as you can see from these 4 pictures, taken from the same spot (facing different directions)

And this was only near the metro exit, there was a lot more around, and near the Asakura Temples.

The main reason I wanted to see a japanese matsuri, was for the stalls (called Yatai in japanese). I've always wanted to live that experience, well at least since I saw it in anime!

And it was awesome! but unfortunately, the rain came and broke the party, so I could only try 1 food (Oosakayaki, from my last post) and one game. My friend also ate a Choco-banana.

Here are some pictures from the stalls, and around the temple:

I said I played one game, the game I played was the Water-balloon-yoyo capture game, I don't know it's name, sorry, but here's the video of me and my friend trying it, and failing horribly (but the guy gave us the balloon anyway!)


The fireworks were suposed to last 1hours and 30 minutes, so we decided to eat and play around before we went to watch them, unfortunatly they were cancelled by the rain, before we got to that part, but we were able to see a little of them above the temple and reflected on windows!

After that we went to hide from the water, and waited until it got a little weaker before we tried to go back home, only to find out the metro station was so crowded, they closed it (wtf).

While waiting I took some pictures of people fleeing the rain... These are kinda sad pictures, of people weareing beautiful yukata, having their fun broken by the rain!

That's all for this report! Even if our time there was kinda short, I had a lot of fun, I was thrilled to see a japanese festival, and I'll make sure I go to another one, and hope the rain don't cancel it too!

You can see all the pictures from this day here: Sumida River Hanabi Matsuri

30 days challenges: food - Day 3: Oosakayaki

Today I went to a Matsuri (I'll make a separate post for this) and ate Oosakayaki. I'm still not sure what it is exactly, I can't find any info in English on it, you can find its Japanese Wikipedia entry here.

I guess it's some kind of Okonomiyaki, it tasted similar... I didn't really like it, but it was ok.

30 days challenges: food - Day 2: Udon!

Hello, this is Day2 of my 30 day challenge : A new Japanese food everyday for 30 days.
Today I went back to one of the first restaurant I've been upon arriving in Japan. Their Udon are delicious, but a little expensive, which is why I didn't go for a while.
so Today's food:

Udon (with tempura)

 

Udon is pretty much a bigger ramen, but,the dough is not made the same way, and require a great pressure.  Last time I came to Japan, I had a class on making Udon and the dough was put inside a transparent bag, and we had to step and jump on it.
There's at least two ways to eat Udon that I know of, this one: as a soup, the other way is to take the udon from the water, then drop them into a sauce and eat them.
Udon is often coupled with tempura, but not always.

30 days challenges: food

Someone showed me that TED video about 30days challenges and since lately my life's been kinda boring, I decided to try it. Now I'm in japan, and I should do something that makes me "taste" japan, so I decided my first challenge will be, try 1 new Japanese food per day, for the next 30 days.
So I'll be posting food pictures! lol!

Day 1: Taiyaki

A pretty simple dessert, Anko (red bean paste) surounded by  pancake or waffle batter, forming a fish. And it's delicious!

Little Witch Academia

Sorry I haven't been posting anything lately, I'm writing a nice post, but it's not completed yet, so while you're all waiting I've decided to write about something happening right now.

Little Witch Academia is an Anime short created for the project Anime Mirai, founded by the Japanese government for the training of your animators. It's a marvel of animation, and the story is really interesting.
You can watch the official youtube version here:



So after watching this for the first time I though to myself: "OHHHH I really wish this wasn't just a one shot, and they would make more of this"
Apparently I wasn't alone thinking this, and the studio (TRIGGER) listened to us, and started a Kickstarter to fund a second episode.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1311401276/little-witch-academia-2

The kickstarter was fully funded in under 4 or 5 hours, and at the time of this writing, the team is working on creating stretch goals.
I'm personally hoping for a full length movie. Or a series.

Keep checking this page and back this up!