Day 16, 17 and break.

Hello everyone, due to Comiket exhaustion of both my physical condition and monetary condition, I'll stop the 30 days food challenge until august 16th.
Expect a Comiket report post tonight or tomorrow (still got a bunch of pictures to edit)

With that said, I had some food eaten for the challenge, that I didn't post about, so I'll post them now.

Day 16: Yakigyuudon

YakiGyuudon is is Beef, cooked with fire (regular gyuudon is boiled) with a special sauce, on rice. It looks like gyuudon, but according to everyone "IT'S NOT THE SAME THING" so I posted about it as a different thing. Well to be fair, the taste is really different, and I prefer it to regular gyuudon.
You can find it at ChikaraMeishi, and I don't know any other shop that sells it right now.

Day 17: Sushi

Everyone know Sushi! It's one of the 2 most well-know food of japan (still not sure which is more well-know between ramen and sushi). It's fish, usually raw, on rice. The american style Maki (sushi rolls with a bunch of things in it) are not popular in Japan, you can almost only find nigiri (a piece of sashimi on rice) or small maki with only one ingredients, like in this picture, kappa-maki (cucumber).
It's a lot cheaper than in Canada, for example, 2 ebi (shrimp) nigiri is about 120-140 yen, where in Canada it's about 4$ if I remember well.
Well Japan has also really expensive sushi bar, with insane price, but I don't have the money to go eat in this kind of sushi shops.

30 days challenges: food - Day 15: Ramen

It has finally come, the day where I will talk about the most weel know (or at least one of the 2 most well know) Japanese dish.

Day 15: Ramen

Everyone knows Ramen. But not everyone has tasted real ones. If the Ramen you ate are "instant noodle" well it is Ramen, but, it's a world of difference from a Ramen shop's Ramen.

This Ramen was "Night Tonkotsu Ramen", no idea why it's called night, but it's a little more spicy than this shop's normal Tonkotsu Ramen, so I guess... you eat spicy food at night!

30 days challenges: food - Day 14: Choco Coronet

Sorry this post is almost 2 days late!

Day 14: Choco Coronet

A Choco Coronet is a bread made in a cornet/cone form, filled with a chocolate cream.

This is pretty simple, and depending on the brand, and the kind of filling, it can be really good. This one was good!

But... eating a Choco Coronet is not something you can do without asking yourself an existential question.... which side should you start eating a Choco Cornet from?
The head of course! It's a really easy question when you think about it.... but... which side is the head?

30 days challenges: food - Day 13: Tori no Karaage

Yesterday was another lazy day, so I made some Karaage!

Day 13: Tori no Karaage (chicken karaage)

I actually learned while searching for Karaage that, it was the name of the cooking technique, and not the name of the food itself. Before this I though: Karaage is deep-fried chicken, but apparently it can be anything (but usually mostly fish or meat).

In Quebec, we have a shop who sell's "Karaage" but Japanese karaage is completely different. But then again, it's also different depending where you but it here. This one was pre-cooked frozen one, not really that good, but cheap. One restaurant in Shimo-Kitazawa has really good Karaage, and they are huge too, and kinda cheap if you go before 5pm (lunch time).

By the way, even if this is different from the one the shop in Quebec sells, I still loved Quebec's one.

30 days challenges: food - Day 12: Monjayaki

WARNING: This post contains disgusting pictures.

Today the CTO of my workplace decided to treat me to some Monjayaki (and okonomiyaki). I told him about my 30 days challenge, and he proposed this. I had never heard about it, so I accepted.

Day 12: Monjayaki, or, the most visually disgusting food ever.

 

This looks just like a pile of v...
But It's actually pretty good! It's a good thing, in this kind of restaurant, you actually made it yourself, so I was able to see it being made in front of my eyes, or I don't think I could have been able to eat it.
You eat it with a little spatula, scratching the burnt part and eating it directly.
I also took pictures of the process, I'll post them too, because they make it seem less disgusting

30 days challenges: food - Day 11: Dorayaki

Today I felt lazy and stayed home, so I didn't know what to eat. Around 10:30 PM I went out to try and find something in a conbini, and noticed that if I would have gone out 1 hour before, I would have been able to see the local matsuri of my neighbourhood.... laziness is evil.

Day 11: Dorayaki

Dorayaki is 2 pancake-like patties made from castella wrapped around a filling of sweet Azuki red bean paste. It's really good, but I prefer Taiyaki to it.

Everytime I post about some food, I actually do a little search about it before, and today I learned that around 2003 there was a popular meme on the internet regarding Dorayaki. that consisted of a bunny called Oolong, balancing a Dorayaki on his head with the caption "I have no idea what you're talking about... so here's a bunny with a pancake on its head". You can learn more about this meme here:  http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pancake-bunny

30 days challenges: food - Day 10: Beef Kushiyaki

First thing: this post is 1 day late, but the food was eaten yesterday, so it's still ok for the challenge, which is to eat 1 different food everyday, not post about it everyday!

Yesterday I went to another matsuri, but it wasn't so great, so I wont post about it, but you can find the pictures here: Hanabi 8/03

Day 10: Beef Kushiyaki

 

To be fair, I'm really not sure about this name, but Kushiyaki is the general term to describe skewer grilled food, both poultry and non-poultry... and this one was beef. There's a couple results for this term "Beef Kushiyaki" on google, so I went with it.
It was pretty good, but it's in a festival so it was pretty expensive!

30 days challenges: food - Day 9: karē raisu

Nothing really fancy today, but something delicious, and really easy to make, Japanese curry with rice (and pork in this case). In japan you can find this kind of curry everywhere, and in multiple form. The cheapest I found was a big bag of curry in flakes, easy to melt, and really good.

Day 9: karē raisu (Japanese Curry with rice)

You can see on this picture, it's pretty simple, rice, and curry, and whatever is in the curry (in this case, only pork, because I'm saving money right now). I had originally planned to go to COCO Ichiban for the day I would post about curry, which is a good curry chain restaurant, but instead I'm showing you my home made curry!

30 days challenges: food - Day 8: Gyuudon

Gyuudon is really simple, it's beef, with onions, served on rice, in a bowl.
If you're on a hurry, or a tight budget, it's the prefect meal in japan. There's shop specializing in Gyuudon everywhere, it's usually fast and really cheap. The closest one to my home is Matsuya (who calls their gyuudon; gyuumeshi) and it only cost 280円 for 1 bowl, and it comes with a miso soup too.

Day 8: Gyuudon:

Matsuya is one of the 3 biggest fast food chains specialized in gyuudon, the other 2 being Yoshinoya and Sukiya. I actually prefer Yoshinoya, but close to my house, and close to my workplace, there are only Matsuya.

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!

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!