Kyoto was the second stop on my Japanese adventure. It was so different from Tokyo. Where Tokyo is all about modern Japan, Kyoto felt like it was all about traditional Japan. What better place to try okonomiyaki?
We stayed at a great little hostel called the Capsule Hotel that had showers right in the room with blue lights inside them (romantic? sexy?). They also gave us a little guide that showed local restaurants that were near where we were staying, economical, and had various types of Japanese food. It was so helpful! The first night we went for okonomiyaki at Chabana. The one above is seafood and the one below is chicken and leek. It is like a savoury pancake - batter poured over "fillings" and cabbage, topped with Japanese mayo and a sweet sauce. They were really good, but very rich, so by the end you feel crazy full.
After, even though we were stuffed, we stopped at a "standing bar" and couldn't resist splitting tempura ice cream. To die for!
While in Kyoto we visited the Nishiki Market. It was crazy! Read the sign below the octopus lollipops. We saw a guy buy three! Also, check out the sack of fish row. It was the size of a small salmon.
In the middle of our big temple and shrine touring day we stopped for our favourite: Tonkatsu.
One evening we went to an amazing Yakitori place. Basically Yakitori is grilled skewers of chicken, but not just chicken breast, all sorts of chicken parts. We had chicken skin, chicken meatballs (middle right), chicken hearts (top right), a lot of chicken thigh and leek, and then we took a break from chicken and had some mushrooms wrapped in bacon (bottom left), and some littleneck clams in a wine and butter sauce (yup, as good as it sounds - bottom right). Oh I wish I could have more.
In the mornings we didn't have breakfast buffet like in Tokyo, so we stopped at a little bakery. The one on the bottom was almond paste in a pastry that was dense like a bagel, and the top one has eggs, bacon and cheese baked in. I liked that one the best.
In the morning we would also get ourselves vending machine drinks. I like the iced coffee, even though at home I don't really drink coffee, because it was heavily sweetened. My husband got hooked on Royal Milk Tea, which is basically half tea, half milk, sugared to within an inch of its life. It is served cold as well.
And what is a trip to a foreign country without a stop at McDonalds to try things we don't have at home. We got a Salt and Lemon chicken sandwich (left) and a German Sausage Chicken sandwich (right), neither of which we were very impressed with. We also got a Shake-a-Shake-a Chicken (a breaded filet with a package of seasoning in a shaking pouch). It came in pepper (good), cheese (a bit too Kraft dinner for me), and lemon (didn't try). My husband loved the white grape drink.
Unlike Tokyo, I feel like I have "done" Kyoto now, so I am not sure I will be back, but it was really nice and some of the cultural sites were amazing! It was also cute that we were approached by many groups of school children asking us to do a quick interview in English. How did they know? Haha.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Eating in Kyoto
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Almost Pocky
I thought it would be a cute idea post-Japan to give home-made Pocky out as a Christmas treat, so this weekend I roped Court into helping me out. As she said, our efforts were "not quite Not Quite Nigella" (whose recipe & instructions I pinched). The dough was not the easiest to make without a stand mixer but I managed, and the results are remarkably close to the real thing. It also made for a fun afternoon of decorating, even if our artistic skills are approximately Grade 4 level (and I'm being generous here). For toppings, we had dark, milk, and white chocolate, and some green tea chocolate made by mixing matcha into white chocolate. Everything else was whatever I could find in the pantry: - dark chocolate shavings - yellow & pink decorating sugars - cashews - dried cranberries - ground almonds - candied ginger - kinako powder - sea salt - pepper - chili powder
Monday, November 15, 2010
Eating in Tokyo
I went to Japan! It was amazing (and much too short, but better short than not getting to go at all). For those of you that read and actually know us, it should be noted that Brooke also went to Japan, for much longer than me and has been back more than long enough to have posted first.... Anyway, here are some food pics from Tokyo. I loved Tokyo. The food was great and cheap, and the people watching was unreal (but the fashion didn't translate well for 30somthings in Canada). The above was from one of many 270 Yen places. It is 270 Yen for anything on the menu (just over $3). We had chicken skin and chicken thigh skewers, sushi, and fried shrimp (which turned out to be fried shrimp heads).
We ate a ton of Tonkatsu. This one was from a vending machine restaurant and only cost about 700 yen.
Speaking of vending machines, getting drinks anywhere at anytime was no problem. Here are some of our favourite alcoholic selections (the Chu-Hi was like a cooler but not sickly sweet like the ones here can be).
One day we went to a place called NamjaTown (which seemed to be some sort of kitty themed amusement place). It contained GyozaTown and Ice Cream City, both of which we gave a try.
When my brother was on tour in Japan, they visited Yamachan a lot for wings and then insisted we go too when we got there. It was a good recommendation. How to describe their wings? Sweet, salty and spicy all in one in perfect proportion.
A tempura restaurant on the restaurant floor of a mall.
Mmmm fried chicken (they keep a lot more fat on their meat than we do, and it is a good move taste wise) and BBQ beef in a Korean BBQ sauce. Korean BBQ sauce is everywhere and delicious!
and just for laughs, this was part of the breakfast buffet at our hotel (the B Ikebukuro). I am pretty sure it is just rice and milk, but calling it gruel is pretty funny.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Rainbow Cake
My baby's favourite colour is rainbow (okay, my favourite colour for her is rainbow), so I went with that as a theme for her first birthday (how is she one already!?!?). I know, I know, it's not exactly new anymore, but I wanted to do something cute without spending hours piping little icing rosettes all over a cake. I just don't have time to spend 5 hours making a first birthday cake that she won't even remember. This rainbow cake is a great solution because it takes about 2 minutes more than any normal cake. I used a nice sugary, buttery cake recipe that has gone over well in the past. It freezes well, so I got to make it a couple of days in advance. All I did was put the batter into 5 cereal bowls and coloured each one with different food colours (yellow, orange, red, green, and blue). 
Then I drizzled each colour into the cake pan. 
Unlike marble cake, I don't swirl the colours because I want them to all be visible themselves. 
To finish, I iced the cake with a plain white buttercream icing. I just wanted it to look really plain on the outside so that it would be more of a surprise when it was cut. My daughter stuffed as much of a full piece as possible into her mouth and gobbled it up, so it went over well with the target audience.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Waffles - Homemade Eggos
I really like waffles. I figure an Eggo waffle on a regular basis is probably not the most healthy choice though, so the other day I decided to make my own buttermilk waffles - tons of them! - and freeze them like homemade Eggos. I guess it may have also had something to do with the fact that I accidentally bought a big thing of buttermilk instead of homo milk. Why are they almost the same!?!? Anyway, this is my favourite waffle recipe, and freezing them and then toasting them in the morning worked out really well. I got the recipe from the Epicurious website:
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Salmon Salad
I still exist! I'm going to go ahead and assume most of our readers have jumped ship under the assumption that we did. I'm still here, still cooking and baking, still eating, just have not been posting thanks to my little one's need for attention and her love of my laptop (I need to keep it hidden or risk losing keys). This is an oldie from the summer, but I wanted to pop something up during nap time so that I can try and get back into blogging. Nothing fancy, just took some leftover BBQ salmon (BBQ'd with butter, lemon and dill) and flaked it on top of spinach and mixed salad greens from my garden. I added some dried cranberries and goat cheese because I like adding those to most salads, and then topped with a quick balsamic dressing. Yay for posting! I hope to keep it up over the next little while again since I have realized a few recipes I use a lot need to be added.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Simple Pork Wrap
Celebration! I have a new computer! My old one crapped out a while ago, and I am finally getting going with my new one, but it will take some time to transfer all my photos and files over. Really it's great though because I have so much spare time to do stuff like that - haha. I have now put that task on my husband's to do list. As seems to be the case all the time now, I have been keeping things simple on the cooking side. The other day I made a pork tenderloin crusted in rosemary, thyme, oregano, and whole grain mustard. I love making little roasts because they leave me with great leftovers for lunches. I made a little variation on an old favourite proscuitto sandwich of mine.
Basically the elements end up being very similar. I used sliced pork instead of proscuitto, a pesto wrap instead of the ciabatta bun, stuck with the apple and sharp cheddar, and added in a mix of spinach and baby kale from my garden. Simple, healthy, and easy to eat with one hand (which is a major bonus for me these days since I can now do most things around my house one handed).
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Restaurant Update
It's not like I am eating out a lot lately, but I thought that it was about time to start updating The Restaurant List slowly but surely since I have not been keeping up with openings and closings. I started today with St. Albert because it is small, manageable, and we live here. There are some new places, some that I just hadn't listed before, and some places have new websites - yay! I'll be trying to update other sections over the next bit, but feel free to leave a note if your fave is not on the list.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Chicken, Fig and Mushroom Wilted Salad
This salad is perhaps the opposite of healthy. It is, however, extremely delicious. Also incredibly easy - made up on the fly, as it was - providing you have some pretty obscure ingredients to hand. Luckily, I had stopped by the Italian Centre on the weekend and noticed fresh figs (which I had not previously tried) and my freezer has goodies like the pan scrapings from a roast goose. Fabulous, and under 10 minutes to make.
Chicken, Fig & Mushroom Salad (serves 1):
100g chicken thigh or breast, cubed
large handful crimini mushrooms, sliced
1/4 onion, sliced
1 fresh fig, quartered
very large handful spinach leaves
1 tbsp goose fat
1/4 cup goose pan scrapings
salt & pepper
The pan scrapings and goose fat meant I did not have to spend any time worrying about flavouring for the meat. To start off, I melted the goose fat in a fry pan and cooked the onion and mushrooms until softened. Those were set aside and the pan scrapings were added to the pan with the chicken until cooked through. The spinach was topped with the mushrooms and onion and those were topped with the chicken. Then I added the fig and some good bread to mop up the drippings, and had a lovely al fresco dinner.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Avocado Pear Salad
A few weeks ago I was over at Court's for a family dinner and forced(!) onto salad duty. Without any pre-planning, we had to work with what she had on hand, and also work around preferences that include no balsamic vinegar and no strong cheese. Surprisingly, this was a hit with everyone. I say surprisingly because Court's husband claims to not like pears or avocado, and my dad claims to not like avocado and cheese.
Avocado Pear Salad:
1 head romaine lettuce
1 avocado, chopped
1 pear, chopped
goat cheese
Sweet Vinaigrette: (my new go-to)
2 tbsp minced onion
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
salt & pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
