What you see is what you can never eat

Hi. Recently, it is very very very deadly hot and humid in Japan. Even though it is hot, people especially adults have to face to face with computer. It is tough, isn't it? I have recommendation for those people to use this "Omu-Mouse" in order to relax. haha This seems like real Omu-rice, but it is actually "Mouse" of computer. You can plag it to USB connecter n use it as Mouse.

Today, I'd like to introduce not mouse, but Food sample. In Japan, food sample is very popular. Most of the restaurants use them to explain how the dishes look like. There are variety of food samples. Not only Japanese food, but also Italian food, Chinese food and even sweets!!!! It really looks like real food, but it is made by plastic so you can never eat them.

Here are some examples of food sample.

Takoyaki!!! (I wanna eat it when I go to Japanese traditional festival!! XD)

Japanese popular soul food! Row egg and rice! (I love to eat this with pickled plum and soy sauce.)

Even curry with fried pork can be made with candle! (Who does doubt it is fake? haha)

There are lots and lots of food imitation products in Japan. Sometimes we can find erasers which look like food and also straps with imitation sweets. Some girls even decorate their cell phones with imitation food or sweets and others makes it with themselves. I heard there are some kits that people can make imitation food by themselves. I've never tried it though because I'm not good at delicate work. haha

Anyway, in Japan, you can find large amount of food that you can never eat. Most of the restaurants usually display the food sample in front of them, but be careful. Sometimes they use real food as their sample of their menu. When I was a little, I touched a curry rice in front of a restaurant because I had thought it is fake, but it was not. It was real curry rice and my finger got the curry. OMG

You can see how imitation fried Shrimp is made with plastic. Click below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BceWzb6BMg&feature=related

What I ate and where I visited

Hello! I visited Nasu, Tochigi with my friends last weekend. We ate lots of delicious foods so today I'd like to write what I ate and how was it. ;D It was first time for me to visit Nasu. It took 3 or 4 hours to get there by car. When we arrived at Nasu, it was around noon so we decided to have lunch. We found a Korean restaurant so we entered the restaurant. I ate Bibinbap served in a very hot stone bowl.

It was awsome! It contains Korean laver, egg, kimchee, leafy green vegetable and bean sprouts. It was not so spicy, but very tasty! I was carried away by a sudden impulse of visiting Korea!
After we ate lunch, we hung around near our pension and I bought a cheese cake at The cheese garden for my dessert on that night! hehe
Around 16:oo, we started BBQ!!!!!! yeah-----!!!! Lots of meat and vegetables! ;D I really thought BBQ is the best way to eat meat and vegetables!!!!! I love it!!

We also ate fish! We bought the fishes at a super market, but it was fresh and very tasty! We ate it with salt or soy sauce. It was marvelous, really.

We ate lots of delicious meat, vegetables, fish and drunk. haha I was full, but I could eat cheese cake because it is cheese cake!!! My lovely cheese cake... The cheese cake I bought this time is called "Go yo-tei cheese cake". It means "Imperial Villa cheese cake". The cheese cake was actually offering to the emperor. In Nasu, the emperor has a cottage so you can see many souvenirs which are related to the emperor or the crest.

It was delicious, but... disclose my real intention, the cheese cake I introduced on this blog before is much better because the cheese cake I ate was rich, but not as rich as the cheese cake in Kyoto. (If you are interested in the best cheesecake I introduced, look back my blog below. ;)

We drunk and drunk and drunk...

The night grew late...

Goooooooooood morning! We had to leave the pension untill 10:00 so we woke up at 8:00 and ate (haha) our breakfast. Toast and egg fried easy-over and lettuce and also as side dish, sausage and sauted dish of vegetable and meat (because we left some vegetables and meat last night). We ate our breakfast outside and it was refreshing. ;D

We cleaned up the pension and got ready to leave Nasu. Before we really leave there we hung around again and went to a trick art mansion. (You can enjoy many trick arts there.) We were excited and enjoyed it very much. We walked a lot and became hungry again!!! haha

It takes 3 or 4 hours again to get back to Chiba so we decided to find a restaurant on the way to get back. One of my friends said he wants to eat Udon so we decided to eat it and found Soba-restaurant.

I ordered Udon with sauce which includes walnut and Miso. I was expecting that the sauce is sweet, but it was not much. However, the Udon was chewy and wonderful flavor.

Sigh... I miss my days in Nasu... ah... No more BBQ in front of me, but assignments. woooooo...

However, after I overcame this semester I can have many trips and parties!!! I have to survive!!!!!! Thank you for reading my blog! ;D

One day as a vegan

Hello, here is a hungry Nana! :D
Today, I experienced a day as a vegan! It was challenging for me because I can not eat egg, cheese and milk for 24 hours! OMG...
I will write about my whole day as a vegan here.

9:30 wake up
Today I did not have any class exept 5th Koma so I woke up late. ;D hehe (Usually I wake up at 6:00.)

10:00 brunch

Today's first mission was emerged... First, I tried to eat bread as usual because it is using wheat and I thought, Oh, I can eat bread! ;D haha It's easy♪ Then I checked the ingredients list. I was struck by lightning. Oh, no no no... This is including egg. I can not eat this... mmm... Then I pondered what I can eat today. After all, I made a Udon with Japanese green onion. I really wanted to use the Japanese sauce which dip Udon, or "Mentsuyu", but it contains bonito so instead of it, I made special Udon sauce with Soysauce and Sugar and water.

14:00

Before I leave my home, I ate an Orange for my little snack.

16:30

I ate fruits cup at my university and took a class.

20:00

I got back to my home. My family knew I am challenging to be a vegan so bought me a boiled corn. ;D It was very sweet and tasty!

I ate rice and simmered and seasoned potatoes and vegetables for my dish. ;) It was very delicious. I wanted to eat pickled plum, but I could not again because it was containing Honey. Ohhhhhhhh... What a stressfull!!!! haha

Through a day as a vegan, I realized how I am free. Usually I am not conscious about my food habit, but I found I am very relying on Eggs and food which include animal products. It is very difficult to find food out of my house. I can cook at my home, but in outside there is no choice, but salad. Even the salad and the seasoning sometimes includes meat such as chicken and bacon. I was really tired of checking ingredients on the backside of package. In addition, there are large amount of temptation by smell of meat like KFC, the Golden arches... sigh

Looking back the whole day, I was always thinking about food. It was like sickness! haha

This is because I all of a sudden changed my lifestyle up side down, but it is natural! I cannot live without meat and animal products because I grew up in non-vegetable society. I neither have exact faith and reason to be a vegan. It depends to be a vegetarian and it might be good thing, but I found that there should be a clear reason and environment for being a vegetarian, especially vegan.

Oh, I may dream I am eating meat tonight... What a carnivorous I am...

What is this?

Gooooood morning! :D It'll be hot today... :( It's humid and lots of homeworks... My passion toward study sometimes fall like rain, but cheer up! only 1 or 2 months left! ;D

Anyway, today I'd like to introduce you a unique dish. It is "Japanese Potato Cake" Yeah-----!!! haha
Actually this is like "gnocchi", or "Nyokki" in Japanese. However, I tried to cook it with Japanese way so "Japanese style gnocchi!"

Ingredients: (Serves 1 or 2)
*2 Potatoes (I chose May queen this time.)
*Potato starch, or Katakuriko (Usually gnocchi contains cheese, but I used potato starch instead of cheese.)
*A sauce in which to dip soba/ Mentsuyu
*Sugar
*Sweet sake for seasoning

How to cook?
First of all, pare potatoes and cut them into small pieces so that it is more easy to mash.
Secondly, put cut potatoes into Silicon steamer and nuke it for 4 minutes.

After that, mash those potatoes! This is my favorite part! :D

When you mashed potatoes enough, add a tablespoonful of Potato Starch and let's start handicraft!!!!!!! Wash your hands and knead dough. (Please please please wash your hand before you start kneading in order to avoid food poisoning such as O-157.)

Then, pluck a bit of the kneaded potato and make a small oval, or like a red blood corpuscle like the picture below. :)

These are the seasonings. From left side, Sugar, Japanese sause which dip soba and sweet sake.

Ok--! We have now come to the most exciting part of the cooking!!!! Let's saute and simmer them with a pan. ;D

Put a teaspoonful of oil (I chose sesame oil to stimulate the appetite! ) and saute them.

Browned the oval potatoes and put all seasonings. (Sweet Sake, Sugar and sauce. If you like sweet one, you can put 2 or 3 teaspoonfuls of sugar. ;) *When you put some seasonings, be careful!!!! Please make the heat weak not to burn. Sugar is easily burned black! :(

Simmer them for a while and HAPPY-------------! Dish up the potatoes and let's EAT!

This is my cooking show for today. :D

Thank you for reading the recipe and try it when you have time. If you have any question about the recipe or me? haha Please leave a comment here.

Thank you! ;D

Welcome to Arabic Restaurant.

Hello-----! Today, I'd love to introduce a middle east restaurant in Tokyo.
The restaurant's name is ZAKURO. It's in Nippori near Dan-Dan stairs. Here is the map.

大きな地図で見る
A man who is from middle east is running this resutaurant. In the restaurant, there is no desk and chair. Everybody eat supper sitting on the floor. It seemed like real middle east style! :D Also there are many kinds of drawings and picutures and hip scarves of bellydance! I was really excited because I belong to bellydance club in the university. :) I love middle east culture especially the dance. Well, take a look of the pictures at the resutaurant!

This is the interior of the restaurant. When you enter the restaurant, you have to take your shoes off. :D

Here is the drawings. They are traditional arts. In the middle of the picuture, there is a stick. Can you see? between the drawings. On the stick, Arabic was written. It was very nice design.

When I visited the restaurant, it was very hot like summer and the owner turned on an electric fan. Then I heard wonderful sounds... Can you guess what it was? I hear this sound very often while I practice bellydancing. In front of the fan, a hip scarf was decorated and it was blowing softly because of the breeze. Here is the picture of a hip scarf. This is mine and there are some kinds of hip scarves, but this black one is my favorite. :D haha

Let's get back to the restaurant information. ;) It was before the noon so I ate lunch there. I ate lunch set called "just hungry course",or "Futsu-ni onaka suita course". The courses had interesting name such as "Starving course" and "bit hungry course". You can choose main dish from lamb, chicken, vegetables or beans. I chose chiken. :D As we learned at a class, they do not use pork to eat and there is a small column about "Halal" on their web-page.

Here is the dish I ate. ;D It was delicious! I was worry about the tast if it were too spicy or unique, but my anxious was nonsense. The taste was really mild and very very very nice and the chicken was so tender.

At the restaurant, they sometimes have bellydance performance. If you are interested in, check the web site. I will put the address here later. After all, it cost 600 yen. Only 600 yen, but they

serve enough amount of dish! I do recommend you to visit the restaurant. The owner is very nice, unique, passionate and funny man around 50. haha! His age is just my guess though...

Oh, there was a big alpaca's doll so I took a pic with it. hehe ;) It was cute.

Here is the link to the resutaurant ZAKURO. If you have time, visit and check some information about the restaurant.

http://zakuro.oops.jp/menu/menu.htm

Thank you! :D