Japanese Food – The Last Appetite

This photo of suggestive bananas has sat in my “Drafts” for 6 years

I took this photo in Japan in 2010 and ever since it has been sitting in my drafts awaiting a lewd caption. Let this be an object lesson in my abject failure to craft a worthy pun.

Takoyaki

I don’t understand the attraction of takoyaki. They’re balls of octopus and gluten served fresh on the streets of Japan, coated in a three types of umami: mayonnaise, bonito flakes, and their own special barbecue sauce. They turn out of their aebleskiver-like pans with a gluey consistency, a barely formed crust holding the octopus within,… Continue reading Takoyaki

Spam Musubi: Hawaiian sushi innovation

I’m starting to think that I may have gone a bit soft over the past few weeks. I called this non-beer surprisingly refreshing. I enjoyed this slice of spam strapped to brick of rice and served at roughly the temperature generated by salmonella having hot and dirty sex. Frankly, I’m loving hawaii for none of… Continue reading Spam Musubi: Hawaiian sushi innovation

Asahi Style Free: Happoshu and Beer of the Third Kind

It is a strange quirk of history and economics that a nation’s taxation regimes change the beer that each country drinks. In the US, beer needs to contain at least 25% malted barley and so mass market brewers push the lower limit using rice, corn or anything else that can contain sugars and is cheaper… Continue reading Asahi Style Free: Happoshu and Beer of the Third Kind

Beer and Chocolate: Sapporo x Royce Chocolat Brewery Bitter

This limited release from Sapporo and apostrophe’d Japanese confectioner Royce’ is a strange Belgian nightmare; multiple vices backsliding into a brown can of depravity. Hops bitterness and cacao bitterness are perfect partners, malty and chocolate-y sublime and congruent combinations. Beer and chocolate works together. But these two really don’t. The pour is black with a… Continue reading Beer and Chocolate: Sapporo x Royce Chocolat Brewery Bitter

Eating Japanese food like a complete jackass

Katsu kari don at Narita International Airport. I cobbled together the last few yen on my Suica transit card and a fistful of hundred yen coins to buy the above breaded pork cutlet in sweet and acidic curry gravy, washed down with a bland as a mountain stream lager. I could have taken a parting… Continue reading Eating Japanese food like a complete jackass

Izakaya under the train line

There is nothing as inviting as a restaurant that builds its furniture from empty beer crates. Update, 24 June 2011: Commenter Nathan identifies the location as Under JR Yamanote line at Yurakucho Station. I’ve added the map.

Tsukiji Market is not just fish.

It also sells fat red chunks of whale meat. Not much of it though. While the cubed cetacean is pretty hard to uncover (I only saw a single vendor), what does tend to get overlooked is that there is also a gigantic vegetable market next door. Compared to the speed and clatter of the neighbouring… Continue reading Tsukiji Market is not just fish.