Continuing with vol. 1 and vol. 2 of my Japan Trip 2013, this final post is all about food! We had this really fresh sashimi appetizer in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Guess how much it costs and continue reading for more food stories!
Food, Food, and More Food!
1) During our 6-week stay in Japan, we ate many kinds of noodle dishes both at home and outside at the restaurants. It was very hot and humid so my preference was light and cold noodles like my mom’s Hiyashi Chuka (Cold Ramen).
2) Zaru soba with Shrimp Tempura and Vegetable Tempura. Although my Soba Salad was really a popular post, it’s more of a fusion dish. Traditional soba noodle dishes are cold zaru soba or warm noodle soup in Japan.
3) Cold udon noodle soup with seared pork belly. It was really delicious and I will try making this at home!
4) When you are in Japan, I hope you try MOS Burger once. The unique thing about this burger is that the meat patty is topped with delicious meat sauce along with thick tomato slice, very finely chopped onion and mayonnaise. So yummy! I also love the fact that most fast food chains in Japan have the option of oolong tea for drinks (yep, to wash down all the oily food)!
5) We rarely eat donuts but when we are in Japan, we always make a stop or two at Mister Donut to check out their new and seasonal menus. This past summer they offered cool peach glaze on top of their signature pon-de-ring donuts. The peach jello jiggles when biting to it – very interesting texture but delicious!
6) Growing up in Japan, I remember I always looked forward to summer and a huge shaved ice with all kinds of toppings. I hadn’t been back in Japan during the summer for 16 years (I sort of avoided going back being afraid of high humidity) and so being able to eat the shave ice again was my wish-come-true moment.
1) Unaju (charcoal-grilled unagi/eel on top of rice in a lacquer box) was one of the dishes I wanted to eat while I was in Japan. It’s not easy to find very good unagi imported from Japan in the U.S. so I try to enjoy it at least once when I visit.
2) The quality of sushi is simply amazing in Japan. SF has many good sushi places but still, can’t compete with the many varieties of sushi available in Japan.
3) When you are in Osaka, you eat Okonomiyaki! However I like Modern Yaki (Hiroshima-style) which includes noodles.
4) On summer days, we don’t want to deep fry at home so we eat Tonkatsu at our favorite tokantsu restaurant.
5) Korokke Sandwich, one of my favorite sandwich!
Shopping for Food
1) While shopping at a supermarket in Japan, my daughter asked me “what’s this?” That’s right, she only knows frozen edamame in package and didn’t recognize fresh ones! When I was growing up in Japan, it was my duty to remove each edamame from the stalk. Oh I wish we get fresh edamame stalks here. Edamame tastes much better, and really delicious!
2) Three peaches for Y780 yen!? Yes…fruits are so expensive in Japan. Our little fruit monsters were used to enjoying large quantity of fruits in the U.S. so it was hard for them to get used to the lesser quantity served in Japan.
3) Vegetables, fruits, eggs, yogurt, tofu, bento, and some takeout menus… no, we were not in a supermarket. We were inside a 7-Eleven convenience store! Japanese convenience stores are like mini-supermarkets. And in most cities, you’ll see one every few blocks. Yep, that’s a real “convenience” store.
4) When you shop in Japan, don’t forget to stop by at the basement level(s) of department stores. It’s food heaven (high end grocery stores). Here are well-marbled Japanese wagyu steaks. They simply melt in your mouth!
5) Thinly sliced well-marbled wagyu beef for Shabu Shabu and Sukiyaki.
6) Bakeries are everywhere in Japan. This one is inside my nearest train station so we stopped by to pick up some baked goods for breakfast the next day.
7) Before riding Shikansen (Japanese bullet train) to Osaka, we picked up bento lunch for the train ride. There are so many kinds of bentos and I can literally spend 15 minutes checking each shop to pick my bento.
8) And I picked this Makunouchi Bento made by a Japanese kaiseki restaurant (about $10).
Food in Hokkaido
1) Sanpeijiru (三平汁) is salmon and vegetable soup in a salt and kombu broth and it’s a Hokkaido’s local specialty dish.
2) This soft cream we had in Shiroi Koibito Park was really delicious and it tasted just like Shiroi Koibito (the cookies I talked about in vol. 2).
3) I wanted to eat ramen before I leave Hokkaido. I thought Sapporo Ramen means miso base broth so I order that, but mom’s friend who lives in Sapporo said there is no particular flavor that is a feature of Sapporo. She said if I ask different persons, each would answer different flavor.
4) So have you guessed the price for this amazing sashimi appetizer? It’s only $15! I almost fell off the chair when I found that out. Hokkaido has amazing quality seafood for great price. I had plenty of seafood meals while I was in Hokkaido.
5) Jingisukan (ジンギスカン鍋料理) is Japanese grilled mutton dish prepared on a grill. Lamb is not commonly eaten meat by Japanese, but Jingisukan in Hokkaido is one of exception where lamb is served and enjoyed. It’s a very popular dish in Hokkaido.
Things I Brought Back to the U.S.
1) I finally bought chiffon cake pans (17cm and 20cm). I haven’t had a chance to try baking with them yet. You probably know what flavor I am planning to try first.
2) What are these black things? These are very good quality kombu (kelp) that my mom’s friend in Hokkaido gifted me. I’m going to make very delicious dashi (Japanese stock) soon!
3) These are all my props that I (I mean, my husband) brought back to the U.S. for me. There are more, but I could only fit this much in his luggage this time. Most of plates and bowls are from my grandparents’ house. My family kept them for me knowing that Just One Cookbook will keep using them.
Thank you for checking my Japan Trip 2013 posts (vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3)!
Looks like it was a wonderful trip! I’m so glad you had Genghis Khan (ジンギスカン) while you were in Hokkaido. My wife spent two weeks with a host family in Sapporo while studying Japanese and when I visited for the big Snow Festival they cooked Genghis Khan for us at their home. It was my favorite thing I had while I was there. Even though I currently live in Japan (Aomori) it is not easy to find the ingredients for it (I have to go to Amazon Japan). Do you know of anywhere I could find a recipe for this awesome dish?
Hi Jeff! Thank you, yes it was! 🙂 I don’t normally like lamb but I love ジンギスカン! I think the key is to have good quality meat and the sauce! The rest is just fresh veggies. Should be simple.
Use Google chrome to open this link: http://erecipe.woman.excite.co.jp/detail/f0db92ed5cf80fcd32d04802e2fd654b.html
Choose English translation. Hope this helps! 🙂
p.s. I hope you are enjoying Aomori. I hope to visit there one day. 🙂
Hello Nami,
I just discovered your website, looking for octopus recipes and I absolutely love it. My boyfriend left on a sailing around the world trip six months ago and we are enjoying different kinds of food from all the places we visit. I hope we will be able to visit Japan one day! I have been intrigued by this country for a long time and this post makes me want to go there even more! All the best,
Lynn
Hi Lynn! Thank you so much for your kind message. Wow, I’m so jealous of your boyfriend traveling around the world! I hope you get to visit Japan one day too. 🙂 Thank you for writing!
I am living vicariously through you!
Hi Charlotte! Thank you so much for reading! 🙂
Thank so much for sharing your fabulous trip with us! It looked like your family had such a wonderful time and it must be so nice for you and the kids to visit and spend time your mom:) Stunning photos as always!
Mos Burger! I miss that! There are plenty of Mos burgers in Singapore where I’m originally from!
Also I wanted to add that you can find fresh edamame in the pods at Costco. At least at the Costco in Fremont CA.
Btw love your blog.
Hi Sharlene! Really? You mean fresh edamame in the pods attached to stalks, right? Wow that’s awesome! It’s a bit far to drive to Fremont, but I hope my nearest Costco will start carrying. Thank you so much for following my blog! xo 🙂
I loved reading your Japan trip series: travelling to Japan has always been a dream of mine and seeing it through the eyes of an authentic Japanese makes all the difference.
Wow Nami-love that part 3 features all the amazing foods you ate on your trip to Japan-I hope to visit here one day….and find the $15 sashimi appetizer 🙂
This is an “OMG” photo-blog! A fancy-tickling one! And a soul-soothing one!
Man! Japanese food looks tremendously dazzling and sensuous 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
Nami, I admire all of your pictures from your trip to Japan – food and non food and I am looking forward to all your inspired posts in the future – thanky oyu for sharing the pictures from your wonderful trip – I wish I could travel to Japan one day!
All the very best to you and your family and greetings and hugs from far away!
Hi Nami
I love your blog – the instructions are really clear and your pictures are fantastic.
We visited Sapporo in January this year and had some great soup curry. I would love to be able to make some but haven’t been able to find a recipe – have you ever made or do you have a recipe for it?
Hi Elizabeth! Thank you for your kind words. I’m happy to hear you enjoy my blog. 🙂
As for the soup curry, I’m not exactly sure what kind of soup it is as “curry soup” or “soup curry” doesn’t ring a bell… What was in it? Besides Japanese curry rice, I have curry udon (in hot soup) recipe. You can omit noodles and change the consistency with dashi broth to make it thin soup.
Recipe here: https://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/curry-udon/
Hope that helps. 🙂
Looks like such a wonderful trip! I can’t wait to get the chance to visit Japan one day and see all the sights and eat all the food! =)
I’m reading your trip backwards, thoroughly enjoying! My oh my all those food pics! YAY!
I would have eaten sashimi every day.
LL
Hi Nami,
Thanks for the great updates for your Japan trips! I never knew the bento boxes from train stations came from kaiseki restaurants (or are the kaiseki ones only available at Shinkansen train stations?)
Also, I was wondering if dashi stock is listed in the index under the ingredient or dish category? I am asking because sometimes when I prepare dashi stock, I am not sure of what dishes I can use with it, so I just try to randomly guess and click into your recipes which I think may use dashi stock.
Anyway, thanks for the great post!
Hi Laura! I bought the Makunouchi Bento at Shin-Yokohama station. Above the station, there is Takashimaya and there are many obentos for travelers. My bento was from this Kaiseki restaurant. The bento was not bought from the station (platform), it’s a little nicer. 🙂
And thank you for the great idea about dashi stock! It will require some time for me to manually edit, but I think it’s a great idea and I’ll try to work on it slowly. I will use it as a tag which I use for ingredient. Please give me some time to work on it… Thank you so much for your feedback! 🙂
Honestly I will be mega fat if I visit Japan, all of my favourite dishes there
I hope I will be able to enjoy Mos burger soon too (I haven’t managed to taste it in Tokyo last time but have heard about it). I did taste tonkatsu burger in another chain (orange colour, don’t remember the name) and it was sensational!!! I am looking forward to eat some more shaved matcha ice cream too! You have reminded me how good it is (and how huge! we weren’t able to finish one portion with my friend!).
I am impatient to see how you will use all the treasures brought from Japan. (It’s interesting to see that you brought these cake pans from Japan! I would see them as typically European product, though here the walls have a kind of way pattern).