eatatarian

A Malaysian-born, New Zealand-raised, Japan-spoiled, London-treated, back-in-Japan greedy guts. Looking for a good meal in Japan? Need a Japanese-speaking person to help you navigate the menu? Get in touch! eatatarian(at)gmail.com The Eatatarian World Map

[eatatarian]

Eating in: Christmas Lunch 2017

We were in Singapore, and lucky enough to be invited to the home of private chef extraordinaire, Candice. Here’s what she made for us:

^ Kurobuta ham.

^ House-cured foie gras terrine. I probably should've cut into this before photographing it.

^ Radicchio quiche.

^ Artichoke and spinach dip. We could've eaten several kilos of this alone!

^ Eel and egg potato salad.

^ Baked hamachi fillet.

^ Raw oyster.

^ Shirako (cod testes).

^ Ama-ebi with eggs -- completing the interspecies reproduction cycle here. Despite living in Japan, I've never had ama-ebi eggs before. It was fantastic, despite looking kinda gross.

^ One of several desserts. My brother made these.

What a luxurious and memorable Christmas lunch! Thanks Candice and her family for hosting us!

[eatatarian]

Eating out: New Year Burgers at Grateful’s

In Japan, it’s customary to have toshikoshi-soba noodles to welcome the New Year. My local noodle shop was packed with people getting in their toshikoshi-soba on New Year’s Eve. 

However, we decided to have New Year burgers at the appropriately named Grateful’s Burger down by the beach.  大晦日といえば、年越しそばは定番ですが、 今年は年越しバーガーにしました。近所にあるGRATEFUL'Sというバーガー屋さんに行ってきました。 「GRATEFUL」は「ありがたい」という意味で、2017年はありがたいこといっぱいあったので、名前はぴったりと思いました。

Followed by ice-cream from the local 7-11.　〆はアイスでした！

Lots of things to be grateful for this year, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more for 2018. Have a good one, everyone!  2018年も皆さんもありがたいこといっぱいありますように！

Grateful’s Burger 4 Chome-9 Sumauradōri, Suma-ku, Kōbe-shi, Hyōgo-ken 654-0055

[eatatarian]

Kitchen Tales: The Squid

“Fresh squid! Get your fresh squid here!” The supermarket was abuzz with evening specials, or “time sales” as they call them in Japanese. The man in charge of the fish section was strutting around the narrow, damp aisles in his gumboots. He saw me looking at the neatly packaged squid.

“Welcome to the seafood section, miss! You won’t find fresher! Fresh and direct from the Akashi Strait. Caught just a few hours ago. Look!”

To my horror, he gave the squid a single, firm, solid bat with the back of his hand.

BAT!

The squid squirmed around a little.

“Told you! It’s still alive!”

BAT! BAT!

I winced on the squid’s behalf and turned to the man: “Wow, it sure is fresh,”

Ever the salesman, he picked up the entombed squid and put it in my hands. “Great as sashimi!” he said proudly.

I squeaked out a small, “Thanks.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was going to cook it.

He beamed as I put it in my basket. “Thank you, Miss! Please check out our other fine fish and seafood selection!”

I nodded, smiled politely and backed away slowly before he found another hapless sea creature to molest.

[eatatarian]

Eating in: Chicken meat patty bento

^ Chicken meat patties with tofu and hijiki, with grated white radish and shiso leaves. Will definitely make this again.. even though squishing raw chicken in your hands is kinda gross. (JP recipe)

[eatatarian]

Eating in: Steak sandwich

^ Fried with a cajun spice rub from NZ.

[eatatarian]

Eating in: Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

^ This recipe is another one that I'd file under Ideal First Date Food, cos if both of you still stick around after all this garlic, it's got to be a sure thing.

This Nigella Lawson recipe calls for 40 cloves, but as I was only making it for two, I lessened the amount of garlic cloves.

I suspect the cheap supermarket nearby often gets things that fall off the back of a truck, because the week that I decided to make this was due to them selling fresh thyme (!) for ridiculously cheap prices.

Easy recipe, and the squishy, sweet parcels of garlic are bound to keep the vampires away.

[eatatarian]

Eating out: Harenohi Gyoza

^ Craft beer? Creative gyoza? A Japanese Steve Buscemi? 

^ Harenohi has it ALL.

Can't remember if they had English on their menu, but I think the staff can probably handle a bit of English.

ハレノヒ Harenohi Gyoza イガラシ ビル 1F, ３丁目-２-７ 谷町 中央区 大阪市 大阪府 540-0012, Japan

[eatatarian]

Eating in: Kokeya Pride Potato Chips

They say that you should never go grocery shopping when hungry.

^ But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have decided to buy these fancy-looking chips. 

“HAND-FRIED TEXTURE” say the red-and-white lettering. 

What does that even mean? 

^ Look, the back even has an actual chip chef dude flavouring my chips with the yuzu-mountain-spice flavouring. This must be before he fries them by hand.

Unfortunately the front of the packaging pretty much indicated the number of chips inside. There may’ve even been less.

The flavour wasn’t so great either. Disappointing all round. Give me some dirty Bluebird salt and vinegar chips any day!

[eatatarian]

Eating out: Yakiniku Bar La Shomon

My students often ask me what yakiniku is in English. Some of them bristle when I say “Korean barbecue”, as some of them like to think it originated in Japan. Controversial!

Either way, it’s basically slices of meat that you chuck on a grill and cook yourself. Usually it’s with fatty Japanese beef, but at the recommendation of a friend, we went to Yakiniku Bar La Shomon -- an off-shoot of a bigger chain.

While fatty Japanese beef is delicious, it basically involves no chewing and sometimes that’s the fun of eating beef. 

^ So I was so excited when I saw this aged beef on the menu. The lovely Lauralee made our evening extra special and cooked it for us not one, not two, but THREE TIMES.

It was so good, especially with some wine.

Their non-yakiniku menu items looked pretty good too. Fab food and fab service. Looking forward to going back soon!

English is spoken here.

肉バル La Shomon (Yakiniku Bar) 4-10 Kandachō, Tarumi-ku, Kōbe-shi, Hyōgo-ken 655-0027, Japan

[eatatarian]

Eating out: First-degree burns at Kobe Croquette

There are Chinatowns for Chinese people, and then there are Chinatowns for the tourists. Kobe’s small Chinatown falls into the latter category, with stalls lining the main street selling pretty much the same street snacks that are Japanified versions of Chinese food, at very average quality.

So I was surprised that a non-Chinese place had set up shop along the main street. Kobe Croquette sells a variety of delicious croquettes that are fried to order.

^ My ice-cream croquette. Gimmicky, but pretty. Think I’ll stick to their savoury croquettes.

Mapi got a chicken croquette with cheese. Oh, the cheese. “Have a bite!” she cheerfully offered. I had a bite, and noticed a blob of cheese about to fall off, so I caught it in my palm. 

Big mistake.

It was like molten lava. First degree burrrrrns! I had to buy a cold drink to ice my palm. And it was tender to the touch for the rest of the day.

Kobe Croquette -- deliciously dangerous. Dangerously delicious.

Kobe Croquette, Chinatown Branch Japan, 〒650-0022 Hyōgo-ken, Kōbe-shi, Chūō-ku, Motomachidōri, 2 Chome−4−1, 神戸コロッケ元町店

[eatatarian]

Eating out: Panda Bread from a shop called “Pan-da” (It’s bread)

It’s no secret that I love me a pun.

Or, you could say, a pan. As in, “bread”.

Near one of the sites I teach at is a bread shop called パンだ (pan-da), which in Japanese means “It’s bread”. Puns are also pretty popular in Japan, and of COURSE this shop sells custard buns in the shape of a panda.

^ Exhibit A.

Unfortunately, my panda custard bun friend here got a bit smushed in my bag and looks quite sinister.

Quite tasty though.

ベーカリーぱん・DA (Bakery Pan-da) Japan, 〒675-0122 Hyōgo-ken, Kakogawa-shi, Befuchō Befu, 1055−3, ベーカリーぱん・ＤＡ

[eatatarian]

Eating out: Ngam Ngam Hou

I find it hard to get good, authentic Chinese food here. Although, by ‘authentic’, I mean the Chinese food I’m used to in NZ and parts of London. Especially yum char. I miss yum char so much.

Chinese food in Japan is mostly Japanified, and a lot of it has MSG and tastes the same. 

So when I was searching around online and came across Ngam Ngam Hou (just right/perfect in Cantonese), I was intrigued not only by its name, but by its yum char offerings.

Unfortunately it’s not a full-on yum char joint (it’s very small), but we managed to check out its carefully selected, carefully prepared and very delicious (fits the name, really!) lunch menu for Mapi’s birthday.

^ All these dumplings were yum! Bouncy shrimp.

^ What I also loved was this unusual, creative dessert -- an oolong jelly with caramel sauce with caramelised pecans (?). Not sweet at all and very refreshing.

The evening menu also looked pretty good. Definitely want to come back again.

Not sure if the owner-chef speaks other languages apart from Japanese, but will definitely do more recon next time.

アムアムホウ Ngam Ngam Hou Japan, 〒657-0038 Hyōgo-ken, Kōbe-shi, Nada-ku, Fukadachō, 3 Chome−4−13, アルカディア六甲1F

[eatatarian]

Eating out: 南天 Nanten Japanese

At a quick glance, it looks like there’s not a lot happening in my neighbourhood, especially when it comes to eating out.

However, when I’m craving some delicious, very reasonably priced Japanese food, Nanten is where I go. It’s not a Japanese-style diner, and the dishes are more refined, but the chef is obsessed with seasonality and seems to do magic with everything he touches.

I first went here for lunch. It’s a fancier price for a fancier lunch, but you won’t leave feeling hungry.

^ For around 1200 yen, you get this box of food, a bowl of soup, a bowl of rice, tea AND something sweet for after. There’s usually something tempura-y (never temporary -- HA.). 

^ The other day, we had tempura figs in a light broth. This was amazing! The figs were super sweet and the saltiness of the broth and tempura batter balanced everything out.

I’ve come here for dinner once and had the freshest, most delicious sashimi and octopus. I’ve come to expect octopus to be a tad rubbery, but the chef cooked it to perfection. It just melted in your mouth. My unrefined, non-Japanese palate usually finds that a lot of fish taste similar, but somehow I could taste the difference between all the sashimi he served that night.

You’ll need to use Japanese here.

Nanten 3 Chome-3-7-30 Miyukichō, Suma-ku, Kōbe-shi, Hyōgo-ken 654-0052, Japan

[eatatarian]

Drinking in: Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Stout

^ I don't usually go for stout, but the lovely Makoto clearly knows me better than I do -- this was a birthday present from him. It was the PERFECT combo of stouty bitterness and chocolateyness. Sometimes these chocolate stouts take themselves literally and they turn out too sweet.

This however, was PERFECT.

[eatatarian]

Eating in: Shirin Pollo

^ In Persian, shirin means ‘sweet’, and pollo means ‘rice’. Shirin pollo is a rice flavoured with candied orange zest, carrots, and topped with sour zereshk berries and crispy potato slices. You can also add meat, pistachios or other nuts to it.

I was lucky enough to have this made for me. The sour berries balanced out the sweetness of the dish and I found myself going for several helpings.

[eatatarian]

Eating out: Nidomi Japanese Curry

Mapi had a craving for curry, so on a very hot day, we ventured out to the Tanimachi-Yon-Chome area of Osaka and sat down to some curry.

This place is so popular that they announce when they’ve run out on Twitter. We only juuuust made it in time.

^ This is the curry of the day. Well, more like curries. I can’t remember what the curries were exactly, but there were mushrooms and the spice level was just right. We were instructed to mix the curries together. We also got a wee vanilla ice cream dessert after which was perfect. All for a 1000 yen.

Nidomi Curry Japan, 〒540-0028 Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Chūō-ku, Tokiwamachi, 2 Chome−4−9, エクセル第六ビル 2F

[eatatarian]

Eating in & out: July Bento Selection

^ Harissa chicken with sweet potato, lentils, onions and coriander.

^ Tuna-tomato curry. Microwave goodness in 10 minutes! (JP recipe)

^ Stir-fried pork and cabbage with yuzu pepper paste. This was unexpectedly spicy! (JP recipe)

^ Every Tuesday, I'm lucky enough to be near a bento place that makes bento like this (with fancy rice!) for 480 yen. Score. This was the perfect size.

^ Summer is the season for goya.. one of the few bitter gourds I like. This one is made with a spicy miso sauce and pork mince. (JP recipe)

^ I couldn't quite capture the insides of this delicious baguette as I was too hungry. It was stuffed with a lightly curried chicken filling and lots of lettuce. Side is pumpkin with cinnamon. Courtesy of Chef S.

^ Another goya dish. With tomatoes and egg. I added pork to the recipe. With a side salad of cucumber, lettuce and radish. (JP recipe)