Osechi Ryori (Japanese traditional New Years meal)

I just wanted you out there to take a look at what I had the good fortune of eating this afternoon for lunch. It being New Years Day, my mother-in-law bought my family a beautiful Osechi Ryori to welcome in 2013.

Take a look at some of the pictures I took:

This is a great New Years tradition. New Years in Japan is the biggest holiday of the year. I suppose the importance of it would be comparable to Christmas in Canada or Thanksgiving in America.

You can follow me on Twitter @jlandkev.

Pizza in Japan

There are many things I love in life. I love my family. I love running. I love Canada, the country I am from. I love living abroad and the adventures I have in doing so. I also love pizza.

Pizza is food from the Gods in my opinion. It is the perfect mix of all major food groups. I get Grains, Dairy, Veggies and Meat all in one wonderful package.

I have been a fan of pizza my entire life. A great take out pizza is something to cherish, but even more is a great homemade pizza. Luckily, my parents are amazing cooks and growing up I have th fondest memories of my father's "from scratch" pizzas. They were delicious beyond description and now, as I live in Asia, I appreciate them even more.

I have lived in Asia for almost 10 years now. I lived in Korea for more than 5 years and there, pizza is everywhere. Pizza is common, it is cheap and to be honest, doesn't taste very good. Most places that sell pizza basically serve ketchup, a few slices of pepperoni and very little cheese on a slab of cardboard.

In Japan, pizza is really expensive and doesn't taste very good. ALSO, the sizes are really small.

Solution.....make your own from scracth. That's what I do. here is a quick vid of a pizza I made last weekend. An actual recipe/tutorial video will come soon.

Here is a great video that explains what you get in Japan when you order take out/delivery pizza.

Going in the Food Vlogging Direction

I’ve decided to become narrower in scope these days. I’m not talking about every aspect of my life. I’m talking about vlogging.

I have always known a few things that would probably bring a lot more traffic to my You Tube channel, but have never gone in that direction. I suppose I will focus a lot more on bringing a lot more people what they are looking for. I have always known that most of my most popular and several of my viral videos have been food videos. People love food! People also really want to see food from other countries. My food videos appeal to a much broader spectrum of people than my story vids do. I know that. I also know that if I made my channel food specific, I’d probably achieve a lot more success. So, that’s what I’m going to do.
I recently started a series of videos called, “Japanese Eats.” In these videos I plan to show a very wide variety of food you can find in Japan. Some will be traditional, others new.

Now, I’m not much of a cook and to be honest, my wife and I don’t go out to restaurants very often. I do however buy food at supermarkets and convenience stores. My wife is also an amazing cook and great resource for sharing Japanese cuisine!

So, from now on, my BusanKevin You Tube channel will be primarily for food video. Don’t worry though. For those of you who enjoy the randomness of the channel (former randomness), I do have another channel called “jlandkev.” That’s where you can go to watch story videos and check out the things I see on a daily business living here in Japan.

Here are the fist two installments of my Japan Eats series:




I think it's going to be a lot of fun for both myself and viewers to see the wide variety of cool, popular and off the wall food you can eat in Japan!

Bibimbap 비빔밥 in Japan

As I've mentioned in previous posts, my wife and I are both big fans of Korean food. A few weeks ago I was surprised while browsing though my local Daiei supermarket here in Kobe, Japan. In one section I found a bibimbap kit. Bibimbap 비빔밥 is a really delicious korean dish consisting of rice and vegetables. It's actually my wife's favorite! I quickly grabbed to packs at 198¥ each (about $2.20 Canadian) and brought them home. We simply had to add the ingredients to some steamed rice and add an egg


According to Wikipedia:

Bibimbap 비빔밥 is a popular Korean dish. The word literally means "mixed rice." Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul (sautés and seasoned vegetables) and gochujang (chili pepper paste). A raw or fried egg and sliced meat (usually beef) are common additions. The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating.[2] It can be served either cold or hot.

Vegetables commonly used in bibimbap include julienned cucumber, zucchini, mu (daikon), mushrooms, doraji (bellflower root), and gim, as well as spinach, soybean sprouts, and gosari (bracken fern stems). Dubu (tofu), either plain or sautéed, or a leaf of lettuce may be added, or chicken or seafood may be substituted for beef.[2] For visual appeal, the vegetables are often placed so that adjacent colors complement each other. See more...


Here is the bibimbap kit I bought at Daiei.


Included with the kit was a packet of Korean red pepper paste or gochujang 고추장. You MUST have this when you have bibimbap!


The final product. Often a raw egg is placed on top of the rice and vegetables, but my wife prefers a fried one. it was an awesome treat to have on a Sunday afternoon. i think i may actually buy the same thing for lunch tomorrow!


If you are interested in learning more about Korean food or how to prepare it you can of course check out Zen Kimchi.

Another really great site for cooking Korean food is Maangchi. I have seen her on You Tube for many years, but went to her site for the first time today. It contains great recipes, photos of Korean food, how to videos and a lot more. She even has a photo contest on at the moment. You should check it out!