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.
If you come from North America, Europe, Australia or many other countries that have bread as a staple food in their diet, you may be surprised when you arrive in Japan (or any other Asian country for that matter). Bread is something simple. Bread is something wonderful. Bread is something you may take for granted. If you ever plan to move to Asia, it will be something that you will eventually learn to appreciate in a new way!
Obviously, many, if not most Asian countries have rice as their staple food. For me, rice is good, but lacks in flavour. I feel this way, but my Japanese wife laughs and simply says that my palate isn't refined enough to know the difference between different types of rice (that is probably very true). This being a "rice culture" bread is something new. There isn't a long history of bread in this country. Even if it has been here for awhile, bread is consumed on a different way in Japan. Bread is by no means a staple food, it is a treat!
When you walk into a Japanese bakery, you will see many wonderful things. There are so many amazing paistries, cakes, muffins and very cool (if not downright weird) combinations of bread/food! Sausage and curry in a bun. Sweet potato and curry in a bun. Potato and mayonnaise in a bun. This of course goes on!
There are many wonderful types of baked product, but one thing you will soon realize, if you are a bread lover and long term resident of Japan, is that good loaves of bread are a rare thing. 95% of bread is white and lacking in taste (in my opinion). Rye bread, whole wheat bread, pumpernickle bread are almost impossible to find and if you do find them, will probably disappoint! The bread palate of Japanese people is very different than a Canadian such as myself! My wife always loves to say to me, "You come from a bread culture!" Maybe she is right!
If you plan to move to Japan and live here for more than a few years, there is a simple solution. Buy a bread maker, or "home bakery" as they are called in Japan.
We bought this bread maker last year at a major Wal-Mart-ish store called Izumiya. This machine cost about $150 and can make a loaf of bread in a few hours. It's a nifty contraption and we make bread five or six days a week! I realize that many people out there buy bread makers on a whim and use it a few times before it gets sent off to the "dust collecting" appliance corner of the room, but here in Japan, it is very necessary for me. I love bread and this is my means to an end!
It is pretty simple to use and only takes about five minutes to mix your bread ingredients together (flour, yeast, butter, salt and milk). One advantage to living in Kobe is that there are many "foreign food" stores here. While in Japanese supermarkets you can only buy processed and refined white flour, in the foreign food shops I can buy many more types. My wife and I tend to shop in a foreign food store in Sannomiya in the Santica shop area. There we can buy whole wheat, rye and graham flour. it is indeed more expensive than white flour, but for a Canuck like me, it's well worth it.
I still eat rice twice a day, but it is nice to have a piece of whole wheat toast for breakfast or some peanut butter on a peiece of graham and whole wheat toast for an evening snack!
Earlier in the week I made a video for You Tube about some of the "interesting" baked goods you can buy at a Japanese bakery. I featured a muffin that was made from two types of sweet potato. it was made from Murasaki Imo, a purple skinned sweet potato and a regular sweet potato. This was a murasaki imo/satsuma imo (purple and regular sweet potato) muffin I bought at a bakery called Dans marche in Akashi Station in Akashi, Japan.
I also made a video about my PURPLE MUFFIN experience:
REMEMBER folks, you can follow my Twitter business here @jlandkev
A few weeks ago I made a post about the Oscechi ryori ( New Year's meal in Japan) that my inlaws gave my wife and I. I took footage the same day and then promptly forgot I took it. While searching for something else on my computer the other night, I found it. I decided to put this video together.
Prepare to look at some REALLY delicious Japanese food!
Tis the season to buy expensive chocolates for the one you love. Well, in Japan, it's at least time for women to spend money on the men they love.
Unlike in the Western world, where both men and women demonstrate their affection for each other with gifts, candy and romantic dinners; in Japan, on February 14th, only women dole out the cash. February 14th, aka, Valentine's Day is a day for girls and ladies to give chocolate to their boy/man-friends. One month later, on March 14th, White Day finds men returning the favour.
Now, Japan is a country of seasonal delights. One of those delights is beer. Whether it is the changing of the seasons or the changing of the winds, Japan's major brewers have a beer to fit the occasion. To celebrate this "chocolatey" season, Sapporo beer has teamed up with a confectionary company called Royce and have created the very "Hokkaido-centric" Sapporo+Royce Chocolate Beer. It comes in both Sweet and Bitter flavours! Last night my wife bought a can of the Bitter chocolate beer for me (she's an angel).
How was this beer you ask? It was good! Upon pouring the glass, the room filled with very strong notes of thick chocolate. This was the most chocolatey, chocolate beer I have had yet (mind you, I haven't had many)! Although this can was deemed bitter, it didn't taste very bitter. I found it quite sweet actually.
Long story short, it was a nice beer. It was full bodied and flavoured. Could I drink two glasses in a row? Absolutely not! it was a little too rich for me.
As I mentioned in my previous post, my family gave my wife and I some Osechi-ryōri 御節料理 or お節料理 to take home with us. My mother-in-law ordered it from the Sheraton Hotel in Osaka. It was amazing. You can see for yourself!
Here's the deal. I live in Japan and I really love Japanese food. Japanese food is simply wonderful, but as a Canadian, sometimes I crave the food I know best. I crave things I used to eat when I lived back in Canuckistan!
As a stereotypical male, I love eating flame broiled beef! Yep, I love steak and hamburgers. Sometimes I really just want to enjoy a nice juicy cheeseburger. These days, it's fairly easy to get a cheeseburger in a place like Japan, but the challenge is to find a good one!
McDonald's sucks, Wendy's will do in a pinch, but for a TRUE cheeseburger, I know a place.
If you need a meat fix for a great price, hit Polo Dog in Sannomiya, the main shopping area of Kobe. Polo Dog is a pub located on the second floor of a building behind Uniqlo, Seiden, etc. I believe it is mentioned in the Lonely Planet Japan.
Here you can see the outside of the pub and the signboards. What is really great about this pub is the price of food! Eating in Japan can be expensive as can drinking. The regular price for the cheeseburger platter is 600¥, which is about $7.00 Canadian. That is a really low price. Also, a pint of Kirin draft beer is only 500¥...that's VERY cheap in Japan.
Check this baby out! It is a thick beef paddy that is seasoned very well. It comes with fresh tomato and lettuce as well as potato wedges and onion rings. The burger is juicy and makes you want to come back again and again!
I've tried some other pubs and restaurants in the Kansai area and no burger holds a candle to this one in my opinion. Normally, an equivalent meal at a pub in Japan will set you back 1,200¥ (double Polo Dog's price) and only be half as good.
So, why does Polo Dog have the best cheeseburger in Kobe (if not Kansai): 1. It tastes great! 2. At 600¥, the price is amazing (that includes potato wedges and onion rings). 3. The drinks are cheap too! 4. the staff is SUPER friendly and nice.
I suppose, normally, when I go out to eat in Japan I eat Japanese food. In a very simple way, that makes sense. Of course I really enjoy other types of food as well.
Today my wife suggested eating Italian food. Actually, it was slightly more than a suggestion. She had Italian on the brain and who was I to argue? My wife has great taste and had already planned our afternoon together.
we went to and area of Kobe called Motomachi. we ate at an Italian restaurant called Osteria Gaudente. It is located under the train tracks in Motomachi, just across from the Motomachi Station Police Box. It was an absolutely brilliant lunch. The restaurant had a very cozy and warm atmosphere. The decor felt very European and the waitress who served us was very attentive and efficient. The Italian chef was also attentive! Between cooking dishes, he mingled through the restaurant speaking Japanese to the clientele and even bused our table!
My wife at pasta with tomato and mozerella sauce. I had fussili with deer sauce! That's right. Venison as we say in Canada. It was pasta with a VERY delicious deer meat and tomato sauce.
Here is the really awesome salad that started the meal off. We both had the lunch set that only goes for 1000¥ (about $10). The best part of the salad, for me, was the crunchy pieces of renkon (the honeycombed shaped vegetable).
Here you can see the deer meat pasta. It was tender pieces of a deer from Hokkaido (Northern Japan) in a tomato sauce with freshly grated cheese. It was very delicious.
This is the outside of the restaurant. It is located in a narrow alley under the train tracks in Motomachi. it is directly across from the Motomachi Police Box. There is another brach of this restaurant in Umeda, in downtown Osaka.
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