Snack Review: まるでバナナパン

This bread has the "real taste" of banana, and it's almost like eating a banana only much better and less healthy! ^^ The outide is very smooth, as if it is coating with something the way melon bread is coated. Besides being smooth, the outside is very cute and cleaver with it's banana spots! And as you can see by the picture the inside is very soft, and formed in soft little layer. The texture is very pleasant, almost like you are eating a dessert of some kind. In the middle is the best part, cream! A very banana flavored cream lies in the center and adds more sweetness to the bread.
I am a big fan of anything banana flavored so I made a bee-line right to this when I saw it on the shelf at the conbini. I was definitely not disappointed by this bread (it's one of the best I've ever had), and I'm sure you will feel the same! Please try it if you can.

= Quick Facts =
Name: まるでバナナパン (banana pan)
Source: Lawson?
Amount: 1
Rating:★★★★★

Snack Review: Riska Corn Potage chips

I bought this snack on a whim just to try a new flavor that I never actually tried in Japan. I had noticed corn potage fairly often in Japan, but I was never really sure of what it was. I assume its some sort of corn soup, as pictured on this package.

Anyway this product is a puffed product, so it has a texture similar to puffed cheetos, but softer. It still has a crisp, but not a crunch haha. It is covered in little green flecks, which I am not sure what seasoning they are. The flavoring coating leaves a little residue on your hands, but its not profuse. And the smell, they smell exactly like cream corn!

My mom was the first to give them a taste test, and by her reaction you would have thought they were a toxic poison! haha. She told me promptly she would not eat anymore and I had to eat the rest so they wouldn't stink up the room. At first I was a little put off by the taste, I'm not sure why, but it just wasn't right to me. After I ate a few more a started to like them, and quickly finished the bag a few days later.

I think this sort of flavor can't be enjoyed by everyone, if you decide to try it don't give up after the first few tastes! It may grow on you! Or not, who knows haha, but it's a unique flavor and an interesting try.

= Quick Facts =
Name: Riska Corn Potage puffed chips
Source: Uwajimaya market
Amount: 85 g
Rating:★★.5 ☆☆ (2.5 out of 5)

Snack Review: LOOK premium chocolate apricot flavor

This review is coming in very late, I'm not sure why I had put it off for so long, but better late then never I suppose. Today I am reviewing LOOK premium filled chocolate apricot flavor. I bought these at a local shop that sells cute goods from Japan and Korea. They have a tiny section of snacks, but often have things that you can't find elsewhere (in MN) my mom choose this from their offerings.

I wasn't sure that it was going to taste that great, considering the price and the fact that it was imported, but it really was fabulous! There is a coating of chocolate that is just the right thickness and tastes very creamy. It wasn't gritty or bitter in the least. Inside the chocolate is a center of solid white cream, that slowly melts in your mouth.

All this sounds really sweet and perhaps a bit too decadent, but there is a surprise hidden in the white filling - apricot bits! These are crunchy and very flavorful pieces of apricot. I'm not sure if it's real freeze dried apricot or something synthetic, but it's tangy non-sweet taste stands out well against the chocolate and cream.

If it had just been cream filled chocolate it really wouldn't been anything special, delicious, but not special. The crispy apricot pieces really make this snack choco very satisfying, and very difficult to put down.

= Quick facts =
Name: LOOK premium chocolate, apricot flavor

Source: import store

Amount: 10 pieces

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5)

Milk flavor made me fat!

Well what do we have here? Why it's Tohato brand Caramel Corn snack! This is a lovely snack encased in a cute package. The snack itself is similiar in texture to the Cheetos brand puffed snacks (not the hard crunchy ones) and has a nice sweet flavor. The original Caramel Corn is supposed to taste like caramel, thus it's name, but I'm not sure how caramel it tastes as much as it tastes sweet. However you will not find a speak of popped corn in this bag, but you will find a few peanuts hiding in the bottom.

I had learned about Caramel Corn before I went to Japan so it was one of the things that I really wanted to try. I'm glad I did because it's rather adictive with its crispy texture and light (by my standards) flavor. I can easily eat the entire package by myself, but I always share (the peanuts) because I don't much fancy gaining a lot of weight! I also tried "Milk" flavor variety, which I thought was really nice and sweet, but Shouma declared it "Too creamy".

There are many other flavors and package designs on the official site which introduces the character that goes with each flavor. Sadly I only tried original and milk, but I will do my best to try some others when I go back in summer. Check out this page that has a very nice review of the Caramel corn package here.

White Day

Back in Feburary I blogged about Japanese style Valentine's Day, and now here we are a month later (so fast! I can't believe it) and it was just White Day on March 14th. White day was invented as a day for the man to return the favor to the women and give her some chocolate. Really it should be white chocolate, or perhaps marshmallows, because it's White Day and thats why the National Confectionery Industry Association made White day - to sell white candy!


Well Shouma sent me an e-card for White Day. The card was from a Japanese website, and whenever I tried to open the link I got sent to a "forbidden server" page. It was/is really quite annoying because it's the first time I ever got something for white day. Even if it is a super cheap e-card. I wonder if he thought about sanbai gaeshi, meaning a White day gift should have a value of about 3 times more then the Valentine's gift.

So I say to him last night "I sent you real stuff, real chocolate in the mail on Valentine's day, why did you just send me an e-card?"Answer: "Because you're on a diet." I know that White day was invented to sell marshmallows and white chocolate, but that doesn't mean you have to buy those things. At this point it could be anything white. I would've been fine with a gashapon, or some character good that featured the color white predominately. Oh well, there's always next year.

I like steak, I like hamburg!

So whenever I happen to ask a Japanese male what his favorite food the answer often includes steak or hamburg, or both! I've never been a real big fan when it comes to red meat, so I just generally don't include it in my diet. But when living in Japan with a man who everytime you ask "What would you like to eat?" answers with an enthusiastic "Steak!" it becomes a bit difficult to avoid.

The only time I ever had real trouble was when we went to eat at Red Steak House in World Porters in Yokohama. They really truly only had steaks, the only non steak (or hamburg) item on their menu was curry. Now at that time I didn't acquire the taste for Japanese curry yet. Suffice to say, it became a bad evening.

Well besides that night, I did become more adventurous after awhile. Of course I had to try McDonalds, that's right McDonalds! Ooooo! The first time I tried Japanese McDonalds was in Kamakura. I had chicken McNuggets, which was a bad choice but I got all flustered when I reached the front of the line and had to decide quickly. You see they didn't have the full menu displayed above the counter, instead they chose to randomly post it over some seats in the middle of the dining room. And then when I got my nuggets Shouma dropped them all over the table. Another bad evening.

So next time when I finally got to see the full menu at McDonalds I was able to choose something we don't have in the US - the McPork! Yeah it's not a hamburger but - Oh glorious McPork, how I miss your salty sweet tangy flavor, and your tender texture! But seriously, the McPork rocks and I recommend highly. I also tried the teriyaki burger, which was good as well but, come on, the McPork is 100yen! Its nice because it doesn't come with mayo, unlike most everything else in Japan but I didn't know it the first time I ordered. So I told Shouma "I don't want mayo." he replies "Ok" but just stares at me for awhile and asks "So what do you want?" Apparently he didn't know the word Mayo, but he has this terrible habbit of just saying ok or yeah when he doesn't understand. So I got frustrated and walked away. Another ba- you see the pattern??

Anyway, I ate the McPork about 5 times! Another burger I tried was the Mos Burger of course! This is a burger chain that is native to Japan and therefore worth a try. Mos stands for Mountain Ocean Sun (I've heard Sky also), I'm not sure what its meant to mean (if it means anything at all) and they have a interesting menu. Check out an English translation of their menu. I only ate there once, which in retrospect is regrettable, and I had the regular Mos Buger. It was a good burger, not great, but pretty messy to eat. Its really nice that they serve you on real plates and glasses, and the interior is pleasant as well. Next time I want to try a rice burger.

I had one other burger, which was apparently a famous burger in Japan, but I forget its name. Shouma's father and step-mom brought it back from a trip to Kawasaki. Well it was a burger with cheese, bacon, egg and mayo on it! I whiped off the mayo but I'm afraid to think about how many calories were in that....

My First Bento

Well tonight I put together my first bento ever, yay!
It did require a bit of work however. I made a fried rice and gyoza bento with hard boiled eye and orange slices. I spent a good hour or so getting everything together. So I really hope I don't find everything shifted around tomorrow haha.

I'm not sure if this is really the most low calorie obento, but I tried to keep it low by using less oil, adding less gyoza etc. I also made an identical obento for my mom, only I gave her more hard boiled eggs.

Also I had to go to Target and buy appropriate boxes, which weren't too terribly difficult to find. I bought some silicone muffin cups to use as dividers. I have a big list of other things I'd like to buy, and I'm not sure if I want to just buy them online or wait to buy them in Japan.

Sorry about the low quality picture, it was taken with my mobile.

Food Torment

Who likes being woken up by a picture of a melon pan with Relax Bear on the package and the message "I'm eating melon bread. haha!"

Well me thats for sure. ><

Stupid diet...

I wonder what you can get for collecting the seal on it?

Plathora of Pan: a list of Japanese breads

Okazu pan: any pan with a savory filling

Curry pan: this is in the Okazu category. Curry pan is filled with a thick, paste like version of Japanese style curry and is fried.

Croquette pan: filled with deep fried mashed potato.

Yakisoba pan: a long roll filled with fried noodles and pickled ginger.

Spaghetti pan: similar to yakisoba pan, except with spaghetti!

Mentaiko pan: filled with marinated pollock roe and mayonnaise.

Kan pan: bread that is packaged in a can.

Koppe pan: a soft french roll

Kashi pan: bread with sweet filling inside

Katsu san: Included with the pan is this sandwich filled with fried pork cutlet.

Melon pan: a sweet pan (first image) that doesn't taste quite like melon but has many varieties including chocolate, strawberry, cream filled, green tea, custard filled, chocolate chip and coffee.

An-pan: a roll like pan filled with sweet red bean paste. There is also a fried version, which is referred to as a donut.

Cream pan: Similar to the an-pan, but filled with sweet cream flavored custard. Other flavors include peanut and chocolate.

Jam pan: very simply, breads filled with jam usually strawberry.

Koshian-pan: Topped with poppy seeds, stuffed with a smooth sweet red bean paste forced through a fine strainer

Uguisu pan: filled with green pea filling.

Korone pan: a counch shaped roll filled with cream or chocolate flavored filling.

Amashoku pan: a sweet bread roll.

There many many more pan including pan filled with sweet potato, raisins, walnuts, and pretty much anything else you can think of! I once ate a hotdog encased in a roll with ketchep and most likely mayo. That was different haha.

Conbini Food, Oh Oh!

I'd have to say, by far, one of my favorite things about Japan is the food. Possibly that's the reason I gained about 4kg in Japan. And the fact I visited a conbini every 3rd day didn't help much at all.

Well for those who may not know, conbini or konbini is the Japanese term for convenience stores. Conbini happen to greatly differ from their American counter-parts in the sheer amount and variety of goods offered. You can go buy your favorite porn mag, grab some sushi and pocky for dinner and replace your torn socks. The local conbini (there's usually one every 2 or 3 blocks) is really a one-stop shop, and truely lives up to the name convenience so it comes to no surprise that they flurishing in Japan. The top three conbini are: 7/11, Lawson, and Family Mart. Some other common conbini are AMPM, Mini-Stop and Sunkus. For more info on conbini, look here and here.

The conbini I frequented most often were Lawons, 7/11 and Ministop (in that order) location did play a hand in what conbini I went too most often at first, but after awhile you find there's items carried by only one chain of conbini. Often I'd find myself walking a couple extra blocks just to get that particular drink or that certain pan.

The following are come conbini food I loved -
Pan (bread): Bread in Japan is far more then just white or wheat. It includes all sorts of sweet, filled, fried and unusual bread products. One of my personal goals in Japan was to eat as many different type of pan as I could. Sadly I was often side-tracked by pan I knew I already liked. My favorites are melon pan, and cream pan.

Banana Castella: this is a (usually) banana shaped fried castella cake filled with a mashed up, sweet banana filling. See the image to the left. I first tried this by recommendation, Shouma thought I would like it and like it I did. After the first time I tried it, I couldn't find it for awhile and I found it again at a Mini-stop. I also found a bag of mini banana castellas shaped like animals for 100yen at Sunkus. It is perhaps one of my most favorite items.

Chips: Japan as a wonderful and wide variety of chips available, in just about any flavor you can imagine. I did find it difficult to get cheese flavors however. Most were delicious, or at least interesting. The only variety I really disliked was Doritos Pizza-La flavor. See this link for a great over-view of some Japanese chips.

Apple juice: Apple juice in Japan is an entirely different affair than it is in America. It's think, strong and pulpy. It's not nearly as sweet, but it's way more tasty. The closest juice I had to American apple juice was produced by Fanta, but it was carbonated.

Onigiri: Rice balls, usually triangular in shape and covered in portion by a piece of seaweed. They can be filled with a variety of food including pickled plum, fish, or even chicken! I really liked the chicken onigiri I had on the way to Narita airport, even though it was one of the worst days of my life haha.

Green tea ice cream: Just as the title implies, this is green tea flavored ice cream, and it's just lovely. I usually bought a single serving size, touted as having only 80 calories. I have also heard of sweet potatoe and mochi ice creams, I wish I could've tried those ones as well. But squid ink ice cream ... I'll pass.

Strawberry, banana and vanilla milk: I bought one of these almost everyday. They are usually very delicately sweet and just make you happy as you drink them. The strawberry flavor is apparently too girly for Shouma, but banana is ok.

Well that's all the food I can think of right now, it always makes me hungry when I think about Japanese food. I think America really lacks the innovativeness and openess to create varied food items like Japan. But I think more and more people become interested in unique and international food all the time so perhaps we can look forward to Japanese food being more widely offered here in America someday!

Another Poisoned Product

I'm sure by now that everyone has heard of the 10 people in the Kanto region had been poisoned by gyoza manufactured in China.

Well today frozen food company Takamatsu recalled 19 products processed on June 5th at two Chinese factories in Shandong Province. Poisoned frozen mackerel was impetus of the recall. The mackerel had been tainted with a pesticide apparently called "dichlorvos" and were well over the limit of .01 parts per million. More about this can be read here.

It’s interesting a similar case of food poisoning would arise so quickly, one after the other. But it seems that almost every month there is a new case of something poisoned coming out of China. Some people have expressed their opinion as people are over-reacting to the 10 cases of gyoza poisoning.

But I think, how many people does it take before it becomes important? Its true people all over the world are food poisoned every day. But in reality the food industry should be doing its best to reduce food poisoning, and China is just not cutting it. Besides these recent cases in Japan, China has sent poisoned pet food, toothpaste and toys to the US. Another huge problem is all the counterfeit drugs being produced for export in China.

It seems a majority of Japanese are now either going to avoid Chinese produced food or limited their consumption of it. However this is going to be a very difficult task, as a great amount of the food in Japanese supermarkets is either blatantly Chinese or Chinese food that has been repackaged and labeled as "Made in Japan".

Giri-choco and Vday

I think anyone who has interest in Japan probably know a bit about Japan's version of Valentines, but I will give a quick summary of it before I talk more heavly about it.

Basically Valentine's Day in Japan is celebrated by girls and women giving chocolate to men. There is no boys giving to girls, and no classmates passing around paper greetings.

There are levels of chocolate too. Honmei-choco (prospective winner chocolate) is for your romantic interest, giri-choco (obligation chocolate) is for your male co-workers, boss, etc. and tomo-choco (friend chocolate) is for your friends. In addition to chocolate, a woman may also give a necktie or other other type of nice present to her partner for Valentines. It seems a tad commericial and un-fair, but there is a complimentary holiday, called White Day on which the men must return the favor and give a present to the women whom gave them chocolate. The candy companies invented this holiday as a way to market white chocolate and marshmellows, but now man give a wide variety of gifts.

The Japanese have a wide array of opinions on these holiday traditions, but the most common seems to be that they feel it helps aid communication (in the case of giri-choco). It seems a bit absurd to western views that chocolate can help office communications run smoother, but in a reserved society like Japan, it might just do the trick.

I asked Shouma if he had gotten any chocolate today and he said no and was glad for it. When I asked him why he felt that way he explained: "It's better to not get chocolate, because then I don't have to spend any money later (White Day)"- He should count himself lucky that he is not an american man, and expected to give chocolate, flowers, a card, buy dinner and perhaps even jewelry.

What is the best gift to recieve on Valentines in my opinion? I'd have to say it's the chocolate okonomiyaki made by Tora-ya. It looks as good as real okonomiyaki and tastes even better.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Gyudon Tonight

Ah, one of my true loves from Japan - Gyudon. Today I thought, well I like gyudon so much and I can't just walk down the street and eat it at Suki-ya anymore so I might as well try making it. I reached some recipes on the internet and ended up using This One.

Well it turned out tasting alright (besides the dashi releasing an eye watering stink in our kitchen, perhaps I will talk about the smell issues with dashi at further length in a later entry). The two problems we had with it were it's difficult to find the highly-marbled thinly sliced beef around here, and we didn't have any sake. It seems like you really need the sake to make it taste just right. But otherwise I was so happy! I will be trying this again as soon as we can pick up a small bottle of sake.