Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Honeymoon

It is finally here. We are leaving in a few hours to catch one of many flights during this trip. We will be in LA until Thursday, when we catch our flight over to Tahiti. We will then take a small plane on Friday morning to Bora Bora.

Mike and I are really excited to be going even though its been almost a year since we got married. But hey, better late than never. I am actually looking forward to having sunshine everyday!

We will be back in 2 weeks, so until then, catch up on past blog posts, comment on them, and then look for our return in May.

BYEEEEEE

Monday, April 26, 2010

Grande Biere

was a weekend event in which 60+ beer breweries were sampling their beer. The majority of them were Japanese, but not your typical Kirin, Sapporo, or Asahi beers. I just stumbled upon the advertisement for this when looking at this other website about Japan restaurants. Mike and I thought it would be fun to go and it sure was. It wasn't rowdy by any means and quite calm, actually. Included in the entrance fee was a glass that was filled with beer. It was in 2 adjacent halls and we sampled more than half of their beers. Great they had set up were water jugs stands, where you could wash you glass out. I loved this place because some of the beer was too sweet tasting and I could not finish it, so out it went.

We started in Hall A and tried to make our way around the room before moving to the next hall. We started with the following breweries.

Here we are after receiving our first sampling!

Mike with one of many dark beers today...this one was the Coriander Black


We got through half of Hall A and then moved to Hall B. I preferred Hall B beers better because they were not as sweet. Mike and I would even share sips of tastes to decide if we wanted to try that one or move on to another one. I am not a beer drinker by any means, but did manage to try alot of dark beer like:
Kinshachi Beer Imperial Stout
Harvestmoon Schwartz (black coffee aroma)
Anchor Bock Beer & Porter

Mike tasted some interesting ones as well:
Yokohama Beer, Dragon Splash
Kobushi-hana Beer Belgium White
Fujizakura Heights Beer, Chocolate wheat

And just for my friend Shana, I tried the Hitachino Nest Beer Sorachi Gold. I couldn't resist especially because of the owl!


With the last tasting of the event before we left. I had the Tanzawa no Shizuku Honey Beer and Mike had the Minami Shinshu Beer Porter. I really liked mine and it was a great beer to end with!


really great event. I was very surprised at how much the Japanese were tasting, especially the women since they are tiny. We did manage to see a few drunk girls and NO, I wasn't one of them! There will be another event like this in Sept. in yokohama, so we may just have to attend!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Friday night shenanigans

I as mentioned in the last post, I was off for Friday night and boy did we have a good time. George and I started out at Legends for happy hour and waited until Mike got there. Then we walked over to this really great German restaurant that has really, really good pretzel sandwiches. They make the pretzels fresh and then you pick the middle; cheese, german ham, or salami. All are delish.

After dinner we stopped for a drink and then headed over to karaoke. We told George he couldn't leave Tokyo without karaoking. The place we went to is fairly cheap and for 900 yen more, it becomes all you can drink. Probably not the wisest of choices, but we did it anyway. So the 3 of us sang and sang and sang & drank and drank, and drank. I probably should have stopped before the first drink, but no. Anywho, we had a great time. Our waiter was the "shizzzz" because he came in every time and started dancing and singing, so we gave me a mic. He was too funny.
Bad things from this night:
1 large umbrella lost, well I should say, left somewhere
3 hangovers
2 heads that were still singing songs on Sunday

Here are some pictures...mind you, I am not putting up all of them because you can definitely see the progression of drunkenness!

I know, scary, but he is singing "We're not gonna take it, NO, we ain't gonna take it, anymore..."

George and our cool waiter

Friday, April 23, 2010

Sin Den

and Risa are amazing. They gave me a great haircut and much better than the previous one I had. You know you are in a good place, when the stylist asks you to uncross your legs before they start cutting, which is exactly what she did. She gave me back shape, volume, long layers, umph, even length, and side sweeping bangs. Needless to say, I am extremely happy about finding this place and even more thankful for Mike, who won the gift certificate to this place during his golf tournament a few weeks ago. Now I know it was risky getting my hair cut right before leaving on the honeymoon, especially since we will be taking lots of pictures, but I am so glad that I did. Will definitely be going back to her!

Also on my adventures this week, I found a place that does waxing, which is extremely hard to come by in Japan, in general. Again, risky, but my eyebrows were in desperate need of some cleaning. See if you can tell the difference. I know I can. All in all, some good risk taking!

Now its off to meet George for happy hour, then the German restaurant for dinner, and then who knows. Happy friday!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Can there be Art?

As I mentioned my friend George is here getting inspired, so what better place to go than to the art museums! Mike was quite happy he didn't have to go since he doesn't care for art museums, so it was perfect for us. We headed to the Mori Art Museum, which has a special exhibit on "Can there be Art?" The purpose of the exhibit is to answer the question particularily in times of recession since the arts are the first things to go. All the exhibits have everyday useful things that get thrown out, but it shows how they can be made into art. It was a really cool exhibit and I was allowed to take pictures just without the flash on!
Here is one that shows excess, but I thought it was great. If you can't read it, it's entitled "Art is in the party"

I have seen houses that look this bad and worse when lots of people are there with tons of alcohol.

I thought the cake was cool because it was sitting on wine and champagne bottles


Here is my favorite exhibit...and the picture came out great! It's just a wall painted black, but then all these pieces (similar to bike reflectors) are put in this great pattern. AMAZING.


Now this piece was really cool. It had 3 parts that were all hooked up together to play music. The picture not shown is of a stacked music area.

The robot looks cool and as the music would play, various parts would move or light up....Can you find what is lit up?


George and I both enjoyed the exhibit and at the end we even got to vote for the best one. You all know which one I picked! He picked one that was a serious of pictures that told a story about a Japanese man marrying a Korean Japanese. Interesting story. Great exhibit....my answer is definitely, YES!
Oh and I as finish this post, an earthquake just happened. I know because I felt it as I sat on the couch...never a dull moment in Tokyo.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Bento box

My next cooking class was quite exciting as we were making a bento. Bento = lunch box of Japanese food that has about 5 different things in it. It is nicely separated in containers and is very popular for lunch...Here is the bento we made. Now we didn't put it in the traditional box b/c everything would not fit, but did use a traditional Japanese plate and plated as if it were in a box.

clockwise, we have a scrambled egg with smoked pork and chinese leeks; ground pork with onions baked in wonton wraps; rice mixed with smoked pork, green sprouts, and chestnuts; white rice; bell pepper rounds filled with ground pork and topped with a tomato ketchup sauce; seaweed salad with bamboo and white seaweed?. In the middle is the baked spring roll filled with pork, bean sprouts and chinese leeks. Off to the left is dessert in wonton/phyllo squares filled with custard. The custard was the easiest thing to make because we have custard powder and just added milk to it!!

All in all, it was quite a tasty meal except for the seaweed salad. It tasted funny and always feels somewhat slimy in my mouth. The bell pepper things with the sauce were really, really good even though I was hesitate about it. And over here, the bell peppers at local grocery stores are that small around, so it makes it easier to fill. I will definitely try to make this again in the near future, but not anytime soon. Yummy yummy in my tummy!

Japanese cooking in Miles kitchen

I finally did, I replicated the Japanese meal I made at school. Now I didn't make all dishes from school because I didn't like all of them, but I did make the important ones. I figured it was a good time to make it as Mike wanted me to cook something from school and a friend of mine from back home, George, is visiting, so why not make a japanese meal. He is an artist who received a grant to travel to a bunch of countries and Japan is one of those! He spent like 3 months in S. America, has been traveling around Japan for the last 3 weeks, and will be moving on to Korea, China, Vietnam, and who knows where else. He is the photographer of my cooking adventure.
Anywho,I went to the grocery store and had to find the Japanese ingredients, which I found with the help of speaking japanese and the attendant. Here all the ingredients


I had lots of things to prepare and one of them was the chicken croquette. You get the seaweed ready; however, I didn't buy the flat sheet, but half sheets, so I had to improvise. On the seaweed, I put the cheese and the fish eggs. DID NOT like having to put fish eggs on there, but yeah, part of the dish.

Next, I put the rolled or in my case, 2 strips smashed together inside a sliced open chicken and started rolling the chicken around it.


To the meat mixture that was used for the potato croquette and just to eat, I had to pour the sauce on it as it cooked. Special sauce of soy, mirin, cooking sake, and 8 tsps. of brown sugar.

The meal also called for quick miso soup, if you remember from the post. Here is the finished product of miso soup. In the back pots are the cooked rice and the finished meat mixture.

At last the finished product. We have quick miso, chicken croquette, potato/beef croquette, and white rice (the good sticky kind). Now I realize this Japanese meal may have looked better if I had Japanese dishes, but hey, I use what I got!


Both Mike and George enjoyed dinner, so yay for me replicating it. Mike said he didn't like the chicken croquette for some reason. Oh well. I am hoping the next Japanese meal I make is a bit more of what you all see, like soba, and tempura. Happy eating, whatever it is you are eating!
Sayonnara

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Saturday night

Saturday was a great day. Mike and I woke up early and had a great breakfast. Then I was off to the market to pick up some last minutes things. Mike scheduled a golf outing with the people from work and I offered to host the wives at the apartment especially since the golf bar is very close to us. Well, as usual I over did it on the food and only had 1 wife accept my invitation. No worries, we made the most of it, ate some snacks, and drank some champagne. I was really glad that I met her. She gave me all kinds of good information about places to go, clubs/organizations to join and offered to have some of her friends contact me. Mike also said the men had a great time while golfing. They only got through 9 holes, but fun ones. Mike said he won 4 skins!

After this event, Mike and I were contemplating about going out or just staying in and hanging out. We opted for the staying in, but we needed some more alcohol! Mike went down and got us another bottle of champagne.
We made it a special date night as we drink this bottle. I'm thankful to have found such a great and loving husband!


Here is the bubbly as we started watching our movie. My pick this time and I convinced Mike to watch a girly/romantic movie, tehehehhe. (27 dresses)


And of course, we had to document this occasion, so here we are on the couch!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Japanese food at cooking school

I finally made a completely, almost completely, Japanese meal at cooking school! On the menu was steamed rice, miso soup, tofu/cabbage salad, beef, croquettes, and plain yogurt with mango jam. I made this menu last friday afternoon and it was good!

So we actually steamed the rice this time. Usually they have rice made in the rice cooker and we just go get some. The dessert was easy, put some yogurt in a bowl and top with some mango jam. The cabbage/tofu salad was pretty easy as well. We steamed the cabbage and tofu in the microwave. Then we made a dressing, kind of, of salty soy, brown sugar, and bonito flakes. They we tossed the cabbage and tofu in it. Now for the good stuff!

Croquettes are traditional here and we made 2. The first one was chicken. So we butterflied a chicken tender. In a piece of seaweed, we put 2 long strips of cheese and some pink fish eggs (they were small) and then wrapped it up. We placed the seaweed in the chicken tender and then wrapped that up. We covered it in flour, eggs, and the bread crumbs. Time to fry.
The other one was of mashed potatoes and minced beef with onions. Make some mashed potatoes, but don't add anything to them. The beef mixture is used twice. So we sauted beef and added in some brown sugar, cooking sake, mirin, and soy. We let it cook and then divided about 1/3 of it to put into the potatoes with some of the juice. To the potato/meat mixture, we added the microwaved onions and mixed thoroughly. We divided it up into 4 sections for each one of us. Again, we floured, egged it, and put some bread crumbs and into the frying oil.
To the rest of the beef, we added some thinly sliced ginger and sesame seeds. then it was ready.

As for the miso soup, we didn't do it the traditional way, but it was an easier version b/c of time. In a pot we boiled some water and bonito flakes (katsuobushi) and then added in some diced pork. We took it off the heat and added in some chinese leeks (which look like green onions), some miso paste, and ume (jap. ingred). We stirred it around and the miso was ready. The stuff on the side is the bonito flakes (just for you Jeff).


This meal was really good and I was happy I had to walk to return a book and then home, because I ate too much and didn't have my fat pants with me! The beef mixture was really good and they serve as a staple here, beef bowl for like 400 yen, and its huge. The chicken croquette was good even though I was not so sure about those fish eggs. However, I didn't get sick, so its good.
Mike complained why I hadn't cooked anything from school and I told him some of the menus just weren't awe inspiring. However, he said he likes this menu, so I am going to take a stab about cooking Japanese food sometime next week. Wish me luck, i'll let you know how it goes.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Last of the cherry blossoms

Last Thursday I went to another park, which was the probably the last good day to see cherry blossoms. Now all the petals are on the street and green leaves are growing to replace them. I went over to Hamariku park with Lorena and just walked around to enjoy them. Here are some great pictures




The last good picture near the cherry blossoms and the tea house in back!


Now every park has to have some history in it. I thought this was cool history that you actually want to read about and see. This is the 300 Year Old Pine, literally. There is a description about it, but it has been around for 300 years and the long branches are held up with wooden posts so they don't break. It's really cool.


Tune in next year for more cherry blossoms, until then come back as often as you like to see the pretty flowers...we all know I took waaaayyyyy too many pictures of them, but whatever!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Multicultural Evening

Downtown Tokyo. Mexican restaurant. Japanese wedding reception. Michael Jackson. Nuff said.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Sake #4


We are on to sake bottle #4, which I picked out for last weekend, but didn't drink it. Tonight was an excellent night to drink some of it. I didn't heat it in the sake carafe like before, but just heated it in microwave. This is how all the Japanese people were doing it when we were at the sakura festivals. Mike thought it would be great for everyone to see the glass, well mug, I choose to put it in.


2 minutes later it was ready. I smell everything before eating or drinking (I try not to make it obvious, just something I do automatically), so it was very potent and had a strong alcoholic smell. It actually tasted good and surprisingly wasn't bad at all. Once it became cold, the taste was still good unlike some of the other bottles we have tried. Looks like I may have found a winner in this one!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Meguro River in Naka-Meguro

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous as in the sun was shining all day and the temperature was above 60F. I mean I just took a light sweater out with me, that was how nice it was. I had to get out especially since it rained all day Monday and today it has rained and been overcast all day.

Well I called my friend Lorena to see if she wanted to meet for lunch and then head over to this river to see more cherry blossoms. She wanted to get out as well, so we went. We had Peruvian food for lunch and then headed to Naka-meguro. Now, I wouldn't call this a river by any means, seeing as how the water was very nil and probably came up to your ankles, maybe a little higher. It didn't matter, this place was beautiful with all the cherry blossom branches peaking over the river in full bloom. We walked up and down the river and were amazed. Here is a slew of pictures...







Now no trip is complete without pictures of us and random people...Me

Lorena and the cherry blossoms

Random lady eating her hot dog as her dog just chills...he was super cute

Randomly dressed girl (like a doll) and guy


This place was so great I even found a taco truck well, van in this case, but didn't stop. first place I have seen breakfast tacos advertised!


Now I realize I am all crazy about these flowers, but trust me, I will stop writing about them this week as they are falling off the trees. This is the one place where it looks so pretty as they fall, almost like snow and then float down the river.



We had a good time and I was really glad I found out about this place and the weather was good. I am hoping to frame some of them in color and black & white whenever we get back to the states. But for now, I'll just admire them on my computer. I can't pick a favorite, but thought this one looked cool.