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food (Page 261)
Part of the excitement of traveling is trying foods that you have never seen, heard of, or even contemplated before. So when our lodging in the wilds of Nikko offered roasted salamander for dinner, I had to give it a try. Not just to satisfy my curiosity and my pride, but to report back to you, dear reader, about what amphibi-lizard on a stick tastes like.
Few things could delight kids (and big kids!) more than mimicking their favourite TV shows, movies and videogames, and sitting down to the exact same meal that their heroes enjoy.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles always had the most mouth-watering pizza; Ponyo and Sousuke had home-made ramen noodles; Pop-eye had canned spinach… OK, so maybe not every cartoon meal is the greatest, but putting together food that looks exactly as it did in our favourite shows is sure to inspire even the most kitchen-shy of us to have a go, not to mention encourage fussy eaters to try something new.
If it’s anime-inspired food you’re looking for, cooking website Bistro Animeshi (a combination of “anime” and “meshi”, meaning rice or food) has everything from the fish pie delivered by Kiki herself in Kiki’s Delivery Service to Naruto’s favourite ramen noodles. As well as providing step-by-step recipes for each dish, the food blog makes every effort to match the original dishes as much as possible. We’re sure that you’ll be blown away by what they have to offer.
Plenty of tantalising food photos after the jump!
The idea of the “lifehack” – at least as far as the Internet knows it – has been around long enough that we’ve long since progressed from wide-eyed, childlike wonderment at the simple genius of saving a bagel in a CD spindle, to dubiousness and bafflement at the increasingly complex and hit-or-miss lifehacks folks are tossing out these days.
So, forgive us for still being on the fence about how we feel towards this next lifehack: Behold, the “Baby Wipe Lid Chip Saver.”
We like latte art, and its frothy 3-D variant, as much as the next group of visually stimulated coffee sippers. But as nice as it is to have a trained barista decorate your drink with a kitty or smiley face, most of us don’t have the time, equipment, or manual dexterity to add illustrations to drinks we make for ourselves.
But now those artistic flourishes don’t have to be something you can only have when you go out and pay five bucks for a cup of coffee, with new products that’ll let you enjoy latte art at home for about as much effort as tossing a cube of sugar into your mug.
Salty, delicious, and easy to customize to specific tastes – everyone loves ramen. Perhaps that’s why the Tokyo Ramen Show 2014 attracted so many visitors, who flocked to watch up-and-coming ramen chefs battling it out for the title of “Best Newcomer.” The eventual winner was Mr. Takeo Kanda, with his special “Sea Chicken Ramen”. But Mr. Kanda isn’t even a ramen chef – he’s just an ordinary salaryman. And in a shocking move, he refused to accept his cash prize of 500,000 yen (US$4,500).
As the weather gets chillier, shabu-shabu becomes an ideal dinner. Think delicately thin slices of meat cooked to your liking in a bubbling broth, then dipped in your favorite sauce and delivered direct to your tummy. What could possibly be better than a satisfying meal of all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu, you might wonder? Well, we hit jackpot when we found this restaurant in Yokohama which serves all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu and sushi, all for a low, low price of 1,799 yen (US$16).
In the spirit of gourmet discovery, we wasted no time in bringing along our Japanese-food-loving American friend Ike for some face-stuffing.
Let’s say you’re designing a menu for a restaurant, and you want to serve parfaits. More precisely, you want to serve as many different kinds of parfaits as you can think up. How far do you think you could make it towards that goal before things got completely crazy?
Apparently the tipping point to culinary weirdness is about 195 varieties. How did we calculate that? Well, on a recent visit to Kyoto, we found a café that has about 200 different types of parfaits, including five that’re topped with things like corn dogs and deep-fried prawns.
Recreating food from our favorite movies and anime is nothing new. We’ve already seen ramen straight out of Naruto and herring and pumpkin pot pie a la Kiki’s Delivery Service. But what is unusual is that this time it’s not die-hard anime fans breathing life into 2-D delicacies, but a cafeteria at one school in Japan. You won’t believe this special school menu featuring a week of delicious looking dishes from some of Hayao Miyazaki’s most famous works.
For months now a crisis has been brewing in the dairy industries of Japan. However, like the gooey sweetness of a melting pat of butter penetrating the crevices of a piece of toast, the effects have only recently begun to seep into the general population. We’re still only in the early stages though and things are bound to get worse before they get better.
Some readers who live in Japan may have noticed that the cost of butter has been significantly higher in recent months. In other cases shelves have gone empty and purchases are limited to one per person.
Now the writing is smeared on the wall: Japan is running out of butter… and fast.
Although slightly paradoxical, there’s kind of nothing more American than the good ol’ Chinese buffet.
The Chinese buffet is an American fixture that takes an imported cuisine (basically the only thing America really has) and twists it to suit American tastes. Over the years, it’s become a classic staple of the American diet, fortune cookies and all. Also there’s probably something to be said about the American dream – “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” and all that – beneath all the MSG and faux duck meat. Whatever.
So American expats, nostalgic for their weekly family fix of spicy staples like General Tso’s chicken and other incongruous Asian fusion dishes, must be rejoicing at the news that there’s now a Chinese buffet in Tokyo serving all-you-can-eat Chinese classics for a measly 600 yen (US$5.50).
As tasty as yakiniku is, there’s a bit of a problem with going out to eat the delicious strips of grilled meat. Restaurants normally offer a variety of different cuts, but each order comes with several pieces of the same thing. Going by yourself means not being able to eat much of a variety, and eating with friends and sharing forces you to negotiate and compromise on what to order.
So we were happy when we found a way to enjoy our ideal meal without feeling like a glutton or a jerk , when we discovered a restaurant in Tokyo that lets your order whatever kind of yakiniku you want, one piece at a time.
The heartland of Japan is certainly becoming the envy of the nation with their recent offerings of unusual foods. First the crunchy sweet mushrooms of Chubu region turned heads on Twitter. Now out of Tochigi Prefecture, emerges fruit-flavored hotdogs!
What chemical witchcraft went into making these sticks of pork(?) colored and flavored like lemon and strawberry milk is a mystery, but they do look intriguing, and dare I say delicious?
It’s hard to think of a more Japanese condiment than wasabi, but even among diners born and raised in Japan, you can find people who order their sushi wasabi nuki, or without wasabi. We can see why, since not everyone who loves the flavor of raw fish also enjoys the sensation of simultaneously having their sinuses cleared and their tongue set on fire.
What’s a little harder to understand, though, is why the makers of wasabi-beef flavored potato chips have decided to offer a wasabi-free version of their salty snacks.
You might think there’s no reason to fly to Fukuoka. After all, the Shinkansen line now stretches all the way to the biggest city on the island of Kyushu, and those spiffy new first-class long-haul bus seats are about ready to make their debut. Why bother taking to the skies when you’ve got two perfectly good terrestrial travel options?
Simple: so you can get a crepe from a vending machine at Fukuoka Airport.
Growing up, every year as Halloween approached, I could feel a sense of dread creeping up on me. It wasn’t the prospect of being hunted by werewolves or getting lost in a haunted house that frightened me, though.
I was terrified that someone would give me raisins when I went trick-or-treating.
Honestly, I understand that some people don’t approve of eating nothing but candy on Halloween, and there’s a valid point in trying to balance out your diet on All Hallows’ Eve. Do you have to do it with something as soulless as raisins, though, especially when you could use our recipe to whip up some tasty and jack-‘o-lantern steamed buns instead?
If you have ever had the pleasure of visiting the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka, you probably know about its amazing food that has people from all over the country booking trips there just to stuff themselves silly. Between the rich, pork broth and firm noodles of the famous Hakata Ramen and the spicy delight that is mentaiko (marinated cod and pollack roe), Fukuoka is a place visitors leave having to loosen their belt a few notches.
With so many delicious things to come out of the city, an online poll set out to see which dishes people think are the epitome of the Fukuoka food scene. Click below to see the results and vote on what you think is the best food to come out of Fukuoka!
We thought we knew pancakes, but boy, were we wrong!
Our team prides itself on both seeking out and sampling good food, all in the name of science and hard-hitting journalism. Among our favorite treats are none other than heaping stacks of fluffy, buttery pancakes, which we’ve even adapted to bake in a Japanese rice cooker with epic results.
In other words, we thought we knew pretty much everything there is to know about the delicious comfort food, that is until one of our Japanese writers made an unexpected discovery–there’s a place in Japan that sells pancakes topped with baby anchovies!
Despite being nowhere near as famous as his feline counterpart abroad, Sanrio’s Pom Pom Purin has a very loyal fan base in his homeland, so much so that the pastel-yellow “pudding” dog managed to clinch fourth place in this year’s Sanrio Character Ranking, at one point leading the pack.
But while Hello Kitty, My Melody and Kiki & Lala have all been given their own themed cafes, poor old’ Pom Pom has had to wait on the sidelines like the patient pup he is. But by the looks of it, the first ever Pom Pom Purin Cafe was well worth the wait, with the Harajuku location boasting a super-kawaii menu with meals, desserts and drinks featuring everyone’s favorite Sanrio canine as well as adorable merchandise available only at the cafe.
Shizuoka is generally known for two things, and they’re both green. The prefecture is one of Japan’s biggest producers of not only tea, but also the fiery condiment paste wasabi.
While bottles of tea aren’t anything unusual, we’d never seen wasabi in liquid for until a recent visit to Shizuoka. Since spicy is one of our favorite flavors (we’d put it right up there with sweet and salty), we grabbed a bottle of wasabi sauce to try for ourselves. We were not disappointed.
Japan’s real-world Pokémon hot spring’s first photos are here![Photos]
Two new Sailor Moon art manhole covers are coming to Usagi’s real-world Tokyo neighborhood
What makes the Starbucks Japan chocolate terrine so popular?
Krispy Kreme releases new limited-edition fox doughnuts at only four stores in Japan
Tokyo restaurant offers lunches for less than 1 U.S. cent…if you’re good enough at rock-paper-scissors
KFC Japan’s “The American Burgers” include a pile of guilt
Gundam teams up with 300-year-old daruma maker for wood-carved anime mecha figures[Photos]
Government says 5.7 trillion yen of Japanese media was pirated last year, thinks AI could help
Pizza Hut Japan’s drinkable curry pizza is here – Is it all we dreamed it would be?[Taste test]
Japanese temple burns to the ground, fire burning inside for 1,200 years unharmed
Kanji ice cream becomes a sell-out hit in Japan
Japan has a new cute and clever sunblock for cat lovers
Tokyo’s new extra-expensive ramen restaurant is dividing opinions, so we tried a bowl
Japan’s izakaya pubs closing at record pace, failing to attract foreign touristsGundam teams up with 300-year-old daruma maker for wood-carved anime mecha figures[Photos]Japanese temple burns to the ground, fire burning inside for 1,200 years unharmed
Japan’s instant ramen snack theme park features an athletic course even adults can enjoy
Krispy Kreme Japan is bringing two special donuts to the most-forgotten big city in the countryPizza Hut Japan’s drinkable curry pizza is here – Is it all we dreamed it would be?[Taste test]
Starbucks Japan hoping fans will go bananas for its new mottainai banana affogato Frappuccino
Tokyo’s life-size Gundam anime mecha statue will be removed this summer
The average age of Japan’s hikikomori shut-ins is getting older, survey shows
Japan enters Golden Week vacation period, survey shows one in three plan to ride it out at home
Ichiraku Ramen-inspired ramen sets from Naruto anime pay homage to Naruto, Sasuke, and SakuraKanji ice cream becomes a sell-out hit in Japan
Japan’s new Pokémon jackets give you the look and powers of the Kanto starter trio
Japan now has gyoza doughnuts, and they taste like no other doughnut we’ve tried before
Studio Ghibli releases new anime keychains that are like miniature figurinesJapan has a new cute and clever sunblock for cat lovers
This Tokyo Station sweets sensation sells out daily, but we finally got our hands on it
Japan’s human washing machines will go on sale to general public, demos to be held in Tokyo
Starbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
We deeply regret going into this tunnel on our walk in the mountains of Japan
Starbucks Japan releases new sakura goods and drinkware for cherry blossom season 2026
Japan’s newest Shinkansen has no seats…or passengers [Video]
Major Japanese hotel chain says reservations via overseas booking sites may not be valid
Put sesame oil in your coffee? Japanese maker says it’s the best way to start your day【Taste test】
No more using real katana for tourism activities, Japan’s National Police Agency says
Japan reportedly adding Japanese language skill requirement to most common foreigner work visa
Japan’s 5.3 million beautiful Hitachi Nemophila flowers are now in full bloom[Photos]
KFC Japan’s “The American Burgers” include a pile of guilt
Gundam teams up with 300-year-old daruma maker for wood-carved anime mecha figures[Photos]
Government says 5.7 trillion yen of Japanese media was pirated last year, thinks AI could help
Pizza Hut Japan’s drinkable curry pizza is here – Is it all we dreamed it would be?[Taste test]
Japanese temple burns to the ground, fire burning inside for 1,200 years unharmed
Japanese government to allow desecration of flags on kids’ meals
Japan’s izakaya pubs closing at record pace, failing to attract foreign tourists
2021 Salaryman Poetry Battle showcases some dark but hilarious poems
Tokyo’s new extra-expensive ramen restaurant is dividing opinions, so we tried a bowl
Used chopsticks upgraded from “waste” to “valuable material” by Kawasaki City thanks to ChopValue
28-year-old sumo wrestler dies after contracting coronavirus
12-year-old manga artist wins prize from Weekly Shonen Jump, talent might run in the family
Japan’s instant ramen snack theme park features an athletic course even adults can enjoy
Bizarre Japanese vending machine sells “Peace and Equality” and “Angels and Demons”
