Sushi and Ramen and Gyoza, Oh My!

This post will mostly be about food.  Because, lets be honest, the best part of any experience is eating.  And I can eat like a champ.  And, I'm willing to try any food once.  So far, the food in Japan has not disappointed.  There are so many different options, and they also have amazing Chinese, Thai and Indian food choices as well.  Its an Asian food smorgasborg over here.  I've tried to take pictures of a lot of foods we have eaten, but have missed some opportunities.  I'll mostly talk about the foods we have tried so far and keep updating when we have tasted more. 

I've only eaten authentic Japanese breakfast once so far.  And yes, it included raw fish.  :)  The main dish consisted of a bowl of rice, and then you add an assortment of toppings such as nori (dried seaweed), leeks, picked vegetables and tsukemono (pickles), and then pour a chicken tea/broth liquid over top.  Very tasty.  I also had some raw salmon and aji (dried horse makerel - grilled/salted) which were also very good. Probably the only thing I have tasted so far and not liked was the umeboshi (pickled plum).  Pretty gross. 

Lunch and dinner offer pretty much the same choices, but a lot of places will offer "set lunches" or special deals on their main dishes that also include soup (usually miso), a small dessert (usually some coconut custard thing) and a little salad.  

Let's talk sushi.  Sushi literally means a dish consisting of cooked vinegared rice combined with other ingredients.  It does not automatically mean raw fish/food, as you can find anything in sushi form.  Kenny has found hamburger, fried chicken, duck, corn, salted pork and anything mixed with mayonaise.  For some reason, the Japanese love mayonaise.  They even put it on pizza. We have yet to try this, so I will refrain from posting an opinion until I've attempted it.  :)  Any way you slice it, the sushi - especially combined with raw fish, is amazing.  You can pay a variety of amounts per plate and obviously the more expensive the better the cut of fish.  I paid $10 for 2 pieces of tuna, but it was well worth it.  It will be difficult to go back to regular old tuna again.  

Kenny isn't that big a fan of sushi....yet, so we have explored a lot of other types of food as well.  Probably one of his favorites is tonkatsu (pork cutlet).  Pork is the most common type, but you will also find it in chicken or beef.  It is basically a form of fried meat - lightly battered with egg/flour and then dipped in Panko crumbs and deep fried.  I've been told by the Japanese that it is actually not that bad for you despite being deep fried, but I'm not convinced.  It is however, delicious so I guess it doesn't really matter.  Classically, it is severed with shredded cabbage with tonkatsu sauce (a thick Worcestershire type sauce) and miso soup.  You can also serve tonkatsu with Japanese curry sauce (brown curry) or on top of egg/rice mixture called katsudon.  Either way, all options are great.  Below is a picture of tonkatsu with curry and omelet (plate on top).

Ramen is another big food option.  This elevates the Ramen we all used to cook in the microwave in our dorm rooms to a whole new level.  Not even close.  There are endless choices when it comes to ramen - what toppings, what type of broth, etc.  My favorite is Shoyu (soy sauce based broth) and Kenny's favorite is Shio (salt based broth), but you can also get Miso based and even curry based broth.  Each region of Japan is supposedly known for a specific type of ramen.  What's the best part of eating ramen in Japan?  Getting to be as noisy as you want!  Slurping and shoveling the noodles into your mouth is a sign of respect, so you can finally do what you wanted to do with your ramen all through childhood and beyond.  I thought they were kidding when they told us this....but its true.  Very noisy in a ramen shop.  Ramen is usually served with gyoza, which are pot-stickers or dumplings.  Pretty self explanatory, and amazingly delicious. 

I'm not much of a red meat eater, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about Korean BBQ.  Not a truly Japanese dish, but very popular here and also very surprisingly delicious.  Probably also brought us the most amount of stress when ordering as English was very limited and they just kept bringing us strange raw meats. Each place is different, but where we went had us cooking the food ourselves in a charcoal grill right in the center of our table.  They bring you raw meats of your choosing marinating in different seasonings and you grill it yourself.  A popular thing here is the all you eat Korean BBQ buffet.  They put a kitchen timer on your table and set it to 90 minutes.  Then, you just order meat until you are full.  Kenny was in heaven.  We got a little adventurous and tried the pork tongue, which was actually one of the best meats we tried.  I guess you are also supposed to mix the meats with vegetables and lettuce, but if you know Kenny - he wasn't going to waste any of his time cooking/eating those.  :)

I really could go on and on about the food here, and we have only been in Japan for 1.5 weeks!  The desserts are also amazing.  The best thing about these is that the sweetness factor is dialed down about 10 notches from the States.  It makes desserts much less heavy and a lot more satisfying.  They also wrap ice cream in a crispy waffle which is the best thing ever. I am also on a mission to try every drink they sell from vending machines - my favorite so far being Melon Cream Soda.  Assorted pictures below. :)  And, of course - more about food and such to be found in future blogs - this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to food options.  

It is rainy and stormy here tonight, so our food was much less exotic (Kenny's famous sausage, red beans and rice), but still good.  :)  This weekend we are planning to go to Yokohama.  Next week is our driving test and obtaining our license and car.  More to come!!