Tokyo Day 2

more instant ramen for breakfast, at an ungodly, jet-lag-induced hour

matcha and a red-bean flavored sweet at the tea house in the Hama-rikyu gardenthis is where we had lunch, a somewhat unassuming place in Asakusa - two blocks down from the main street and totally devoid of tourists

the reason Ritesh picked this place for lunch: they had chilies drying in the sun outsidewe managed to order the set lunch w/ mackarel, with the help of another customer who spoke a couple of words of English, and our trusty dictionary - super tasty and super cheap.

we ordered a plate of the fried bean sprouts because the gentlemen who helped us out was having them and they smelled really good... tasted great, too, although granted, they're not all that photogenic

freshly made red-bean cakes walking up to Asakusa Temple

and spicy dinner at a Thai hole-in-the-wall under the train tracks near Tokyo station. We knew we had some fine dining coming up the next few days, so went nice and cheap on this. Tokyo really doesn't have to be expensive...

Btw, for pictures of anything other than food, such as what we actually did and saw all day, check this link.

Tokyo Day 1

Dawn from our hotel room window. first cup of green tea - even the hotel sencha is good

spicy instant ramen for a super-early breakfast - we managed to pick this up last night at a store in Ginza.

actually, this was mine, which was not so spicy at all. Ritesh had a spicy one, but I didn't take a picture...

plastic crepe display on Takeshita Dori

another breakfast just off Takeshita Dori, getting ready to explore the Meji shrine and garden: Some more green tea, with two kinds of rice ball - one triangle wrapped in seaweed and filled with something that might have been spicy tuna, and a round one covered with something sausagey. All very tasty.

After the Meji Shrine, in Yoyogi park, we stumbled on what we now know to have been our first Takoyaki:

at this stall:green superfood drink and veggie goodies with miso dips at a veggie fair between Yoyogi Park and Shibuya

Iced tea at Starbucks, only for the location on the second floor overlooking the mad diagonal intersection in front of Shibuya station. Note that Starbucks in Japan does not carry green tea. Or rather, the only way to get green tea at a Starbucks in Japan is as a green tea latte. Hmm...

ok macaron, but lame flavor. Reminds me of a much better Japanese-flavored macaron I had in LA - ume and black sesame.

fried veggies and some meat at a bar in the Golden Gai near Shinjuku

some extra: green onion, tomato, asparagus - and two bananas for dessert!

spicy shoju w/ ooba and chili

Not such a good day for food just yet but just wait... we're just getting started...

First dinner in Tokyo - Ginza Lion

We arrived on a Saturday night, starving and exhausted, and walked over to Ginza from our hotel get a bite to eat before going to bed.
We were not in the mood for something fancy so ended up at this fabulous beer hall from the 1930ies, the Ginza Lion, which apparently is a Ginza institution.

They had a German Oktoberfest theme going, what with the waiters in Lederhosen (seriously!), German Oohmpa music blaring and all kinds of German classics on the menu, but I went for this super tasty warm Japanese mushroom salad, which we shared.

Ritesh however got this nice German Bratkartoffeln mit Wurst (fried potatoes and sausage) - the only Japanese touch was the green onion on it. Very tasty, though, too...

...plus we got to eat it with chopsticks!That's about all we could do before we collapsed in our tiny but lovely room at the Park Hotel in the Shiodome Media Center.

Tokyo - first impressions

Shibuya at night

prayer requests at the Meji Shrine

at the Meji Shrine

simple lunch of miso soup, kukicha and fantastic grilled mackerel at a little family place in Asakusa

view from our room on the 29th floor of the Park Hotel in Shiodome. Somewhere behind the haze sits Mount Fuji, The red-and-white thing is Tokyo Tower, a replica of the Eiffel Tower and several feet taller than the original.

the high tech toilet in our hotel, complete with heated toilet seat and hydraulic lid

off to the mountains to soak in some hot springs - won't have internet access for a few days. More soon!

Chichibu Ondo

You may not be aware of this but apparently the Japanese are a very merry and festive lot. Researching our trip, we've come across no end of festivals - every city, town and neighborhood seems to have a minimum of three big street festivals a year where everything grinds to a halt and people drop everything to celebrate. Kyoto for instance has the Jidai Mitsuri going on while we're there, which we were very excited about until we found out that you can't get a bed in the city during that week. So unfortunately, we've had to push Kyoto into our second week.

One of the most charming festivals we've come across, and again it's not one we'll see because it happens on August 14, is the Chichibu Ondo Mitsui in Minato Town (not Minato the neighborhood in Tokyo I take it). The entire festival is based around over a thousand people dancing to one very popular folk song all day - and the song is adorable! Couldn't find a video of the dancing, but Ritesh dug up the song itself on you tube - a classic, love it :) !

Chichibu Ondo Festival (Minano Town)
Takes place on August 13 and 14. Dancers parade through the town and dance to the tune of Chichibu-ondo, one of the three best traditional folk songs in Japan. Dancing contest and firework festival are also held on the same day.

"Chichubu Ondo (dance song for Chichibu Ondo Matsuri Festival) is thought to be one of the most famous folk songs in Kanto area. At Nagashi-odori competition, 60 teams of over 1,200 people from various parts of Saitama prefecture participate every year, and you will get to hear voices of participants echoing through out the mountain. The fireworks display also adds the excitement to the festival. Chichibu ondo was started by the local valley people about 200 years ago. At the end of Taisho era, Minano town added lyrics that was collected by local people to the sound and performed Chichibu Hohnen (a year of plenty) dance to the public. The performance was renamed later as Chichibu Ondo Matsuri Festival and became one of the most famous fold songs in the Kanto area, along with Gunma`s Yagibushi and Tochigi`s Nikko Waraku Dance. The festival is held every year on Aug. 14 in Minato town."
Quoted from some tourist sites.

Countdown to Japan - One Week to go!

So a week from today, we'll be landing in Tokyo. We're actually leaving on Friday, but that 16h time difference pushes our arrival into Saturday afternoon local time. We're very excited. We've finally managed to book our hotels for the entire trip this week, now we need to tackle in-country travel and dish out for a Japan Rail pass, which may require a hasty trip to Japantown this weekend, we'll see.

We've been a bit worried about the weather, though. As you can imagine, this is what the weather is like in LA:

And this is what it's been like in Tokyo for some weeks now:

It seems to be getting better gradually now that typhoon season is over, but I'm packing a rain jacket!

Chocolate truffles and rice krispy treats

Home made chocolate truffles, made w/ hazelnut butter, raw cocoa, agave syrup, cocoa nibs and some dates, if I recall. This was a variation on Ani Phyo's chocolate truffles -hers are made with almond butter.

And for those of us who love peanut butter (Suzie, are you reading this?) - some maple-sweetened peanut butter rice krispy treats w/ pistachios, from this fabulous recipe.

Japan!

Now that the pops is home safe and sound and solidly on the road to recovery, Ritesh is finally getting ready to leave for his Fulbright year in India. The exciting bit about this from my end is that I'll be going with him as far as Japan, which is sort of half way to India from here, for a two-week vacation to celebrate our anniversary (guess how many years it's been... :) and for some couple time to recover from just about everything that happened this year. He'll then go on to India, and I'll come back to work (did I mention we're getting restructured?) and will fly out to join him in India towards the end of December.

So we're taking the blog to Japan and will try to blog as much as possible about everything we eat, and then some! Yay!


PS: we're having a really hard time deciding where to stay in Tokyo, Kyoto, on Mount Koya, and possibly in Hakone, Nara, Magome and Hiroshima so are grateful for any recommendations...

Ani's Raw Food Desserts

Ever since that fabulous raw peach-pistachio cobbler that I made four times in a row, I couldn't wait to try more of the recipes in Ani Phyo's raw dessert cookbook - here are some of my efforts. They all turned out fantastic and I'm a devoted fan now, to the extent that my official goal is to try every single one of the 85 recipes in her book.

First off, here are the lavender chocolate bars from p.85 - made with unprocessed coconut oil and almond butter, dried lavender, organic cocoa powder, agave nectar and sliced, raw almonds - my first ever homemade chocolate, and it rocked!

the is my first ever homemade raw and dairy-free/vegan cheesecake, made from ground cashews, lemon juice, cococonut oil and agave nectar, with some raw cocoa nibs and a raw chocolate sauce mixed in the top layer. If you have Ani's book, this is the chocolate chip cheezecake swirl from p. 51

the chai-spiced blueberry cobbler from p. 93this is the raspberry ganache fudge cake from p. 49 that I made for Ritesh's birthday, with walnuts, dates, organic cocoa, agave, and a frosting that consists of avocado, dates, cocoa and agave - super rich and decadent in its deliciousness and yet totally dairy and cholesterol free and actually all good for you
and this is the acai cheezecake from p. 54, again made from cashews, lemon juice, coconut agave, with a packet of frozen acai blended in. The crust is any form of nut mixed with dates - this one is salted pecans, almonds, walnuts and some shredded coconut. I cut these into bitesize pieces since they're pretty rich. Plus they keep best in the freezer, so it's easiest to take out just however many little pieces you can handle.

Banana Cream Pie

So Ritesh's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and I had promised I would try my hand at a banana cream pie, his favorite, so here is my first ever effort:

There are so many egg yolks in the custard that I made a meringue top out of the leftover egg whites. So no whipped cream here, but it was pretty tasty.

A few days later, I made a second one, this one vegan and soy based:

The custard is made from tofu and the bananas are actually mixed in, rather then layered under the custard. And the topping is a whipped soy product I found at Whole Foods that actually comes imported from Germany and tastes pretty darn good as well.I haven't been able to extract from Ritesh which one of the two pies he liked better, so may have to make both again next year :)