6/29/2014

Fish market, ancient tombs and taking a short walk :)


 Like usual, I visited a fish market with my respectful chef in the early morning of last week. We started to do it about six months ago, and now it became my big pleasure to ask him how to find good fish from a bunch of them :) Aside from doing it, cooking with such a nice fish in my home is also fun to me.



Obviously, I like foods that I cook, but I also like eating out sometime. My favorite restaurants are usually Japanese one like sushi, and the reason is their freshness of ingredients. Eating raw fish makes my life so fulfilled :)



 Once I became full stomach, I took a short walk for an hour. It wasn't raining at that time, so it seemed nice to wander around :)









 The other day, I heard there are many ancient tombs near my home in Nagoya City. Shortly after checking it out on some web sites, I decided to go there in my car. The tombs were built around the 6th century, they said. That surprised me quite a lot. Is there so many people around here at that time? And they even built rather bigger tombs? Although we recognize more than 50 tombs around this place, we are not sure who made it and why.


Some of them have a grave like room inside. A bit cold, dark, but I like it. I could hear cars passing by the street nearby, but I couldn't feel it as a real while I was inside the tomb.  Well, since the scientists began to search about it, I'll visit again soon :)



6/18/2014

Sushi, cheese, sweets, and some alcohols I tasted last week :)


 Last week was a special one for me. I ate a variety of foods that were so cool in my home, in restaurants, from traditional style of sushi to macaroon :) So, the first picture is the sushi restaurant I often visit. Because I went there so many times, the chef began to give me fish for my souvenir everytime I go there. And this time, it was a big surprise to me.


 You know what it is? :) It's a part of Tuna, or we call it Maguro in Japanese. Although I can't explain accurately, it's close to Tuna's neck. "I've never cooked it, how should I do this?" I asked him before leaving the restaurant. "It's not difficult at all, just put salt and grill it for a while" he smiled.


 As he said, I put salt on it and grill it in my oven for 25 minutes.


 Well, I have to say it doesn't look delicious, however, it was actually delicious. Yes, it became the top 10 of my whole experienced dishes :D


 On the same day, I took macaroon and some tea. The mixture of sushi and macaroon don't sound good, you think? Then try it and you can feel something special :)


 I also got some cheese in a grocery. It's not easy to get a quality of them in Japan by the way. They are so expensive, yet not so good quality. To avoid such things, I checked many many web sites to find out a good shop for cheese.


 Why did I buy cheese so sudden? Because I planned to have a sake party in my home last Sunday. One day before it, I received a heavy pack filled with sake. "It's him." I laughed. He was supposed to come to the party with some sake, but it seemed he had given up and decided to send directly to my home ;) Such amount of sake can ruin someone's life, haha.




 As the party began, we cheered and started to drink.



"You see, if you aren't satisfied with the taste, you can add lemon, or whatever. I put Japanese pickled apricot in it." "Are you serious about it? It's not made for doing like that!" "It is! Just drink it and you'll understand!"



We started to eat and drink from 11:00 to 18:00. It was a long long day, you know :)

6/07/2014

Sometime in the evening at Kichijo-ji, Tokyo.


 After spending extremely busy weeks, I took my bicycle to go to Kichijo-ji to use some alone time. Almost two years ago, when I had nothing to do in particular, I visited there almost everyday. It became my routine to get there at that time. But now, I found myself too busy to even go out to a grocery. Well, I dropped off a Ramen restaurant for my first time. Despite it was still early evening, the tiny restaurant was filled with young people besides me.



 I like people cooking foods, as well as eating while chatting with their friends and families. The atmosphere in such situations are so peaceful and adorable.






 Yes, it was absolutely a wonderful night for me :)

6/02/2014

Going to Izakaya, tasting sake and foods.


 My friends and I went to "Izakaya", where you can enjoy Japanese alcohol Sake and many dishes a few weeks ago. Honestly, I'm not a person go eat such kind of places, you know. Crowded, people laughing at something and chatting like forever. However, I felt so frustrated at that point and I just thought I wanted to something unique to me. So I picked my phone to call them, then we were there :)



 Like many other Izakaya, it was a casual place where you can go and drink alone, with friends, colleagues and so forth. And I found how easy to order a variety of meals there, because the average price for each meal only cost $2.5-3.5. Fair enough, isn't it?! :D



Beer, fried chicken, raw fish, noodle, it seems they had it all. Like most people do, we shared from salad to soups.


 I drank a lot by the way, and this white one is probably a cup of sake, although I'm not sure about it, haha. They served a glass with a saucer-like thing, then begun to pour sake as much as possible.
Thus, the sake overflowed to a saucer underneath it. As I finished drinking a glass, a question was showing up in my mind. What should I do for the sake left in a saucer?  Fortunately, one of my friends knows well about how to deal with it, so I asked him. "It's all up to you." he answered with a smile. If I don't drink it anymore, just leave it as is. If I do want to take it, then I could sip.



 While we talked many topics happened around us recently, we really enjoyed the feeling time passed so quickly. After leaving the Izakaya, I was amazed when I realized we spent 3 hours there.



 Well, it looks I need sometimes to go and enjoy such places :)