Jp Food Diary: Dec 24 & 25, 2011

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and best wishes for the New Year

Went to Chofu to meet Aniki Ken and his family as well as R1 and her family. Aniki brought me to the park around Jindaiji where we had a soba lunch, in Monmae – just one of many soba restaurants in the park – with a side of oden. I finally tried the tororo soba where you mix the cold soba into the yam paste (with a raw egg yolk). Aniki warned me to avoid getting any of the tororo onto the areas just outside the lips as people have been known to develop rashes (if and only if it’s the real thing, probably a reaction to the oxalates in the yam).

Somehow I ended up pitching in for the Christmas Eve dinner preparation. Due to R1 forgetting to buy some ingredients, the meatloaf was converted to meal balls in tomato sauce. But it was great fun and I’m glad that my memory of this recipe was refreshed when I used it about two weeks ago after a long hiatus of at least 2-3 years.

Boiled vegetables with a yuzu-negi whipped cream dip

Plum onigiri to follow the starters of salmon w fresh mint leaf, capers and olive oil (also prepared by me) as well as tinned sardines in olive oil, brie and a horseshoe cheese

Mains of chicken drumlets in a balsamic vinegar and honey sauce (I did the checking of the chicken's done-ness and reduction for the sauce), meatballs in tomato sauce w a cheese topping

An incredibly delicious vegetable soup cooked in under five minutes in a pressure pot by Mrs Ken who spent more time chopping the vegs!

A Christmas cake w ginger, spices and walnuts made by R1's and Mrs Ken's mom

Phew, no raisins!

Stayed over and was treated to a wonderful Christmas morning breakfast of fruit salad in yogurt, buns, croissants as well as a warm potato salad

After making my way back to central Tokyo, did some tiding up and then went for a quick lunch at Tairou Hiro-o near to the station. I don’t really like their ramen but their rice dishes, like this meat and veg fry-up (JPY 780), are pretty nice and the voucher for free gyoza (x3) keeps me coming back – I’m so cheap haha.

Met up with Syd and Tive and another two of Tive’s Japanese artist friends and went to see the Kuniyoshi Utagawa ukiyo-e exhibition at the Mori Art Museum. Coffee at the Galaxy Cafe at Roppongi Hills where I got a free coffee by showing them my Samsung Galaxy S. Played around with the 7 inch Galaxy Tab and the general feedback was that it was too plastic-ky and the size was neither here nor there (I can’t decide whether it’s a phone or a tablet!). Had a nice Caesar salad (JPY 800) but I forgot to take a photo. Onwards to the Tokyo Tower on foot to see the light-up which was much more subdued due to the March tsunami and Fukushima used to supply some of the electricity here.

Back to Hiro-o where I bought a half of Hermanos Grilled Chicken (because apparently chicken, particularly KFC, is the thing to have for Christmas in Japan) with potatoes (JPY 1,300). A little salty for my taste and some of the potatoes were not cooked through completely. Also because Kobeya were having a 30% time service sale, I bought their last Christmas Fruits Cake (JPY 2,400 before discount):

Not leftover cuz I bought you!