Disney and food

Disney in the US is a variety of foods, from the lowest forms of burgers and fries, to the highest end gourmet dinners. Tokyo Disney is no different. There are a variety of reservation only places to get a fabulous dinner with a bit of the "magic" they advertise so heavily. They also happen to have burgers and fries. Though admittedly, they have fish burgers mixed in there.

This particular park had a vast array of flavored snacks. Chocolate, curry, soda(known as white soda or ramune), honey and caramel flavor for popcorn (you could even buy a little souvenir tub for it, honey was pooh themed honey pot). For some odd reason, this Disney had a facination with churros. Honey-lemon and classic cinnamon sugar were the flavors of choice, and the carts were everwhere. I discovered the greatest of the snacks, pizza spring rolls. They are about 8 inches long and filled with pizza goodness. They should start serving those at Disney in the US. They also had regular spring rolls for those not inclined to eat something non-asian, though they were also giant.

There was a great middle ground restaurant (though by middle ground I mean $25 a person) that was one of two "buffetterias." Themed like Alice in Wonderland, they offered freshly made entrees, salads and desserts at relatively reasonable prices. It turned out that everything you picked up had its own cost. I assumed that the rice came with my flank steak entree, which in reality, cost me $3. Either way it was a good, satisfying meal in a fun, whimsical building. I would've gone again, but I would've left the rice and the drinks on the counter. Andrea had the heartshaped feast.

We decide to skip out on the expensive dinner options, seeing as we had already spent too much getting into the park and eating lunch, and opted for burgers. Not great, but it was better than the crappy burgers you might get off of a theme park in the US. These ones actually had vegetables on them too.

People tell you to go to Disney World not just for the fun, but for the food now as well. The same can be said for Tokyo Disney. While it may not all be the best foods, or the least expensive, there is a wide variety that will be able to tickle almost anyone's tastes. I certainly found a few foods that made the long lines worth it, and would gladly try another pizza springroll or soda popcorn.

Nihonshu in the morning.

Ah yes, sake, my good friend. Known specifically as Nihonshu, I have developed a very strong taste for the best known alcohol of Japan (the other would be Midori, made by the Japanese-drink-making powerhouse, Suntory). It can vary from the cheap, burning taste of one-cup from the "conbini" (convenience store) to the sweet ume(oomae, plum) infused. We went to a sake-festival yesterday morning, with all the free sake you could drink. The whole goal of the festival is probably to get people to buy the drink direct from the distiller, but it really only accomplishes getting a few thousand people drunk at 11am. Though about 1/2 of the people there do buy something, so it probably does bring in some money. You get a as many free tasting cups as you want, and can go around to the booths that will give you a sample from about 20-30 different varieties.

I had about 8 different kinds. 1 of them tasted like the cheap ones, lots of burn, not much flavor. There was another one that tasted like good sake, but watered down or washed out. It had very mild flavor. There was the ume wine, which was far too sweet for me. If anyone had the Beringer from our wedding, this wine was far sweeter than that. One taste was more than enough. The ume sake was much better, good balance of sake flavor and sweetness. Would probably be good if you wanted to make an ume flavored japanese-martini. There was one that tasted like a good middle road, strong flavor without the burn. The best one was one that someone bought, and it was sweet, sour, salty and delicious. Probably the best nihonshu I've ever had.

Andrea bought, what I thought was kimchi pizza, some kind of seafood bread thing. I was fine for the first few bites until I saw the suckers from the octopus legs. That was it for me. The yakitori there was fantastic though, if only because my other option was octopus.

Making lumpia for dinner tonight, with homemade sweet and sour sauce. Hopefully it will be close to the one's Gina's mom used to make for us. We'll see what happens.

Another week

Another series of uninspiring foods. I've been pouring over recipes to make, but its just so hard. 90% of recipes on the internet require either A) ingredients that I don't have ready access to, or B) an oven. This leave me wandering the grocery store trying to think of a new flavor to stirfry chicken (which andrea won't eat the vegetables) or a new way to flavor ground borf(beef pork combo that is the only ground meat you can buy). Frustration is an american cook in a japanese kitchen.

Thankfully snacks are plentiful here; blueberry pocky, salty vanilla toppo, and orange ramune candy. Fran has come out with bananna and matcha(green tea) "au lait" flavors this month. I won't be trying either because they both sound aweful. The store had imported cookies today. A variety of shortbreads and sugar cookies. I bought shortbread with belgium chocolate. I knew they were imported when its said "Vegetarian safe" on the side. Its nearly impossible to be a vegitarian in japan simply because there are no companies that make v-friendly foods.

I'll probably hover over the food sites for a few more hours today, unless I get work to do. Maybe I'll find something I can make, maybe it will even taste good!

Boy do they love butter...

Butter flavored snacks are amazingly popular here. Even with the fact that butter is a regional export of Hokkaido and is not close to cheap. Butter flavored chips, crackers, various salty snacks. Strange obsession, but not disgusting. The chips taste like baked potatoes and there's a very specific butter bread snack that's quite good, they're sort of like giant croutons. Still there aren't very many butter flavored things in the US.

I managed to make lasagna this week. In a toaster oven and without riccota cheese. I put too many layers in so it really didn't taste perfect, though next time will be better. I won't be able to make it all the time though; $6 for a box of noodles, $4 for cottage cheese, $4 for the parmesean(just the amount I need, not the giant container most people think of), and $4 for the sauce ingredients. The noodles will last me for another batch, but $15 for two servings of homemade lasagna? Not my idea of cheap.

We ate a big dinner at a friend's apartment, he made all kinds of mexican food. He was a cook before he came to Japan and he like to make a big meal and share it with people once or twice a year. The guacamole he made was so awesome, and I don't even like the stuff. He made enchiladas and nachos, all with grilled meat. Pinwheels made with real cream cheese. Best mexican food I've had in years.