Okinawan Cuisine

Hello!
It is again rainy in Japan :(
Now I have a collection of "the same" transparent umbrellas at home!
In Japan, we can buy an umbrella at a convenience store whenever you want. It is about 5 bucks, so I, actually my boyfriend, gets one whenever we need...

Anyway, every Saturday, my boyfriend and I go out and eat dinner.
This weekend, we went out to eat Okinawan cuisine near home :)

Okinawan Cuisine is the cuisine of the Japanese island of Okinawa. Because of the difference in culture, climate, vegetables and other ingredients between Okinawa and mainland Japan, the Okinawan cuisine is very different from the Japanese cuisine.

We had a goya salad. I guess for the first time this year! Goya is a dark-green and bumpy bitter melon or bitter gourd. Usually cheaply-available in summer in the Tokyo area.
Also, we had an organic vegetable chanpuru. It was great!!! Chanpuru means something mixed. It is an Okinawan stir fry dish, generally containing vegetables, tofu, and some kind of meat or fish. This chanpuru contained SPAM meat, which is my boyfriend's favorite.
In addition, we had a chicken appetizer, gyoza (steamed dumplings) and stone pot taco rice. Taco rice is a very common meal in Okinawa, and is often served as school lunch. It consists of taco-flavoured ground beef served on a bed of rice and lettuce. The taco rice we had was cooked in a stone pot, which was cool!

I think we go to this restaurant at least 3 times a year because they have nice Okinawan taste and style!
Oops, I have never been to Okinawa.
I wish I could go there someday to make sure we are enjoying the real stuff!

Okay, I gotta stop now.
Somehow this weather makes me dizzy!
I think I have a headache :(

Oh my god! It's raining cats and dogs!!!

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Teppanyaki

Hello! It is freezing cold today!
The weather forecast said it is the temperature for March.
I wore a down jacket... am I too much?!

Also, this weekend was rainy and cold.
So I went to eat Teppanyaki (a type of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle to cook food) with my boyfriend.
It is a restaurant newly opened near our station.

What we ordered are the below:

Hiyayakko (a popular Japanese dish made with chilled tofu and toppings).
I love tofu, so this was for me :)





Takoyaki (a popular Japanese dumpling made of batter, diced octopus, tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger, konnyaku, and green onion, topped with okonomiyaki sauce, green laver (aonori), mayonnaise, and katsuobushi (fish shavings), originating from Osaka.)
I cooked it for my boyfriend!
My parents have a takoyaki pan, so I used to make it at home.


Okonomiyaki (Japanese dish consisting of a pan-fried batter cake and various ingredients. Okonomi means "what you like" or "what you want", and yaki means "grilled" or "cooked"; thus, the name of this dish means "cook what you like". )
My boyfriend cooked it for me :)





Moriawase (mixed vegetables and meats.)
We just stir-fry to eat.

We had a good time.




Anyway, when I started this diary, I said that my Japanese diary is getting longer. Finally, on 5/9, it reached to 100MB, which is the maximum capacity of the diary.
It was private and only my friends could read. I could have increased the capacity, but I needed to pay, so I decided to stop. I have written it since 2005/2/28, so I hesitated a little, but I thought I'd better use time for other stuff.

Okay, I gotta go.
See you tomorrow :)

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Yummy Yakiniku

Tonight, I went out and ate Yakiniku with my boyfriend.
Yakiniku commonly refers to a Japanese style of cooking bite-sized meat (usually beef and offal) and vegetables on gridirons or griddles over flame of wood charcoals carbonized by dry distillation (sumibi) or gas/electric grill. It is usually seasoned with tare (soy sauce base sauce) or salt.

We went to a restaurant called Yakiniku Road close to the train station. We knew there, but we have never been there since it looks very classic.
But today, I realized that I shouldn't judge by how it looks.
It was great!
To tell the truth, I don't like Yakiniku, but it was something different!!!
I've never had this kind of Yakiniku before.
Lastly, for "shime (the very last food usually rice or noodles)", we had Korean style cold noodle. In Japan, we have Korean style food (such as kimchi, nameul, bibimbap and others) at Yakiniku restaurant. I don't know why, but it is common.
It was perfect :)

You know what!? I will write more about restaurant food in Japan on this blog, too!
Since there are many other delicious foods that I don't cook at home!
I have one more recent favorite food that I haven't written.
Will write someday next week.
Also, I will write about the dinner I cooked on my boyfriend's birthday.
It is curry and rice, one of his favorites.

Good night.

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Peruvian Food

Hi!
Again, I didn't have a chance to write my diary on Friday.
I was just lazy doing nothing on that night...

These few days, I am bugged about my future direction.
I think this year shouldn't be the same as last year.
And now, it is getting clear!
Hope not give up thinking...

Anyway, on Saturday, my boyfriend and I went out for a dinner to eat Peruvian food in Shibuya.
El nombre del restaurante es MIRAFLORES :)
They serve real Peruvian food which Embassy of Peru recommend!
It has been more than 5 years since I last ate Peruvian Food, so I enjoyed a lot!
The reason why we went there is because, as I wrote before, I passed the initial screening to go to the finals and create drink recipes using camu camu for that restaurant.
I didn't have to go there and eat, but I was just curious to know what they serve.

Since we didn't know what to eat, we had a pre-fixed menu.
The food was good and was close to the Peruvian food I ate before.
They said they selected the most popular dishes for the course, but I think too much fish...
I hope they change one fish dish to chicken or something else.
But anyway, the portions were very big and we were satisfied :)

Interestingly, most of the customers there knew well about Peruvian food and they were ordering a la carte. I guess next time, we should better do so.

Okay, all for today!
Hope I could come back tomorrow.

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