Tomorrow will be fun! We're going on an adventure to Takarazuka! First, some background. The Takarazuka Revue is a theater troupe that is sort of a reverse of Shakespearean theater groups. All the members are female - they play both females and males. They adapt all sorts of musicals and then perform them - for example, they just finished a run of Romeo and Juliet. One of my friends here is a diehard Takarazuka fan, and is going to see a show of theirs in a few weeks. She wanted some company as she figures out the route there, so we decided to come along. Osaka happens to be on the way, so we're going to do some sightseeing in Osaka after, spend the night there, and do some more exploring of Osaka before we head back to Hikone. Should be an adventure! This will be my first overnight trip where I don't have hosts waiting for me.And, because I haven't been doing much lately and need to get to studying, it's time for a Top 5! My Top 5 today, a personal favorite of mine, is Wonderful Foods in Japan. Here are probably my 5 favorite meals to eat here!
1. Gyoza and Chahan
Okay, so this one might be "cheating", as this is not actually Japanese food. It's Chinese! But I could probably have these every day without tiring of them. Gyoza are dumplings, usually containing veggies and pork. Chinese dumplings are more widely-varied, but the Japanese version is delicious. And chahan is, of course, fried rice. The most common types of fried rice are seafood: ebi (shrimp), kani (crab), and gomoku (which has several types of fish/seafood). Love it!2. Nabe
As I've said before, nabe can refer to a lot of things, because the pot itself is a nabe pot. You basically heat a broth of some sort and cook veggies, meats, and whatever else you want in it. It's a really common meal when you have parties because it's easy to feed everyone - just add more stuff to the pot until everyone has had enough to eat. My favorite type of nabe is sukiyaki, in which the sauce is a combination of soy sauce, sake, sugar, and water. However, there are lots of variants and they're all good! Shabu-shabu is popular in Japan, because everything is just boiled in water and you just eat it with a little soy sauce. It's very healthy, apparently. Another common trend with nabe is to put noodles in at the end of your meal - the broth has a ton of flavor from all the veggies and meat you've tossed in, so you can have really tasty noodles at the end. It makes me wish we had a nabe in the dorm!3. Doria
Ah, Japanese "American" food. It always amuses me what qualifies as American food in American restaurants in Japan. A big staple is the hamburger steak...there are several restaurant chains that mainly serve that, usually with fries. Doria, however, also takes a bit from the Italian tradition. It's about as close as you can get to baked ziti here. :) Basically, you take white rice and mix a bit of butter and salt in, and put a layer in a baking dish. You add whatever toppings you want - shrimp, chicken, or my personal favorite, bacon and spinach. Then you cover it with a thick, rich cream sauce, cover the top with mozzarella and parmesan cheese, and bake it. Ahhhhh...so tasty. I will go to Viva City just for the doria, because that's where the best ones are.As a sidenote, 2 more cool things about Japan are in this picture. This is at Coco's, the restaurant connected to campus. A big thing in Japan is corn soup...mmm. I will miss having it everywhere when I go home. :/
Another common theme in Japanese American restaurants is the "drink bar". It's so much cooler than any drink fountain you've seen in the US. They have soft-drink dispensers, but that's the tip of the iceberg. They also have a hot drink dispenser for hot cocoa and things, as well as a wide selection of loose teas so you can steep your own tea. Thus, my 3 different drinks. XD
4. Katsu Curry
2 of my favorites, on the same plate! First, the katsu. Katsu refers to a breaded and fried filet of meat...usually it's a chicken breast or a pork cutlet. And Japanese curry! Japan is not a spicy food-country, for the most part. So Japanese curry is incredibly flavorful without being spicy. Perfect for me! When you make curry at home, you usually put pieces of onion, carrot, potato, and meat so it's really thick. But the katsu curry version is just really creamy. And you get it all with rice! I imagine it would be hard to make at home, so I need to go have some more while I can! XD5. Japanese Bread
If you've been reading my blog for any period of time, you know how I love Japanese bread. I wasn't expecting this when I came here, though. My first time in Japan, the only place I had bread was in Hiroshima. And it was delicious, but I figured it was some random fluke of a place. After all, when you think of pastries and artisan bread, where do you think of? Europe, and rightly so. They have awesome stuff in places like Switzerland, Germany, and France. But Japan? Nah. And then my roommate took me to Vidal. And that's not even an anomaly - there are pastry places everywhere! I'm really considering taking a bread cookbook home with me...I don't even care if it's in Japanese. I will translate it so I can have the delicious bread when I get home. My favorites are probably caramel apple bread, chocolate orange bread (pictured here), and cheesecake bread. Mmmmmm....Goodness, this is making me hungry. Good thing it's almost dinner time. ;) Have a great day! When we meet again, I'll have Osaka pics for you.
These pictures all look SO delicious. Hope you'll be able to cook up all of these things when you return. However, even looking at those will probably kick my diet off track!
ReplyDeleteLove you,
Mom