Blue Lotus

Houtou

It's been months since I did any real cooking, and I'm starting to miss it. The heat of summer is gone and I'm no longer pressed for time, so I have few excuses left. And while my back still hurts if I bend over my low counters for too long, chopping a few vegetables is hardly going to kill me. So after weeks of salads and quickly thrown-together meals, it's time to get cooking again.

My first attempt was spurred by a souvenir from my boss: a package of houtou (flat udon-like noodles) picked up on a trip to the country. Houtou is actually a meibutsu (famous product) of Yamanashi prefecture but is a country dish found all over the Kanto area including Okutama in western Tokyo, where these noodles came from. There are a few variations, but hoto is always made nikomi (noodles boiled together with broth and other ingredients, as opposed to boiled seperately in water) style, with a hearty miso flavoured broth and plenty of vegetables, including kabocha squash. The kabocha is key, but any other number of vegetables can be used, and chicken or pork are often added as well. Houtou is properly served in a large cast-iron pot and ladled into smaller bowls for eating.

Lacking the proper pot I made do with my donabe (clay pot), but I didn't forget the kabocha--it's one of my favourite vegetables. Because the package included a little pouch of miso to flavour the broth with, this barely counts as cooking: I just chopped up some daikon, negi (long onion), shiitake, kabocha and atsu-age (fried tofu), simmered them in dashi (kelp and bonito stock), and added the noodles and miso flavouring. But it was just enough work to count as home-made, and boy was it good.

Originally this was supposed to be a one-dish meal but I decided to make kombu to daikon no itame-ni (daikon and kelp braised in soy sauce) with the daikon peels and kombu leftover from making the dashi, and the spinach intended for the broth became horenso no goma-ae (spinach dressed with sesame seeds). I guess I really have missed cooking, and the houtou prep just wasn't enough. The extra time it took to make the side dishes caused the kabocha fell apart, but I like it that way so no big deal. And the houtou looked awfully monochrome (the melted kabocha turned the whole thing orange) without the spinach. But while this may fail as an aesthetically proper Japanese meal, it was perfect comfort food.

Houtou is worth seeking out if you're ever in Yamanashi (home of Mount Fuji), and if you're not here's a basic recipe that includes directions for the noodles themselves.

JapanSoc it!

Mikurajima

Between the first two camps of the summer my friend Emi and I slipped away to Mikurajima, a tiny island south of Tokyo. Mikurajima is known for the 200 or so dolphins that live in the surrounding ocean, wild but completely unafraid of humans. I was busy at the time and really needed some rest, but our departure date, July 31st, was well-chosen as it was during the brief period before the jellyfish have arrived and after the water has warmed up enough to swim in without a wetsuit.

This was our second visit and I'll direct you to my Mikurajima Dolphins post from two years ago for more information about the island.

 

The simplest way to get there from Tokyo is by night ferry (although it is connected to other islands in the Izu Shoto chain by airplane and helicopter) which takes about eight hours. It's possible to get a full night's sleep on the way, but there are a few hours at each end of the journey with views good enough to stay awake for. In the picture above you can see how the heavily industrial strip of Tokyo Bay, so ugly by day, actually can look kind of nice.

Several hours later the sun was rising and we were there. There isn't much to do upon arrival except head straight to your hotel or minshuku (family run inn), where some visitors get ready for a morning dolphin swim and the rest try to get some sleep. We chose the latter option. 

At noon we woke up and headed out for lunch. We chose a brand new cafe, which when it opened became the third restaurant on the island (or fifth if you count the two bars). From the small menu we chose ashitaba udon, thin wheat noodles flavoured with ashitaba (a healthful herb from the Angelica family that the grows abundantly on the Izu Shoto islands). Served cold, topped with fresh ashitaba and iwanori seaweed and dipped in a cold soy-based broth, it was perfectly refreshing. We noticed they had gelato, a nice selection of souvenirs, and one of those complicated glass contraptions for making cold drip coffee, and vowed to come back the next day.

In the afternoon we headed out to meet the dolphins with Sirius Nature Tours, the same company we went with last time (and that Emi, who's been several times, always uses).

The captain, guide and six tourists headed out in a small boat and began circling the island, keeping an eye out for dolphins breaching. It took a while to find them but there was plenty to see in the meantime. The island itself is beautiful and the sea creatures were plenty active--several times we saw sea turtles at the surface of the water, and there were plenty of flying fish shooting about.

Once dolphins are spotted the captain has to make a guess as to which direction the dolphins are heading, then he brings the boat ahead to the spot he thinks the dolphins will pass. Then we get out, sliding gently into the water so as not to scare the dolphins away.

Sometimes the dolphins are nowhere to be found, having changed direction, and sometimes they pass by far below us or off in the distance without taking notice of us. It's impressive enough to see them pass, but they are so fast that they are gone before you know it.

When we are lucky we land right in the path and the dolphins will head straight to us, slowing down to check us out.

 

And sometimes a dolphin or two will come right up for a closer look. It's hard to describe the feeling of being within a metre of one of these amazing creatures, of swimming alongside them, of making eye contact; suffice to say it's damn cool. 

And although it feels like much longer, it rarely lasts more than a minute. And then they're off, swimming into the distance and leaving you dumbstruck.

They were much more curious and interactive than they were last visit, and I wonder if it was my shiny new waterproof camera that attracted them (I was empty handed last year), or my crappy new snorkel that blows bubbles underwater--it's actually really annoying to me but might have looked pretty cool from their point of view. But for whatever reason I got plenty of dolphin attention this time.

The tours are supposed to last about an hour and a half (or two hours total including pick-up and drop-off at your lodgings) but I'm pretty sure each time we've gone with Sirius it's been longer. They clearly love what they do: the guide's delight at seeing the dolphins is obvious, although she goes out twice a day for much of the year. And this time the captain, who on previous tours had driven gently, noticed we were a brave bunch and treated us to some fancy boatwork, jumping over waves to catch some air and speeding us through narrow rocky outcrops. The thrill of the ride was almost worth the cost of the tour, especially for the two little boys who got to take over the controls on the way back.

Back on land there wasn't much to do except get ready for dinner. We were staying on Mikurajima's only hotel, Mikurasou, which has little to recommend it besides the view. I vastly preferred the Nishikawa, the minshuku we stayed at last time, but as we had booked this trip rather late we didn't have any choice but the hotel. Let that be a warning to you: Mikurijima's popularity is greater than its size, and it's best to book months in advance, especially in summer.

The food was pretty good though, if a little insubstantial. Our dinner was tako carpaccio (vinaigrette dressed octopus sashimi and sliced onions served over mizuna greens), cold tomato cream soup, and grilled shima aji (a type of horse mackerel) with summer vegetables. Rice was self serve and all-you-can-eat, and dessert was blueberry jelly.  

We had come on the second day of the island's four-day summer festival, and although we missed the fireworks and mikoshi (portable shrine) parade, we did get to see a bit of the fun. After the sun went down the local shrine was set up with lanterns, food stalls and a drumming stage and little by little the islanders stopped by to celebrate. We recognized lots of them but here they were no longer in tourism mode, and although we were made welcome this was very much an event for the locals. Still, Emi and I enjoyed some festival food and cheap shochu (a vodka-like liquor) while watching the local folks doing taiko drumming, dancing their version of bon-odori (the summer festival dance), and making merry.

The next morning we took another dolphin tour, this time with a different boat (Sirius was booked). I enjoyed it less, partly because of the aggressiveness of our five fellow tourists--I was bumped several times, kicked in the head once, and many of my pictures had more people than dolphins.

Still, we saw plenty of dolphins and I even got to play with a mother and baby (and looking at Emi's pictures it seems they spent some time with her too). They came right up close to me, close enough to touch (although touching the dolphins is strictly prohibited) and circled around me a few times, swimming ahead and then waiting for me to catch up before circling me again.

Although the baby stuck close to its mother's side, as all young dolphins do, it was interesting that it always stayed on the side closest to me--I would have expected to mother to keep her baby on my far side, for protection.

Was the mother trying to teach her child how to act around humans, or was she merely curious about me and knew I was safe enough that she didn't need to protect her baby? I'm not sure, but it was an amazing and moving experience and I'm glad they stopped to check me out.

When it was over we returned to the hotel, ate a late breakfast, and packed up. Arranging to have our bags to be brought down, we walked to the harbour, stopping at Fukumaru for a coffee and picking up some onigiri to eat on the ferry, some souvenirs and a gelato. The hotel and minshukus have pick up and drop off service, and upon arrival it's well appreciated, as the roads up to the village are steep. But it feels a bit odd to be whisked around the village by car without ever seeing anything, so we were looking forward to seeing the island and stretching our legs.

That's Emi up above with the festival grounds in the background. It was a nice walk, half on the road and half on a series of little paths and staircases that we hadn't noticed before, that snaked through people's gardens and offered some nice views. The gelato made it even nicer, and we got some envious looks from tourists being driven down to meet the ferry. This is the way we're going to do it from now on.

We took a few pictures on the dock before boarding the ferry, and between seeing Mikurajima fade into the distance and watching the sun set over Tokyo Bay we had a nap. And then suddenly the lights of the city were upon us and we were home.

 

 

See more pictures here (note that some of the pictures here and in the album were taken by Emi). For more information about Mikurajima, see:

Mikurajima Information (Japanese page)

Mikurasou (Japanese page)
Rooms from 8500 yen per person, including dinner and breakfast (we paid 10,500 yen each for a twin western-style room)
No English spoken

Sirius Nature Tours (Japanese page)
7000 yen per tour, rental equipment available
Guide speaks Japanese only, captain can speak some English

JapanSoc it!

Osaka

For the Obon summer holidays Hideaki and I went to Osaka for a visit with his parents. It was dreadfully hot, as it always is this time of year, and I was so tired out from the camps that I was too tired to even take pictures. Which is a shame, as there were plenty of photo opportunities, what with my cute niece Marya and her family visiting at the same time, not to mention the new dog. Yup, my parents-in-law bought a puppy. It's a Pomerian, and although I'm not much of a dog fan and especially not fond of little toy dogs, I have to admit he's pretty cute. And my in-laws are delighted with him, which is nice to see.

About the only pictures I took were of food, and some very good food it was too. This lunch was at a new branch of Mimiu, an Osaka restaurant with a 200 year history. The specialty is apparently udon-suki (a version of sukiyaki featuring udon noodles) but we didn't bother with it as it didn't sound very nice in the heat. My lunch above included rice, pickles, hamo nanban-zuke (escavitched pike conger), gomadoufu (sesame tofu), braised hijiki seaweed, mango jelly, a small bowl of yubasoba: soba (buckwheat noodles) in hot broth with yuba (tofu skin) and an assortment of sashimi (squid, bream and tuna).

We also shared a few plates of sobazushi, which is exactly what it sounds like: sushi rolls made with soba noodles instead of rice. Here it was filled with cucumber, shiitake, anago (sea eel) and shrimp tempura. It was very good, and as it can be rather hard to find, I'd come back here just for the sobazushi.

Another nice meal was at Ume no Hana, a tofu kaiseki (traditional multi-course meal) restaurant. It's a chain, and I've been none too impressed with it in the past, but this time I really liked it. Either it's improved or the branch we went to, in Senri Chuo, is extra good.

As with any kaiseki meal, the dishes rivaled the food in impressiveness. The inviting place setting above was waiting for us when we sat down--don't you just want to pull off those lids and see what's inside?

 

This is what: spinach dressed with dashi, gomadoufu (sesame tofu) and yuba (tofu skin) in soy milk.

Another lidded dish contained tofu shumai, steamed dumplings made with tofu and chicken instead of the usual pork (shumai are Japan's version of Chinese siu mai dumplings). This is one of Ume no Hana's signature dishes, but while it is tasty I don't find it particularly impressive. I did really like the ponzu (citrus soy sauce) that came with it as a dip, and it turns out they sell bottles of it on the way out.

With apologies for the fuzziness (I forgot my camera and had to take these pictures with my phone), this is tuna sashimi and raw yamaimo (mountain yam) wrapped in yuba.

This is yudoufu, tofu simmered at the table in kombu dashi (kelp stock). Normally it is a very plain dish, but here they've added yuba, snow peas and fu (wheat gluten).

When the yudofu is ready it is spooned into dishes and eaten with soy sauce and shichimi (seven spice mix). I love yudofu and while it is really a winter dish, it was so yummy and soothing that I wasn't bout to complain.

Chawan mushi (egg custard), one of my favourite dishes in the world. 

Namafu dengaku, cakes of raw wheat gluten skewered, brushed with miso sauce sauce (kinome, or prickly ash leaves on top, and yuzu, or citron, on the bottom). I thought I didn't like fu very much, but this was very nice, with a wonderful soft but chewy texture.

I also really liked this, which was a mixture of tofu and hampen (steamed fish paste), deep fried. The interior was soft and fluffy like hampen, but with a richer flavour. 

The best dish of all was this unassuming renkon manju (lotus root dumpling). The crunch of the lotus root was a wonderful contrast to the soft, almost runny (it reminded me of akashi-yaki) dumpling, and the broth was perfectly seasoned, managing to be both subtle and rich at the same time.

Yuba gratin: yuba and mushrooms baked with cheese.

The end of the meal was signalled by okawa (steamed glutinous) topped with fuki to sansho no tsukudani (soy-braised butterbur and prickly ash pepper), suimono (clear broth) with yuba and pickles (cucumber, daikon and napa cabbage). Dessert was a tiny scoop of sudachi (a lime-like citrus) sherbet, a perfect ending to a fine meal.

And then it was time to head back to Tokyo, enjoying some nice views of Mount Fuji on the way (this previous post has a better picture).

Mimiu, Minoh branch (other branches throughout Japan)
072-720-5688
1-1-19 Ina, Minoh-shi, Osaka
Open Monday to Friday 11:00 to 3:00 and 5:00 to 10:00 (last order 9:00), weekends and holidays 11:00 to 10:00 (last order 9:00)

Ume no Hana, Senri Chuo branch (other locations throughout Japan)
06-6871-6006
Osaka Monorail Senrichuo Building, 1-1-5 Shinsenri Higashimachi, Toyonaka-shi, Osaka
Open daily 11:00 to 3:00 and 5:00 to 10:00 (last order 9:00)

Camp 3

 

The last English Adventure camp of the summer was a five day camp in Chichibu with over 60 kids (I posted about the previous two here and here). Just in case you are feeling sorry for me for having to sleep in tents all summer, check this out:

 

It's a very sturdy tent, filled with comfy mats and blankets, fixed atop a wooden platform which is raised a metre off the ground. No bumps, no leaking, no flooding, and not so many bugs--camping the civilized way.

 

Joe made a comment in the last camp post asking where all the food pictures were, so this time I snapped what I ate. Above is gobou kaki-age udon (udon noodles with burdock tempura), eaten at a rest stop on the way to camp (we bus in from Shinjuku). Really good stuff, but not the best choice for midsummer--it was piping hot and we were all sweating by the time we were done eating.

 

At this camp we make our own breakfasts but most lunches and dinners are eaten at the camp cafeteria. The food is served buffet-style and is actually pretty good, although geared to the kids more than to the adults. For my first dinner, I had cabbage and green bean salad, yakisoba (fried noodles), fries, mini katsu (pork cutlet) and some kind of fried fish on the main plate, with miso soup, nikujaga (beef stewed with potatoes), and fruit cocktail with almond jelly.

 

This lunch featured minchi katsu (minced meat cutlet), pasta salad, cabbage, cauliflower and green bean salad, and pineapple, hiyashi udon (cold udon noodles), and curry rice.

 

For this dinner I ate rice, spaghetti with red peppers, pickles, age-shumai (deep-fried pork dumplings), fried fish, yogurt with fruit cocktail, cabbage roll, green salad, bean sprout and spinach salad, and miso soup.

 

Our big hike ended at a river, and before taking a dip we had bentos delivered. This one has rice topped with umeboshi (pickled plum), kara-age (fried chicken), daigaku imo (candied sweet potato), an orange slice, pickles and salad underneath.

 

Back at camp for dinner, I had miso soup, green salad, cucumber and chicken salad, fried shrimp, spring roll, fruit and almond jelly, and yakisoba.

 

For this lunch I had green salad, harusame (glass noodle) salad, katsu, pineapple, hiyashi somen (thin wheat noodles served cold), and curry rice.

 

The one lunch we did cook for ourselves was chicken roasted in dutch ovens. I got the before shot, but once it was ready things moved too quickly for me to take a picture, but trust me, it was good.

 

Oh yes, and dessert. We roasted marshmallows when our bonfire died down, and some kids went a bit nuts. Long after most kids had gotten sick of marshmallows and gone to bed, this guy was trying to break the world record for most marshmallows successfully roasted on a single stick.

Another great camp, and normally I'd get a bit campsick (a camper coined that term, meaning to miss camp when its over) when it was done, but I had just one day to get ready for my trip home so I didn't have time to be sad. Besides, I'll see many of the kids again at ski camp this winter. Can't wait!

Back home Part 2

The purpose of my trips home is to see family and friends, but there are plenty of other highlights--eating food that I can't get in Japan, buying clothes and shoes that fit, browsing through bookstores (and my parent's living room) filled with books in English, and raiding my father's beer and wine fridge. But an unexpected highlight is the cats. They aren't my cats so I don't actually miss them when I'm in Japan, but when I'm back in Canada they are such a joy to have around.

They are not the cats I grew up with (Mama Kitty and Manute left for the Happy Hunting Grounds years ago), and I can't actually play with them very much, having finally learned that the only way to keep my cat allergies in check is to keep away from them. But they are plenty cute and watching them do their cat thing is nice enough.

The handsome cat above is Angus, the newest addition to the family. He was brought to the the door as a tiny kitten a few years ago, by a couple of neighborhood girls going door to door looking for someone to adopt him. My family is powerless to refuse a kitten in need of a home, so they took him in and raised him to be both the fattest and friendliest cat they've had.

Cocoa, the black cat in the picture above (he's nothing more than a blur as he was in his crazed horizontal climbing mode at the time), has been around a bit longer. He hardly has any ears, as they fell off due to frostbite after he was abandoned in the woods during a snowstorm. Wait, I've told his story before. A few times. Anyway, they are both great cats, and far more gregarious than our previous cats which makes them really easy to like. Being a person with severe allergies, living in an apartment that doesn't allow pets in a dog-loving country, it's nice to be reminded why I'm a cat person.

 

But Angus and Cocoa weren't the only cuties I encountered on my visit. The purpose of the trip was to attend a wedding, and here the niece of the bride poses with the wedding cake (the photographer is one of her nephews.

Getting married was Krista, who's been my friend since we were four. My goodness, I just realized: we met on the first day of kindergarten, and this being the start of the school year that makes us friends for exactly 30 years. Holy cow.

 

And speaking of cuties, here's me, Krista, and Johanna, another friend who came along just after that first day of school. We were inseparable back then (we were described in one of the wedding speeches as a gang) and it was great to see them both, and especially great to see Krista married. The wedding itself was lovely, held at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa (mastodon fossils and replicas of giant beavers added a certain special something to the atmosphere).

Sadly, I missed out on mingling and dancing as my back had gone out the day before. I've been bothered by a sore lower back for over a year (which I now wish I had checked out) but this was the first time I was struck by a sudden debilitating attack. It was quite terrifying, as it happened when we were staying at the bride's parents house (our folks became friends soon after we did) and I was all alone, everyone else busy with wedding preparations. I didn't do anything special to hurt it, it just suddenly went, and I was barely able to make it to bed. Where I laid, unable to move, for what seemed like all day until someone finally heard my pathetic cries for help. I was starting to freak out by that time, being a minor hypochondriac: I was sure that I'd broken my back and was imagining living the rest of my life in a wheel chair, or at least racking up outrageous hospital bills (as a non-resident I no longer have health insurance back home) during months of rehabilitation.

But I was lucky, as many of the people who had gathered for the wedding (including the bride herself) were well experienced with back pain and had plenty of sympathy and advice. Neither of which took the pain away (the meds they shared were fairly effective though), but it was so reassuring to learn that this was so common, and that everyone recovers.

Even more lucky was that there were doctors among the wedding guests, and one was at my side very quickly. My mother took him aside before he saw me and explained that I had no insurance, which he said was just fine since he wasn't licensed to practice medicine in Ontario anyway. Not terribly reassuring, but he turned out to be a great doctor: friendly and kind with the perfect gentle and assured bedside manner--something I've not seen in a single doctor (and I've seen a lot) here in Japan. He was quickly able to determine that it was likely just a pinched nerve and immediately did some manipulations that helped. It hurt like the devil but on the last stretch my back did a nearly orgasmic pop (loud enough for the whole room to hear) and although I wasn't cured, the pain reduced dramatically.

So I was lucky, and I there were only a four half days of being in pain and immobile. The other half of those days, and every day since, there was only minor pain, and now the only lasting affects are the occasional touch of discomfort and my new status as an official Old Person. Because now fully half of my conversations are about my health. And now it's happening on my blog too--sorry, I'll stop now.

 

After my back got better good stuff kept happening. I met up with some old friends I hadn't seen in a decade or two, who I assumed I'd never see again (and then Facebook came along). And my sister flew up from San Antonio for a surprise visit. It was just two days and it was very low-key, thanks to my back (there I go again), but it was great to see her. We got in some very good eating, much of which I didn't have the patience to photograph well. The osso bucco above doesn't look like much, but it was pure heaven. It was served at a Brampton restaurantcalled, funnily enough, Osso Bucco, where a family dinner has become a tradition during my visits home.

 

We went with the aforementioned Johanna and her family. That's her daughter Maggie, thoroughly enjoying her dessert.

 

The weather stayed nice and we had a few meals and happy hours outside, including this one that started with my sister's baked goat cheese, which is supposed to be a dip but I always end up eating by the spoonful.

 

The Flintstone-esque hunks of meat above are my brothers doing. The dish is called "beef bones" (and indeed that's what they are sold as at the Asian market, so I have no idea what cut this is--shank?) and is the result of hours, maybe days, of slow roasting. If you're a meat lover I don't have to tell you how good these were (and if you're not, sorry for the gratuitous picture--the rest of this post is meat-free, I promise).

 

Another craving satisfied: pie. Actually two, as it's a strawberry-rhubarb pie, and rhubarb doesn't exist in Japan. While I've never been a huge dessert person, and of the stuff that I do like 99% of it is far better in Japan than in Canada, pie is something I miss terribly. There is apple pie in Japan, or at least something that they call apple pie, but it's not the same. Dainty, with hard thin crust that requires a heavy duty knife to cut, and when you do cut it the wedge keeps its shape perfectly because the filling is dry and firm, and there is no juice, no spice, no flavour. Horrible, horriblestuff. The pie above was a regular grocery store pie, but it was immensely better than Japanese pie, with a soft flaky crust and soft gooey innards with the right sweet-tart flavour. I only regret that there were so many other good meals that I was too well-stuffed to eat the whole pie. 

 

I didn't spend as much time out of doors as I would have liked, but I did have time to admire the garden, which seems to get prettier every year. The strawberry flower above puzzled me a bit, because I've never seen one with pink blossoms, nor one that bore fruit in September. I guess ornamental hanging strawberries are special.

 

The morning glories were as glorious as I've ever seen them, with impossibly vibrant blues and purples. I don't know what colours they appear to my colour-blind father, but I hope they are as beautiful as I see them.

 

 

And then it was time to go. The cats planted themselves on or in my suitcases, and Cocoa especially seemed to want to go home with me. I know he'd love it in Japan, where black cats aren't bad luck and there's all the fish you can eat, but my family felt differently so he stayed behind. So good-bye Cocoa, good-by Angus, and good-bye to family, old friends, newlyweds, cute children, and back-fixers. See you all next year!

Back home

Having been back in Japan for days, a report of my trip home is overdue. So here goes: I spent 13 days back home in Brampton (a suburb of Toronto, Can), and it was both the best and worst visit home ever. It started out well enough, or at least as well as a 14 hour flight can be: I had a window seat with a decent view, and next to me were two handsome rock stars. Unfortunately they were sitting on the side of my bad ear I didn't really catch the name of the band, and because I don't keep track of music these days I have no idea who they were (but if anyone knows any 4-member Toronto-based band that toured in Japan for 6 weeks this summer, do let me know).

Upon arrival home I was treated to a lovely dinner outdoors, featuring steak of course (as my family has long been under the impression that there is a beef shortage in Japan). It was perfectly cooked (by my brother, the bbq master) and everything was delicious, so I didn't complain. All of the food was good, and so was the wine, and so was eating out in the backyard--next to my family, a backyard is what I miss the most in Japan.

 

The bbq (or bbqs, since my bro has several) were in use pretty much every day I was back. The next day was cedar-planked salmon with a maple-whiskey glaze, and it was far better than this picture would have you believe.

 

Feeling nostalgic, I grabbed lunch one day at Sonny's, a burger place across from my old high school. Sonny's has been around forever, and while I don't think I ever went when I was actually going to school across the road, my family used to go when I was little and I have fond memories. My high hopes were only heightened when I entered the shop and saw a man in the back cutting up potatoes for the fries. So I ordered a burger and poutine (for you non-Canadians that's french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds) and then had my hopes horribly crushed: the burger was nothing special, the fries were barely cooked, and the cheese was all wrong. And I'd forgive the burger and cheese, but as far as I'm concerned there is nothing more ghastly than a pale, limp, undercooked french fry.

Another trip down memory lane involved this pizza, ordered from Joe's Pizzeria and Spaghetti House: something my family seems to do every Friday night. And I only just found out that this is the same Joe's we used to go to when I was little (it was always either Joe's or Sonny's) to enjoy panzerotti and Brio. Brio, if you don't know, is an Italian cola that I didn't even like but was so different and exotic that I always felt compelled to drink it, and panzerotti is what most of the world (except for Ontario and, for some reason, New Jersey) calls calzone. Anyway, I highly approve of the Friday night Joe's tradition, as the pizza is good. I do prefer the Neapolitan style pizza widely available--for a pretty penny--in restaurants in Tokyo, but Japanese delivery pizza is another story and Joe's beats it hands-down.

But my trip home wasn't just about eating. There was also plenty of napping (jet lag never spares me), and I even managed to get out for a nice walk. Everything looked very lush and green in my neighborhood, which was probably due to the very cool and rainy summer--Southern Ontario experienced the wettest summer on record, I'm told.

 

Sadly my foraging plans were derailed: the strange weather prevented the raspberries, usually just coming into their second crop at that time, from developing. And the saskatoon berry bushes (they're a bit like blueberries) we'd discovered on my last visit were nothing more than a few stumps. The culprit: the local beaver population.

 

The sight of these berries perked me right up though. The pretty little purple and yellow flowers identified them as a member of the nightshade family (members include tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes), and the berries looked like teeny little tomatoes. I ignored my father's warning about certain other, less reputable, nightshade plants and took a little tiny taste. It was sweet and intensely tomatoey, so I popped the whole thing in my mouth and gulped it down--and instantly my mouth was filled with a horrible bitter flavour. It was a long walk home, and never having actually seen deadly nightshade (aka the highly toxic belladonna) I had no way of knowing whether or not I'd just poisoned myself.

Wikipedia put my mind at ease, as the berry I ate seems to have been bittersweet, a relative of deadly nightshade that is only just mildly toxic. Nothing at all happened, which was actually a bit of a disappointment as I had read online that while the berries weren't extremely toxic, they will "clean you out at both ends". And if you suffer from a certain travel-induced condition like I do, you'll understand how that sounded like something I wanted to experience. But nope, no effect at all (I remember where they were though, and next time I'm eating three).

 

Surviving a near-poisoning is something to celebrate, so the family and I went to Symposion, a Greek restautant in Brampton. Living in Japan, Greek is one of the cuisines--along with West Indian--that I miss the most, and I go here nearly every visit home.

We started with saganaki, a gooey cheese dish that is set ablaze at the table and is sinfully good but requires a lot of bread to tame the copious amount of salt. It was the first time I tried it and, perhaps influenced by the flames, I kept calling it "nagasaki" (which amused no one but myself).

 

Next up: dolmades, or dolomades, or dolma, or whatever you want to call it: grape leaves stuffed with meat, served in a rich lemony sauce.

 

My brother, who has only recently discovered seafood, ordered this giant platter of shrimp, scallops and calamari. And was kind enough to share.

 

I had roasted lamb shank, and was so excited to see it that I couldn't even keep my camera steady (sorry about the blur). It was perfect, and made me wish that lamb was more popular in Japan.

Another fine meal was at Village of India, which serves a bargain-priced vegetarian Indian buffet. I only discovered this place on my last visit (thanks to a taxi driver's recommendation) but it is already a favourite. 

 

I wish I could tell you what all that stuff on my plate is, but I don't know. The only drawback to the place is that none of the food is labeled, but then again most of the customers seem to know what everything is so I guess it's not really necessary.

 

The place also sells Indian sweets to go, but they are all a bit too mysterious for me so I made do with a pinch of pan masala (candied fennel seeds).

 

The good eating continued on to Owl of Minerva, a Korean restaurant in North York. We were there to eat their famous pork bone soup but began with pajeon, a savoury pancake filled with long onion and squid (it's called chijimi in Japanese, where it is considered a Korean form of okonomiyaki).  

We also had deep-fried pork which was good and would have been amazing, except for the too-sweet sauce. Still, the combination of my favourite food themes--pork and deep frying--can never really be bad. The banchan (kimchi and other little dishes that are served free) were a treat, since they don't exist in Japan: you actually have to pay for them.

 

Next was dolsot bibimbap (called ishiyaki bibimba in Japan, where it is hugely popular), which is a searing hot stone bowl filled with rice and various toppings. Mashed up with a spoon, flavoured with kochujang (a hot and sweet chili paste) it is delicious, and is even better when left alone to sear for a while in hot bowl, in order to let the rice get crispy. 

 

And the main event: gamjatang (pork bone soup). I had heard all about how wonderful it was, and it didn't disappoint. The pork was tender enough to fall off the bone with little work, and the broth was rich, hearty, perfectly spiced, and wonderfully porky. Gamjatang is new to me (Korean restaurants in Japan focus on beef) but is now a favourite. I doubt if I can find pork bones in Japan so I won't be trying recreate it myself, but if anybody in Tokyo knows of a place that serves this, please leave a comment. Because I'm not due for another visit home until next year, and I don't think I can wait that long.

Next up, the last half of my visit. For now, you can check out a few more pictures from the trip in my Summer 2008 album.

Summer's end?

I'm back in Japan with all of my summer jobs and travels over, and while I'm glad to have the time to slow down and relax I am no where near ready for summer itself to end. Certainly I'm happy that the awful heat and humidity of midsummer Tokyo is gone, but there is enough warmth lingering in the air to fool me into thinking summer is still here, that there is still time to do all the hikes and picnics and barbeques and camping trips that I didn't get around to.

And then today I noticed it on my morning walk: a red spider lilly in full bloom, signalling the arrival of autumn. I like to think of it as my birthday flower, as it's abundant in early October just when I'm celebrating my big day, but in Japanese it's called higanbana: literally "equinox flower", as the blooms begin to appear around late September. Whatever you call it, the flower's presence announces the end of summer, and as lovely as it is I was not happy to see it.

And then upon closer inspection I noticed the blossom was hosting a guest: a brand-new cicada, still pale green in places after emerging from its skin. This cheered me up immensely, because if the cicadas are still coming out of the ground then summer's not over. The next time time I passed the spider lilly (it was just off of a one kilometre track) the cicada had turned dark brown, and on my third pass it had flown off to join the army of cicadas in the trees. I wish it well.

So was the lilly early, or the cicada late? I'm not sure, but as long as the weather stays warm I'm going to keep considering it summer, and pay no attention to what the flowers say.