Chopstick it over, Tokyo! - Welcome to Japan

This is a guest post by Joel Edinberg, my frequent dining companion/co-conspirator/etc. Just over a year ago, he took a business trip to Japan. He took tons of food photos to make me jealous. He succeeded. This will be the first of four posts by Joel about the food he encountered on his trip.

Ohayo gozaimasu! This is Joel here, writing part one of the four part Fork it over, Boston! mini blog series Chopstick it over, Tokyo! As you all know by now, at night I am an occasional guest food blogger, but during the day I dress up in my spandex and cape and work for a telecomm company. Occasionally, they send me over to Japan to help out with our customers. That’s right, an American company that sells technology to the Japanese. Last December (2009), they sent me over for about two weeks to Isehara, a small city about an hour outside of Tokyo. It even has a slight view of the top of Mount Fuji, as you can see below.

Though it is hard to see from this cell phone picture, that white spot in the red circle is the top of Mount Fuji.

In today’s post, I will be telling you about all the good standard/traditional foods that I ate in Japan (good luck with all the links to restaurant websites, unless you can read Japanese). And, let me tell you, what you eat out there and what you see in America as “Japanese” are two different things. Actually, the same goes the other way around. At Denny’s in Japan, you can have a breakfast with bacon, eggs, toast, nattō, and a seaweed salad. But don’t get nattō. It’s really disgusting.

The first place I ate was a Japanese grill called Gyukaku. It’s very similar to a Korean barbecue where you cook your own food on a grill that’s on your table. They had many different cuts of steak, pork, and chicken (including offal). The waitstaff looked at me and found the best English speaker to help my colleague and me with the menu. They didn’t even have to ask if we didn’t speak Japanese…it’s amazing how they just know. We ate an assortment of beef and pork cuts. These came with different dipping sauces and were a lot of fun to cook and eat. My colleague ordered some amazing grilled sweet potato fries cooked with brown sugar and butter. This was the star food of the evening. They were served in a tin foil wrapper and came out perfectly. The sugar caramelized over the fries and left the inside to become nice and soft.

This meal turned out to be a very good transition to the world of Japanese food. It was easy to find similar foods to what you would find in the US, such as the beef and pork cuts, with sauce flavors much like what you’d find in a Japanese restaurant in America. This is all provided that you did not order their best choice...

But since this was my first night in the mountain town, I wasn’t quite done. We ended up going out for dessert and found a really nice donut shop. Appearance is very important in Japanese culture (at least around Tokyo), and it shows even in their donuts. Also, they make everything in green tea flavor. I felt it was my duty to order the most ridiculously looking green tea donut. I think this had ties to some Japanese TV musical show, but I didn’t care. The donut was only ok. It didn’t have much flavor and was a bit dry, but the decorations definitely made up for it.

Next stop was breakfast. On the way to work we found a nice little bakery that, in order to make Rachel jealous, had KOALA DONUTS! It was a nice chocolate-filled donut with a cookie top… I figured there was only one way to eat it.

Well, I’m sure you love seeing how I eat my donuts, so I’ll also show you how I eat my beef (in Japan). For the weekend, my colleague and I were in Tokyo. She was leaving Saturday morning, so we decided to go out for shabu-shabu for her last night out. The last time I went to Japan, I missed out on shabu-shabu. I didn’t even know what it was, and I totally felt like I missed out on eating the most fun meal to say. After deciding that we had to have shabu-shabu, we decided to look around Shinjuku (where my hotel was) and find a place. After a little bit of walking around, we decided going to the Sumitomo Tower for our meal. We ate at Seryna, which is on the 52nd floor of the building. My phone isn’t good enough to take good photos at night, so you’ll just have to imagine what the view is like. So, after talking to the hostess and dealing with the language barrier, we finally got our seats and were promptly handed the English menus. Really, it’s amazing how they can tell right away. Lucky for us though, our server was actually from China, as is my colleague, so they were able to discuss the menu and explain what everything was. We went with the all-you-can-eat shabu shabu. For those of you who have never had it, it’s a must-have in your travels to Japan. They bring out a pot of boiling water (on a small gas stove) and serve you vegetables and very thinly sliced beef to cook in the water. I enjoy cooking so this was very fun to go out to restaurants and still cook your own meat.

Shabu-shabu vegetables, meat, and serving/preparing chopsticks.

Here’s me, starting to cook the beef. How they knew I couldn’t speak Japanese I’ll never be able to figure out.

This was such a tasty and fun dinner. This meal was not on the cheaper side, but it would be a perfect place to have a fancy meal with friends or even business partners. The Sumitomo Building has a few other restaurants at the top (all with great views) that are all very top quality, even including a very nice restaurant that serves food in the traditional style of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. I ate there on a previous trip a few years ago and would strongly recommend either restaurant if you are looking to impress someone with your taste in Japanese food and good atmosphere.

Well, that concludes my first weekend in Japan. Continue on to my next post about my Japan trip to hear about my adventures when I didn’t have a voice of reason working with me ;)

The Obligatory Best-of-2010 Post

Following in the footsteps of last week's obligatory resolutions post, here are some lists of my favorite/best/weirdest/etc. 2010 food things. (By the way, do you have plans for NYE yet? Here's one more plug for what's sure to be a ridiculously awesome live music experience.) 

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My favorite restaurant discoveries in 2010:

• Highland Kitchen (blog posts here and here): A fairly easy walk from my apartment, Highland Kitchen is my new favorite neighborhood spot. Everything I've eaten here has been good to great, the cocktails are interesting and strong, and the ambiance is fun and lively. I've still gotta make it to a Tuesday night Spelling Bee.
• Trina's Starlite Lounge: Hot dogs hot dogs hot dogs. Trina's feels like the same genre as Highland Kitchen to me; I guess they both fit into the fast emerging gastro-pub scene, or at least the outskirts of it. In any case, I love them both.
• KO Catering and Pies (blog post here): The first legit Australian place in Boston (that I know of). (Outback Steakhouse doesn't count. At all.) Meat pies and sausage rolls will make winter bearable.
• Marliave: I can't remember when I first went here - might have been last year, actually - but I'll include it anyway. A lot of people find the ambiance a bit run-down, but hey, it's historical. The upstairs dining room is lovely when the candles are lit. This is one of my favorite French onion soups I've ever had, and the cocktails are amazing. Happy Hour oyster specials on the patio make for a heavenly summer night.
• Ronnarong (blog post here): This discovery also might be more than a year old; I just can't remember. Great sake-based cocktails, wonderful Thai small plates. Absolutely try the Paradise Beef.
• Rangzen (blog post here): A Tibetan gem tucked away on a Central Square side street.
• Baraka Cafe (blog post here): Another Central Square gem, hidden even further from the main drag, Baraka Cafe offers delicious North African food in a somewhat-tacky-yet-beautiful ambiance, served up with a bit of attitude that'll make you cringe or smile depending on your temperament.
• Newtowne Grille: A great neighborhood dive-y place in Porter Square for super cheap pizza, apps, and beer. And the pizza is GREAT. My pizza snob boyfriend agrees and considers it one of the best in Boston.

My favorite food shop discoveries in 2010:

• The Chocolate Tarte (blog post here): The ultimate winner of my Cupcake Quest, The Chocolate Tarte is (un?)fortunately walking distance from my apartment. Not only are the cupcakes the best in the world - everything else is also delicious. I can't stop raving about this place to everyone.
• Russo's: This somewhat satisfies the hole in my heart that Wegmans filled when I lived in Rochester, and it also satisfies any need I may have to find any exotic fruit or vegetable in the entire world. Russo's is a mad house at peak hours - be prepared to shove and be shoved by shopping carts and hungry shoppers - and there aren't really local or organic options - but wow, the produce is cheap and exotic. Whenever I go here, I leave with vegetables I've never heard of. Love it.
• Savenor's (blog post here): Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my! Well, I haven't seen tiger there, but I'm pretty sure I've seen bear, and they had lion at $40/lb a couple weeks ago. The famous Savenor's (a favorite of Julia Child) is the best source for exotic meats for miles around. Yep, it's expensive, but for a once-in-awhile treat, the quality and selection are spectacular.

My favorite food truck discoveries of 2010:

• Fillbelly's (blog post here): I've sadly only found the truck once, but I've been searching for it ever since. I want another bosilito (empanada) so, so badly.
• Clover (blog post here): A food truck that destroys the notion that food trucks are greasy and unhealthy. Pretty neat.

Blog posts I had the most fun writing in 2010:

• A Mystery Meet in the Dark: Blind Dining at Hampshire House 
• Pasta-Making Newbie
• Hell Night: A Culinary Adventure That Will Make You Cry Like A Baby
• Hell Night Number 4: I Must Be Insane
• A New York City Weekend of Food and Music and Animals with No Shame
• A Honky Tonk Rib Joint
• 25th Birthday Celebration, Part I: Dali Restaurant & Tapas Bar
• Cockroaches: Food Bloggers of the Insect World
• The Best Meal I Have Ever Had
• Pizza in New Haven (or, Why My Boyfriend Has Almost Nothing Nice To Say About Boston Pizza)

Things I've spent way too much time on in 2010...so please check them out so I feel validated:

• The Economics of Local Food: This is the capstone project for my master's degree. It consumed my life for many months, so I hope you'll find it interesting and educational. While I would have liked to submit it somewhere for publication, stories about local food are getting a bit overdone, so I never bothered. Instead, I posted it here on a whim a few weeks ago because it seemed like a waste not to share it.
• BostonFoodBloggers.com: This is a recent project and a major work-in-progress, but I'm hoping that it'll become a useful resource for food bloggers throughout Massachusetts. Many of you have already checked it out and responded enthusiastically, so thank you all very much for the support and kind words! Many new features will be rolling out as time goes on, but the fact remains that I have a time-and-brain-consuming day job as well as a "secret life" as a musician and photographer, so sometimes the food stuff falls behind. The launch party will be held on January 17th; I'm excited!

Weirdest search phrases that sent people to my blog in 2010 (via Google Analytics):

• "mixing pepto bismol and baking soda"
• "a nice mohito to oblivion." 
• "abstract of ham fork"
• "cake surrounded by cupcake"
• "creamsicle wimp"
• "frusting in love distance"
• "kelly brook breast size"
• "my thighs boston" 
• "one day unhappy in hell you can cry like a baby"
• "over in boston they have no more to write about, it's more like a sing a long"
• "psycho knives"
• "through the eyes of the smoke monster"
• "what is a hairkee"

My favorite bits of Internet fame:

• My grad school graduation cake landed on PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. (I blogged about it here.)

• I snapped a cell phone pic of one of the Public Garden Make Way For Ducklings statues, which had been vandalized one morning. I tweeted the picture with a note about how "some jerk had graffiti-ed the ducks, and it was retweeted - I think by Universal Hub, initially - and soon the story (and my ugly cell phone pic) was all over the local news. I blogged about it here in an essay about the gray areas between citizen journalism, traditional journalism, and blogging.

• I was surprised and honored to find my blog among five mentioned in this Boston Globe article criticizing review sites like Yelp but calling attention to "talented civilian reviewers who outgrow review sites."  

Ok, I think that's enough for now. Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve - whether debaucherous, extravagant, relaxing, or otherwise - and I'll be back...in a couple days. Not gonna make the cliched joke.

Social Gastronomic Half-Life

so·cial gas·tro·nom·ic half-life (noun)

[soh-shuhl gas-truh-nom-ik haf-lahyf]

A term describing the fate of a last bite of a shared appetizer as it is seemingly infinitely halved by diners embarrassed to be the one to finish it off.

Friends Sarah E. and Josh G. collaboratively coined this while we were at Highland Kitchen the other night. I have previously blogged about Highland Kitchen, which is one of my absolute favorite new-ish discoveries, especially since I can walk there, but this was the first time I had tried their Buffalo-fried Brussels sprouts. Wow. Crispy and green on the inside; crispy and Buffalo wing-y on the outside. (It tasted like the classic Frank's Red Hot-and-butter hot sauce. Well done, Highland Kitchen, well done.)

Anyway, as the last bite got progressively smaller and smaller and we all cast sideways glances at it, weighing our options, Joel swooped in and finished it. "I'm not afraid to be the asshole so none of you have to," he explained. This phrase also came up last week when Joel, my roommate Deb, and I had a traditional Jewish dinner on Christmas Eve at Peach Farm in Chinatown. Come to think of it, this happens quite often when dining with Joel.

After the last bit of Brussels sprouts disappeared forever into Joel's stomach, we discussed the social phenomenon of how (most) people don't want to be the one to take the last bite, and social gastronomic half-life was born.

Are you like Joel? Do you claim to save everyone else the awkwardness by being the jerk who takes the last bite? Do you carefully take a mini-bite, leaving an increasingly minuscule bit on the plate? Or do you politely refrain altogether once the appetizer reaches a critical minimum, all the while wishing that someone would just insist that you eat it?

KO Catering and Pies: A Brekky with Bloggers

I've had a strange koala obsession for quite some time. Here I am in 2005 getting super excited to see the koalas at the Cleveland Zoo:

...and here I am a few minutes later, pretending to be a koala in front of the real koalas:

One day, I learned about the terrifying drop bear, the man-eating (mythical) larger cousin of the koala, and my obsession grew.

With a koala obsession comes an Australia obsession, naturally. It's been on my list of top dream travel destinations for awhile. But now that KO Catering and Pies exists, I can get a little taste of Australia right here in Boston!

KO Catering and Pies is located just minutes from the Broadway T-stop, an area that I don't visit often - or at all, really - so when I saw that the December Boston Brunchers event would be taking place there, I figured it'd be a great opportunity to check it out.

The shop is absolutely adorable, with much more class than most take-out joints. (There's a small communal table and counter area for eating in, if you can get a spot, but the focus is really on take-out.)

Australian goodies for sale

Lovely ceramic bird decoration

Pie Time is undoubtedly the best time zone in the world.

While KO is quickly building a reputation around their meat pies, there's much more to the menu. We were provided with a meal of our choice from the "brekky" menu.

 

First, we were given a delicious toast...topped with Vegemite.

Way back in my Girl Scout days - I was a star cookie seller, by the way! - we went on an overnight jamboree type of thing with other local troops, and there was an international theme, so we were all assigned a country and told to bring a snack representing that country. (I brought Nilla Wafers, but I don't remember what country that was supposed to represent.) My friend Nancy was assigned Australia, and she brought Vegemite. The troop leader forced us all to try it on crackers, and I'm pretty sure we all spit it out right away.

Fast forward to brunch at KO. Maybe my palate has matured, I thought, taking a big bite of toast. Nope...still not my thing. It's very, very salty...almost like a thick soy sauce...and it just doesn't do it for me. But the bread was delicious!

Anyway, onto the rest of the food! I got the herbed potato rosti (like a latke, but BETTER! Did you know that was possible? I didn't!) with slow roasted tomato, bacon, and fried egg. Delicious all around. Others tried the croque madame, croque monsieur, and sweet potato fritters.

Even better than a latke. Really.

croque madame

 Then, just as we were all groaning in satisfaction and slipping into food comas, we were given sausage rolls. Indulgent and filling, these could probably be a meal on their own!

We were also left with some Aussie treats and instructions for the proper eating of a meat pie.

There was no way I could leave KO empty-handed; I needed a meat pie! I purchased a meat pie and sausage roll to bring home and share with Joel...or devour single-handedly.

Heaven?

As always, it was an absolute pleasure to see old blogger friends and meet new ones!

Back row, left to right: Forays of a Finance Foodie, The Small Boston Kitchen, Eat.Live.Blog/Boston Brunchers, Indulge Inspire Imbibe, Ancient Fire Wine Blog, Free Food Boston; front row, left to right: Lighter and Local and me.

Although KO Catering and Pies is located in a neighborhood outside of my typical travels, it was actually easy to get to since it's just minutes from the T. I foresee many meat pies helping me through the winter!

Follow KO Catering and Pies on Facebook and Twitter.
Follow Boston Brunchers on Facebook and Twitter.

Disclaimer: Boston Brunchers and KO Catering and Pies hosted a contest to gain admission to this brunch. The meal was provided free of charge, and I purchased additional items to take home. Regardless of cost or lack thereof, all opinions in this blog post and everywhere else on this blog are my full and honest opinion.

The Obligatory New Year's Resolutions Post

Usually I don't write posts like this - I don't often make resolutions beyond the generic "I'm going to exercise more this year!" and "I'm going to procrastinate less!" - but this year I have a few resolutions that are more specific and (hopefully) attainable. By sharing them here, I'm hoping that people will actually hold me accountable for them. (So if, for example, you spot me taking the escalator at the Porter T station, feel free to yell at me. But make sure you know it's actually me, or it'll be an awkward situation for everyone involved.)

Resolution #1: Kickbox.
Awhile ago, I tried out a few classes at the gym where Joel kickboxes - Redline Fight Sports - and I enjoyed them. In fact, the last time I was there (a month or two ago, maybe) I actually bought a pass to attend ten classes, none of which I have attended yet. In an effort to get in shape and not waste the money I already spent, I will attend at least one class per week. At this rate, I should be done with my class pass by mid-March, at which point I'll decide whether or not to buy more classes - or a membership - or try out a different gym.

Resolution #2: Stop being lazy at Porter.
On a typical weekday, I tend to find myself leaving the Porter T station at least once, sometimes twice. There are a lot of stairs. I almost always take the escalator. Unless I'm carrying a lot of heavy stuff or wearing uncomfortable shoes, there's really no excuse not to trudge up the stairs, especially during rush hour when there's actually a line to get on the escalator. A line. For the escalator. I feel like a lazy sheep when I stand in line. In 2011, I will take the stairs for at least half of my trips out of the Porter station and all of my trips out of other stations. By March, I should be taking the stairs all of the time. After that, I'll start tackling the eight flights up to my office. (I'll continue taking the escalator down into the station, though. On a busy weekday morning, I enjoy the minute and a half of nothingness that standing on the long escalator provides, busy people rushing past me hoping to not have to wait the extra two or three minutes for the next train if they miss this one.)  

Resolution #3: Tackle the cookbook pile.
Over the last few months, I've accumulated a lot of new cookbooks. Some have been sent to me for review purposes, others I've bought for myself, and others have been given as gifts. I've barely had a chance to try them out. Starting in January, I will make at least one somewhat elaborate meal a week from my stack of new cookbooks.

Resolution #4: Bring lunch.
I started my current job in early September, and I have not brought lunch a single time. I've subsisted on cafeteria food and a rotation of Longwood's limited fast food options, particularly Au Bon Pain and Boloco. There's no reason I can't go to Shaw's on Sundays and prepare lunch for at least Monday and Tuesday. I will bring lunch to work at least twice a week from now on.

Alright, I think that's all for the moment, but I might come up with a few more in the coming days. What are your resolutions? Do you go all out and come up with extraordinary resolutions that you're unlikely to keep, or do you keep it moderate and choose things you might actually be able to do? I think that each of these resolutions is reasonable and do-able, so we'll see what happens.