Sayori Soup.

My mum cooked Sayori fish soup.

Sayori (Japanese Halfbeak) is the spring fish, about 20-30cm.
Its bland taste, suitable to boil clear soup.

Felt so spring! Thanks mum!!

Felt miss Japan and season alot.

Setaga-ya.

When we were at Haneda Airport International Terminal in the morning,
Shiu-chan was searching for his breakfast and he decided to have this.

It was around 8 am plus...



I was surprised to see him having such heavy breakfast,
But actually, Shiu-chan was more surprised by Japanese customers as they were having dumpling set or fried rice set.



He said,  
"Japanese are really love carbohydrate even early in the morning!!".


Yes, I admit. Japanese are carby people.


Setaga-ya @ Haneda Airport International Terminal
www.setaga-ya.com

Kaki Sparking

Before we take domestic flight,
Shiu-chan was checking what domestic ANA offers on board.

He found something interesting, it is "Kaki Sparking".
Kaki is persimmon in Japanese, yes, the sparking is persimmon flavour.

Autumn is persimmon season,
It is quite catchy and sounded interesting!



When he sat on his seat, he prepared 300 yen quickly and asked cabin crew with full of curiosity.



The taste was refreshing.
It contains persimmon vinegar and light texture and flavour.

Cap design.

McDonald's drink cap design is actually very very cute! =D

Summer delicacy

Summer food is!





Half wild Ayu(鮎) fish!
This Ayu fish is gifted by my mum's friend who fishes Ayu and only sell to Authentic Japanese Restaurants.
These Ayu is very high stream of Ota river and very precious delicacy.
(Ayu is only allowed to fish certain period of the year and need to apply permit to fish)

Ayu's best way of eating is just grill it and dip into kind of vinegar (Tade-su).
If the fish is from very clean stream, it taste nice and kind of mos fragrance.

And also, well chilled watermelon!!
This watermelon sweetness was about 12Degree, not very sweet but cools down our body with Shiokness!




















It is really thankful that we can enjoy seasonal harvest.

Cold Udon.

Nowadays, really Japan's summer is getting hotter and hotter.

So those super hot days, to boost your appetite, we eat cold stuffs like tofu and cold noodles.
My favourite is to eat cold cold udon.

Must accompanied with grated ginger, grated white radish, kabosu and sliced spring onions.
It is refreshing that can easily finish. =)

Chilled Udon.

I think Japan's summer is terribly getting hotter and hotter every year.
Humidity and sunlight makes people body feel painful on skin and takes away appetite.

So this kind of humid and super hot day,
I always love to eat cold noodles or any cold stuffs.

One of it, cold udon is very shiok!
I need something cold and refreshing taste to ease my hot feeling.
In cold udon, for me, grated white radish and grated ginger are must!
Like this, if more kabosu citrus and lot of spring onion is the best.
Udon texture must be chewy, this is no need to say. haha =P

Okonomi yaki

Too hot to eat?
Yes, I know, but this is our soul food!!


Just regret that I couldn't eat it on the hot metal plate.

For me, to enjoy Okonomiyaki,
Mayonnaise is not allowed.
But then, my preference is Udon, not Yakisoba...=P

Soul Food.

This is it!

My home town people is know to be very particular for this.
Hiroshima Style Okonomi-Yaki.
Because it is our soul food.

My favourite type is not so messy one, nicely prepared and never cut.
Of course, eat it directly from the counter top using small Hera =))
NO MAYONNAISE IS ALLOWED!!!

First Harvest.

My mum's grown cucumber!!
This year's first harvest!! =D

Always love those extremely green green smell, watery & crunchy texture!!

Shiu-chan's desire.

was must eat Nigiri-sushi!

Because past few trip back, he never take any nigiri-sushi.
He had Maki-sushi but not Nigiri.

So, upon reaching to supermarket,
he immediately grabbed a packet of assorted Nigiri-sushi.

 Whole squid sushi roll was interesting, there were 3 types of taste in one roll of sushi.



But in the end, by several reason, this time round he was almost everyday eating sushi.

He had enough now and no need to eat for next few trip back =P

Summer taste.

Early summer must have!!!

Juicy Japanese Cherry!! =D

Sweet wine from Chile.

Shiu-chan bought sweet wine for me.
It is product of Chile.






If I remember correctly, this very sweet Sauvignon Blanc wine is produced only limited year and it is noble rot.


A little bit of sourness blooms in your mouth in first, after that, gentle sweetness will come to your tongue. After taste is very refreshing, not like icewine. It will not remain very sweet after taste. I like it!! =D

New rice!

I cooked the new rice which we polished in Japan just a day before we came back to Singapore.



It was so chewy as I always love.






I am very bread craze and I only eat rice if it is like this, 50% polished or 70% polished...
Very picky!!

Rice.

My family's typical practice.
Polishing rice.

My mum has received new crop brown rice from her friend this year too.
We went together to polished them.




Important to choose which polishing level you want.

I asked my mum to polish only 50% instead of her normal 70%.
I love 50% polished one. =P



easy set-ups, hor?

This self rice polishing machine can polish 10kg of rice by 100yen.




The rice, this year is from the place called 'Chiyoda' town in Hiroshima,
Where famous for its unique rice planting festival are organized.

It's uniqueness, now recognized as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.


Shiu-chan actually saw this festival during his very first Japan visit with host family.
Since then, what a coincident, he got chance to eat their rice.

Masuno sushi & Wine

I was keep telling shiu-chan that 'I like Masuno Sushi alot!'.
And shiu-chan was keep complaining me that 'You are always only keep telling me, till now, I have never tried it yet!'.
for a few years...



Shiu-chan got luck, nearby supermarket was having occasional Ekiben (Station lunch box) fair and there were some Masuno Sushi.


Masuno Sushi (Masu is something like Japanese salmon)

So today, shiu-chan finally got to try Masuno Sushi and he believed me that it is tasty.





He bought Beaujolais Nouveau, drink it together with it.
His first Beaujolais Nouveau, he didn't know a lot of Japanese people every year book and waiting for its release date, it will also be reported on news in Japan.

I didn't know Beaujolais Nouveau is not a single wine name or winery name, it is new wine from Beaujolais village in France.


Suddenly my mum joined us and she said 'Let's drink the wine I was gifted together!' and brought a french wine, cheese and some snacks.


Haha, I didn't know she also likes to drink wines, furthermore cheese and snacks are must for her. Now both them got nice Wine kaki in Japan =P

Osechi 2012.

My mum ordered Osechi for this year from Same person as last year.
Come across very salty taste memory on my head...I was pretty scared.


But this year's, tasted so much better and cooking style is also much modern=)



These were all tasty! very gentle taste too.


Shiu-chan and mum liked Peanut & Carrot venegratte

We enjoyed having them.

Canadian Ice Wine

Shiu-chan doesn't have idea what to give me for my Birthday,
Frankly speaking, he took leave and spend his money to fly to Tokyo with me is great present enough...



But he still thinks that he wants get something for me,


Oh, there are nice ice wines,
so I requested him to get this small ice wines for me as Birthday Present =)






Thank you!
Enjoy this together soon...;)

Ume shu

My mum's umeshu...






7 years old and 9 years old...lol...


She selects nice plums from Kishu, then brew it...







And this is Mamushi snake shu...this is good for injury...
REALLY!!! (Not for drinking)

Mikan

We like to buy mikan by box during winter...=)

consume alot...really!!