I had been looking forward to dinner with friends at Kirazu for weeks. This tiny Soho restaurant describes itself as “Japanese Tapas” – a cross-cuisine shorthand (for the small dish menu) that is guaranteed to drive my friend Mr Noodles to near apoplexy. Reviews since its launch in April seemed positive and one of our ... Read more »
Hyper. Adjective: Obsessively concerned; fanatical; rabid (about a given item, idea or activity). Prefix: a loanword from Greek, usually implying excess or exaggeration. Noun (American, informal): a person who promotes or publicizes events, especially one who uses flamboyant methods. Japan: An island nation in East Asia. An archipelago of 6,582 islands of which the four ... Read more »
The best way to explain The London Foodie Japanese Supper Club is in Luiz’ own words: “The aim of my supper club is to recreate the kind of food I used to eat at home, cooked by my Japanese family in Sao Paolo, or the cuisine I learned during the time I lived in Japan. ... Read more »
Thanks to a sample of Skrei from the Norwegian Seafood Council, we’ve been enjoying more fish, specifically cod, of late. One portion was stir-fried with mirin and chives, another was battered and deep fried and one smaller portion was stretched into a filling fish, leek and egg pie. Next on the list was miso cod. ... Read more »
Not much can beat a sunny day spent wandering from temple to temple in Kyoto’s beautiful Gion and Higashimaya districts. Although we’d recently paused to enjoy freshly made yuba, that didn’t reduce our enthusiasm to find Bunnosuke-jaya, an amazake specialist listed in Diane Durston’s Old Kyoto book. She explains that amazake is a sweet drink ... Read more »
Kit Kats are a quintessentially British chocolate snack, originally launched in London and South East England by Rowntree’s back in 1935. They quickly spread around the world and are now a popular sweet in many countries. The iconic “Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat” advertising slogan appeared in 1958, cementing the brand’s identity. Although ... Read more »
Like quite a few dishes in Japan, katsu originated elsewhere in the world but, as with many so-called yōshoku (Western) foods, the Japanese made it their own. Based on a European breaded cutlet, it was originally called katsuretsu (a phonetic representation of “cutlet”) but was quickly shorted to katsu. Pork (ton)katsu is the most popular ... Read more »
Diane Durston, in her beautiful book, Old Kyoto, describes her chance discovery of a small yuba shop a couple of blocks from Kyoto City Hall. On that first visit, she had never heard of yuba and thought she’d stumbled into a paper maker’s, as she watched the proprietor lift thin white sheets from rectangular vats ... Read more »
Bincho Yakitori has been on my radar and mental wish list to visit since it opened a few years ago but it’s taken the current love affair with Japan to give me the impetus to actually make it there. It is Inspired by Japanese izakayas, bars in which a menu of snack items such as ... Read more »
Mitarashi Dango is a popular snack in Takayama. Sold by larger shops and tiny stalls, available hot or cold, this tasty skewered snack consists of sweet glutinous dumplings made from mochiko (rice flour) and basted in a sweet soy glaze. Miso and green tea versions are available, but the soy glazed one seemed most prevalent ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]