The leaves on maple trees in Japan have all been turning red since last few weeks.
Before they all fall off, we went to Heirinji temple graden to admire the beautiful blend of colours this afternoon.

It may look warm, but temperatures are falling every week, so we have been having quite a lot of different kinds of hot pots for dinners...

This is one of our all time favourite style, thick ramen hot pot.

This was todays lunch at a handmade udon restaurant. Udon hot pot with red miso stew.

Dinner wasnt hot pot, but teriyaki chicken with a side cabbage and mushroom soup to warm us up.

Oh by the way, did u know the gingko tree has female and male leaves?
We picked this up at the garden. On the right is the female leave.

So apart from hot pots, we were having fun with different kimchi dishes last week.

With the big lot of kimchi i bought from Osaka, i made

Kimchi soup with salmon soup stock

Bibimbap style kimchi fried rice

kimchi udon with korean style BBQed pork

Burdock kimchi salad with BBQed garlic pork

This is a picture i took while shopping last week.

Didnt know there was such a brand!

Back from OSAKA!

Today is labour day, a public holiday in Japan.
So the 2 of us had a quiet cosy time on a rainy monday at home.

Lunch was simple,

Okara udon


Dinner was simple.

Baked salmon, curry fish cake, miso soup and grilled mushroom and bacon mixed into white rice

our Osaka adventure~

On a fine wednesday morning, we left Tokyo and hopped onto the shinkansen bound for Osaka...

Managed to catch Mount Fuji on the way there...

Mention Osaka, and Okonomiyaki, takoyaki, stick katsu (think katsu on a satay stick), ramen, udon and the famous fugu balloon comes to mind...

We tried all their popular foods except fugu.

okonomiyaki

Shinkseikai (New world), has this well known fugu(puffer fish) restaurant. So this is its iconic fugu balloon.

We didnt have fugu though, we ate stick katsu, which is also one of Osakas popular finger food.

The largest Korean street in Japan can be found here in Osaka, at Tsuruhashi.

Bought kimchi

Ate chijimi
Korean fish cake (in chilli sauce and soup version) which i ALWAYS have to eat when i do my Incheon flights

Bought dessert mochi.


This wasnt bought at korean street, but at a waffle stall i spotted.

Chocolate coated waffles..............

ahh...........the last time i had something as good as this was last winter in Amsterdam. Freshly baked waffles dipped in melted chocolate...

simple pleasure~

Udon in Osaka is again different because the soup stock is lighter in colour compared to the usual udon.

We had udon and oden at this very traditional restaurant at Namba.

Jun had the popular grilled mochi and duck udon, while i had oden...

Lightly coloured soup stock bursting with flavour!

On our third day there, i went to Shinsaibashi...

where the shopping centres are preserved in their original buildings

Daimaru entrance

Just when i thought the street outside looked a bit like New Yorks fifth ave...i spotted the statue of liberty

In fact, there is this mini American village a street away from Daimaru

where most of the popular american brands can be found.

I thought this was an American underwear shop, so i entered and browsed through their interesting underpants. hefty price for this one.

US$45.

Made in Japan.

Japanese image of American apparel.

I thought i would be able to find a dirty water dog (hot dog) stall by te street like in New York, but there wasnt one in sight. Instead, i found this soft ice cream dog stall.

The last day in Osaka was spent at Umeda

We had the best Takoyaki which i ever had!

In place of the standard dark sweet sauce and mayonaise, it was sour plum sauce and spring onions topped on top of hot takoyaki!

The melt of flavours was pleasantly surprising.

A refreshing change from the usual.

ending off with thick pork based soup ramen.

The milky soup is a result of the addition of a generous portion of pork collagen. =) natural beauty soup~

Back!

We r back~!
J and I spent a week in Sendai last week.
Sendai is a relatively peaceful city compared to Tokyo, so it was a little break for me. Shopping without the big crowds is less tiring.
The happiness only lasted 2 days though cos J was terribly sick with i dont know what. It was either a terrible case of food poisoining, horrible stomach flu or an influenza gone nuts. He spent the 2nd half of our trip in hospital and in the end couldnt be definitely diagnosed.
So after being discharged, porridge was what we had all week.
Chinese style, Japanese style, Italian stlye. Yup meat sauce on porridge.




This was our Hong Kong style porridge for dinner one evening.

I made lots of milk pudding for his dessert time most of the week

And then we moved on to semi solid

Minestrone with pasta

And finally on sunday, we were ready to have meatballs!

So we did a hotpot dinner~

With side grated sesame topping by the side

This was last nights dinner~

Cheese chicken burger in white vegetble stew


Smoked oysters on a bed of spinach salad
Oysters are one of the famous produce from Sendai, so i bought a pack home

Cow tongue and BBQed beef (yakiniku) are also well know in Sendai. Apparantly, the black haired Yonezawa cows are bred specially for their marbled meat. They are fed a special diet and not even allowed to to have any sexual excitement for it may toughen the meat. The result? Amazingly tender wagyu~

Unfortunately, J didnt manage to eat the gyutan (cow tongue) which i had on the last day, so to make up for that, i bought some nice wagyu from the supermart today and made Yakiniku miso soup.

Tonights dinner was a typical Japanese style course...

Simmered snapper in sesame shoyu

Japanese leek salad with sweet inari beancurd tossed in light curry dressing

Ahh...................