Tempura 天ぷら

It's been a while since I tried a new traditional Japanese recipe, so it is time for cooking.

This time I tried making 天ぷら Tempura, another very famous meal in Japan, which you will find in any Japanese restaurant in and outside of Japan. Although Tempura was originally brought to Japan by the Portuguese, it is now considered a traditional Japanese meal.

Again making Tempura is quite easy and doesn't take many ingredients. However depending on how much you want to make and how large your frying pan is, it will take a while.

材料 Ingredients

- 米 rice
- 天ぷら粉 Tempura flour*
- てんつゆ Tentsuyu (Tempura Sauce)**
- たくさん 揚げ油 much cheap frying Oil
- optional: 卵 egg
- 野菜 vegetables: たまねぎ Onion, にんじん Carrot, ナス Eggplant, さつまいも Sweet Potato, かぼちゃ Pumpkin, 茸 Mushrooms, (Broccoli, uncommon but tastes great)
(- for non vegetarians Japanese usually add 海老 shrimps)

* normal flour will do just fine, if you can't find it
** take normal soy sauce, if you can't find it

作り方 Cooking Manual

1. Put the rice in a rice cooker or make it with a pot and boiling water

2. Cut the vegetables in 1-2 cm thick slices. You can leave the mushrooms and the broccoli parts as they are.



3. Prepare the batter: Mix the egg with the flour and add some cold water. Mix it until it becomes like a dough, you don't need to overdo it, you can leave some lumps in it.

4. Now put as much oil in the frying pan, that the vegetables will be covered by it and make it boil.

5. Now put the vegetable slices one by one into the dough, until they are completely covered by dough and place them in the boiling oil. Be careful! The oil gets really hot and if you accidentally put some water inside, it will squirt and maybe injure your eyes or something.
You can put as many vegetables in the pan, as there is space. Turn them around after a while and when they are done, put them on a plate and continue with the next ones.



6. When all is fried you can put some rice in bowls and add the fried vegetables on top. When 天ぷら Tempura is served like this, it is referred to as 天丼 Tendon, where 丼 Don means bowl ^_^. You can use Tempura soy sauce either to dip the Tempura in (that's the normal way), or you put it on top of your Tempura and rice (that's what I do ^_^).



Enjoy! Of course Tempura is eaten with 箸 Hashi (chopsticks).

mika

焼きそば Yakisoba

A very nice coworker of mine shared her basic 焼きそば Yakisoba recipe with me. 焼きそば　Yakisoba are very popular in Japan. Especially on festivals and other outside activities you are abound to find people sell them everywhere and I must agree that they are very delicious.

So let's make our own!

材料 Ingredients
We need:

焼きそば Yakisoba (as far as I can tell these are preeboiled noodles very similar to your ordinary spaghetti, yet a bit thicker. Just take the most similar you can find to thick spaghetti and preboil them until they are soft).
キャベツ cabbage
人参 carrots
しょうが Ingwer
ニンニク garlic
ネギ spring onion
もやし soy sprouts
粉 flour



とんかつソース Tonkatasu Sauce (the easiest to find is the one with a Bull-Dog on top. Again if you can't find it, try experimenting with combining black vinegar, corn starch and some vegetable stock or get the exact recipe for the sauce online). The English name for the sauce is Worcestershire Sauce.

作り方 preparation
We prepare it in three steps:

(1) At step one we cut the vegetables as small as you like them and fry them with oil in a pan.



(2) Step 2 we put the preboiled spaghetti in a bowl add some flour, water, oil water and some of the sauce. Then we mix everything thoroughly and fry the noodles like this in a pan.



(3) Now we combine the two and fry them a little more together adding some more sauce on top.



できた！ Done!


Variations:

At festivals you will usually find a simplified version containing only the noodles, ginger and cabbage.

However when preparing 焼きそば at home there are almost no limits to what you can add. Try adding vegetables you like.

For non-vegetarians, when preparing 焼きそば at home, Japanese like to add either 海老 shrimps, 豚肉 pork, or both. Just add them in step 1.

頑張ってください！ Ganbatte kudasai!
mika

パスタサラダ Pasta Salad

This week we celebrated the Chinese and Korean New Year! For that yet another time we decided a cultural cuisine exchange. That means every party guest will prepare some typical dish from her/his home country and bring it to the party.

My German coworker also intended to join the party and suggested pasta salad. Pasta salad might not be exactly a "traditional German" dish, but in the last 40 years it grew into a traditional "bring a long dish" for German parties. As I heard from other interns in most countries it is quite rare to make parties were people bring dishes a long. One reason why such parties are popular are probably Germany's insanely high restaurant prices.

Anyway with a little financial support from my German coworker I made the following really delicious pasta salad:

PASTA SALAD



材料 Ingreedients
パスタ Pasta (spiral or macaroni)
きゅうり Cucumber (at least 2, when taking Japanese sized ones)
コーン corn (１缶 can)
グリーンピース green peas (1缶 can)
トマト cherry/cocktail tomatoes (the small ones)
ねぎ spring onion
玉ねぎ onion
人参 carrot
クリームチーズ cream cheese
ヨーグルト yogurt (tasteless neutral)
マヨネーズ mayonnaise
酢 vinegar
塩 salt
胡椒 pepper


作り方 preparation

Boil the pasta in water with a bit of oil and salt and/or vegetable stock, until it has a good bite.

While the pasta is boiling start cutting the vegetables. Cut the tomatoes in half, the cucumber and carrot and the onion in cubes. Cut the spring onion in slices and half them. Cut the cream cheese also into cubes, if yours is consistent enough.

Then prepare the "dressing" in a big bowl: Put in the yogurt and add the mayonnaise and the vinegar. Then mix it well. Add some salt and pepper and continue mixing.

Now we will wait until the pasta has the rite bite. Then we put the pasta in a sieve to get rid of the water and put them above the "dressing". Then we do "undermixing", that is mixing while trying to get the "dressing" on top and the pasta to the bottom. Finally we put in the cut vegetables together with the corn and the peas.

Tada! If you can find some chive (I couldn't in Japan) then you can put some fresh cut chive on top of the salad. You can serve it with the pasta still warm, but it usually is served cold and tastes cold as good as warm.

Guten Appettit!
mika

寿司料理授業 Sushi Cooking Lessons

Instead Of todays Japanese lesson, we learned how to make 手綱寿司 Tadsuna Zushi and まんじゅう Manjuu.

For that we were lead to another building than usual, which hosted a big room, designed to teach cooking. 素晴らしい Wonderful!



Our group's teacher



Next to our teachers, we had high class Japanese cooks explain to us the recipe.

手綱寿司 Tadsuna Zushi

A little fact about the Japanese language. When a word is combined with another one, like above, the first sound often becomes soft. So the strong S in Sushi becomes the soft Z when combined with Tadsuna or other Sushi types like Maki Zushi.

材料 Ingredients

干し椎茸 dried Shiitake Japanese mushrooms
小松菜 Chinese cabbage
人参 carrot 1本
卵 egg ２ヶ

米 rice
酢 vinegar
醤油 soy sauce
しょうが ginger

作り方

米
Wash and cook some rice together with some 昆布 Konbu seaweed, if you can find some. Then put the rice in a large bowl and mix it with half a cup of vinegar. Stir the rice / vinegar for 2 minutes.

卵
Mix the two eggs with some sugar, some salt. Then make scrambled eggs.

干し椎茸
Put the musrooms in water and add some vegetable stock, sugar and soy sauce. Then when the mushrooms are dry and cold, cut them into stripes.

人参
Cut the carrot in thin stripes and put them into water. Add some sugar, salt vegetable stock and boil it for a short while.

小松菜
Put the Chinese cabbage into hot water and add some salt. Cook it until it gets a nice color then put it into cold water and out again. Then cut it into thin stripes.

Use a long wooden board and put your 巻きす (Makikisu the bamboo board for making Sushi, see picture) on top. Now put some with plastic wrap on top, which will make everything a bit easier.
Now make small lines of the prepared ingredients from left to right: 卵 egg, 人参 carrot, 椎茸 mushrooms , 小松菜 Chinese cabbage then start again with egg until you reached the end.
Now spread another plastic wrap and put some rice in. Warp and form the rice like a tube and make it as long as your line of ingredients on the 巻きす Makikisu. Open the wrap and put the rice on top of the ingredients.
Now wrap the combination with the plastic warp under the ingredients and use the 巻きす Makikisu to make it round and sticky. Be sure to give it a good consistency.
Finally use the sharpest knife you have, best is of course a Japanese 包丁 (kitchen knife), and cut the long tube into mouth fit pieces; then carefully remove the remaining wrap.



line them up



measure the rice tube's length



make the tube the right length



and use the 巻ききす to make it more stiff



Yatta! Your done. You can eat your 手綱寿司 Tadsuna Zushi with some ginger and 醤油 Shouyu soy sauce.

Note:
(Usually the line on the 巻きす board starts with 海老 Ebi Shrimps. So if you want, you can get some Ebi and add it before 卵 egg. And more traditional than vegetable stock is 出汁 Dashi fish stock).



My friend Noppon



Yay for vegetarian Sushi



Juan's Sushi turned out a bit ugly

Ho! but now we want a nice desert, don't we! So let's make some Manjuu!

利休 まんじゅう Rikyuu Manjuu

材料 Ingredients

黒糖 black sugar 100g
上白糖 first class sugar 35g
水飴 starch syrup 20g
水 water 65g
重曹 baking soda 4g
薄力粉 (ふるう) wheat flour (low viscosity) 200g
餡子 Anko sweet bean jam/paste 25g

道具 Tools

steam pot
frying pan

作り方

Prepare a frying pan and fry the black sugar a little. Now add the white sugar, the starch syrup and the water and fry it on a weak flame until you have a black solution.

Prepare a bowl and put the solution and the flour together with the soda inside (using a sieve if you have one) and mix it really well. Put in a tiny bit of water, if it doesn't work out.

Now form around 12 little balls out of the dough. Using flour on your hands makes it easier to form. Then take a ball and make it flat, put a round ball of 餡子 Anko inside and slow and carefully wrap the dough around until it encloses the 餡子 Anko completely.

Now you need a steam cook pot with two stages. Put water in the first stage and make it boil, then put the まんじゅう Manjuu with a tiny piece of paper into the second stage and put the second stage on top of the first stage and close the lid. Now let it steam/cook for 10 minutes and they are done.



Our two Colombian guys starting from the left Giovanni and Juan



Don't add soap!

Yatta! Oishii! (Delicious!)



Our self made dinner: Sushi and Manjuu (mine is the bottom left corner)

Tips:
If you don't have a steam cook pot, don't worry. You don't need to be Mac Gyver to create tools. E.g. try to use a normal pot with some water and put a sieve in it. If it doesn't fit, fix it with paper clips.



a two level steam cooking pot





super kawaii bonus pictures! (the child of one of the Japanese students)

日本料理 Cooking In Japanese

I already have a post talking about the Japanese Cuisine, now in this post I will gradually reveal, how to cook traditional Japanese meals by yourself.
In Japanese restaurants abroad you will only meet a very small portion of the incredible variety of Japanese food. So I decided to start cooking those meals by myself, so I would be able to present them to friends and family, when I go back to Germany. But to my dear reader I reveal the recipes here, as I uncover them, so you don't have to wait for me and can try it yourself.

有利 Advantages

Home-made food has even more advantages. For example
* you can cook vegetarian/vegan versions of meals
* you can choose natural ingredients (e.g. 玄米 genmai natural rice)
* you can add/remove things you like/dislike
* you can use fresh vegetables
* you can invite friends for dinner

お握り Onigiri



Let's start with the Japanese equivalent to butter bread. The most frequent thing you will encounter in children's school bags, as well as in the suitcases of office workers or in the lunch boxes of construction site workers: お握りOnigiri.

Basically an Onigiri is a ball of sticky rice. Often people will wrap this rice ball in Nori, sheets of (very healthy) seaweed and add a filling in the middle and that's it. Simple, good, filling, light and healthy.

So let me give you the basic recipe first and give suggestions for fillings.

食材 Ingredients
お米 rice
海苔 nori

道具 Tools
炊飯器 rice cooker
plastic foil
a small bowl or flat tea cup

Cook the rice (white rice will be more sticky, while natural rice will have more taste and nutrition) in the rice cooker. Without using a rice cooker, it will be pretty though to get the rice sticky and it is a very handy and energy saving tool, so go and get one.
Take a sheet of plastic foil and wrap it around your cup/bowl. Then wet your hands and grab some rice and put it into the plastic foil wrapped bowl/cup. Press it down. Now you could make a little pit in the middle and add some fillings (see below) in it. Take the plastic foil out of the cup/bowl and tie it. Now you can easily form the rice into whatever shape you can think of. Traditional when using nori is a triangle form.
Spread a nori sheet on a board, open the plastic bag and put the rice shape on the nori. Now wrap the nori around the shape and put the whole back into the plastic foil.
Here you can find the page of the person who came up with the plastic foil cup/bowl method to shape the rice. The page also includes some illustrating pictures and ideas for ingredients.

Repeat this for as much rice as you have made and as many fillings you can think of. You can put the wrapped nori into your fridge and take them to work, on travel or wherever your feet may carry you.

Fillings

Traditional fillings include 梅干し umeboshi (pickled plumes) and other pickled vegetables as well as all the variety of fish you find in Japan.

No traditional fillings I tried, that work well include
* cocktail tomato + drop of oil + basil + cheese
* small cut carrot + chili sauce
* small cut cucumber with a dip of soy sauce
* garlic/onion/ginger as an addition to other fillings
* mushrooms
* olives

お好み焼き Okonomiyaki



Okonomiyaki is one of my favorite meals in the Japanese cuisine. It is in fact so brilliant, that it is often called Japanese pizza. The reasons why it is so brilliant include a preparation/cooking time from under 10 minutes, an extreme deliciousness and, like the pizza the possibility to freely choose ingredients you like. The name even translates to: "Frying what you like". I will give you a traditional version here, but you can vary the ingredients as you like.

食材 Ingredients
お好み焼き粉 Okonomiyaki Floor (You can use normal floor too)
キャベツ Cabbage
ねぎ spring onion
ニンニク garlic
コーン　corn

トッピング Topping
マスタード mustard
おたふくソース Okonomiyaki Sauce (You can also use Ketchup, Chili Sauce, Garlic Sauce or whatever sauce you like)
マヨネーズ Mayonnaise
ハブ　herbs

Ok put some floor in a medium sized bowl. There is no right amount, if you take too less it becomes less sticky, the more you take the more sticky it becomes. Play around a bit until you find an amount you like. Add water little by little and mix it with the floor to get a good sticky sauce. Don't make it too fluid, since we are going to put it into a frying pan.
Now add all the other ingredients and mix them well with the floor paste. Take some time, until you get a nice mix.

Now heat a plate or start a fire, put your frying pan on, add oil and give it a minute to heat up. Then pour the bowl's contents into the pan and distribute it evenly. After 2-4 minutes you can turn it around (use two instruments for the turning, else it will be quite hard), and give it another 2 minutes. Done!

Now put it into a plate and add the toppings, mustard, Okonomiyaki Sauce and mayonnaise just as you like them. At last add some herbs. In Japan there are some traditional herbs to choose, but any you like will do.

Tada finished! Looks delicious, is delicious, easy and fast to make. Also you don't need to clean much. Its really a wonderful meal!

As I mentioned above you can basically add any kind of ingredient you can think of. Non-vegetarians in Japan like to add pork or some sea food. Just don't add too much, to give the mix a chance to become a little bit solid.

炊飯器パン Rice Cooker Bread



Ok the next one will be no traditional Japanese meal, though it does fit very well in Japan. The reason I came up with this bread is for once, not many Japanese houses have ovens, but everyone has a rice cooker. Secondly the bread in Japanese bakeries is almost always sweet and white (= sweet/tasteless). And thirdly I have recently watched an Anime about baking bread (焼きたてじゃっパン Yakitate Japan), where they make such a bread.

食材 Ingredients
パン粉 Floor suitable for bread 350g
バター butter or margarine 21g
砂糖 sugar 21g
牛乳/豆乳 milk/soy milk 35 cc
水 water 180 cc
トライイースト dry yeast 5g
食塩 salt 6.5g

Solve the yeast in a little bit of water and add it to the floor. Add water, milk, sugar and salt and mix it to a dough. Then wrap the dough around the butter and keep kneading the dough for at least 10 minutes. This is a bit tiresome, but that's how you make bread. Afterwards let the dough rest for around an hour to give it the chance for the first stage of fermentation.
After the hour use some oil or butter/margarine to grease the rice cooker bowl. Then put the dough inside and try to center it a little.
Press the 炊飯 "cook rice" button. When it is done, put the dough out, turn it and out it in again. Press the button again. After you hear the beep, proceed with turning it one last time and press the button.
This time it is done, and you can enjoy your self-made bread!
Congratulations!

誕生日 Birthday

Aye from time to time your humble reporter carries one more year on his back. And he was really moved, because the other interns made a party for him.

フルーツパーティ Fruits Party



And since "a party", like "any party", would be boring, they added a theme/topic/task to it. It was to become a fruits party "fruits from all over the world". So every one joining the party would bring some fruits or make something out of fruits or at least bring some juice.

The result was quite amazing. A lot of people brought fruits, so that our chefs could prepare awesome decorated plates, as you can see in the picture below.



Of course I also did not come empty handed and prepared my miraculous mega tasty ultra fruits salad version 7. Having made quite some fruit salads I can make them quite yummy. Here's what you need:

フルーツサラダ Fruit Salad



果物 Fruits
りんご Apples
バナナ Banana
キーウィ Kiwi
みかん Mandarin
そのほか Add more fruits as you like

味見 Spices
シナモン Cinnamon
バニラ Vanilla
ハニー Honey
メープルシロップ Maple Syrup
ミルク Milk

First cut the fruit and put it into a large bowl. Then add the spices, wait a little, that the fruit can absorb a bit of the spices and then add some milk (not too much). Mix it to let the milk catch the not absorbed spices and spread it evenly across the rest of the fruits.

Apart from that and the awesome decorated plates, Boy from Thailand brought a very special fruit. Durian, the king of the fruits! As you just read, apart from its undisputed title and size it is forbidden in some places, because of its disgusting smell. I don't think it is that bad, however admit it to be really intense. Boy brought some Durian pieces, cake/cookies and chips.



Pieces Of Durian

Eventually they turned the lights of and handed me a Birthday Cake saying Happy Birthday in chorus =D



I also got a hedgehog CD holder, cocoa, cookies and the Anime Akira on DVD, quite cool!



The party went on much like every other party, except that it was probably much more healthy than most parties, because of our large fruits buffet.


バースでぃ お好み焼き Birthday Okonomiyaki



My good friend and 遍路 pilgrim partner Hong Lun, had another surprise for me at work. Since both of us usually cook and prepare something for the lunch break at work, we also eat together. So on my birthday, without me knowing it, he cook for me. Since it was lunch time, he couldn't bake cake (we are further missing any oven), so he made お好み焼き Okonomiyaki. Since you usually add mayonnaise on top, he used it to write Happy Birthday (see picture!).
That's so cute! My whole day was great, because of this :). Since it was quite large we ate and enjoyed it together ^=^

鏡餅 Kagamimochi (New Year Mochi)



Finally 里美さん Satomi-san, a really nice coworker of me and Hong Lun, who often joins us for lunch and also brings self-cooked stuff, gave me yet another present at work. After 正月 (New Year holiday) she brought some 鏡餅 to work, which we enjoyed together. 餅 Mochi is a very sticky meshed rice paste, which you can eat with something sweet like Anko (sweet bean paste). Because I liked it a lot and because she noticed me using natural ingredients for my lunch (e.g. 玄米 genmai Natural Rice), she gave me something very special. 玄米餅 Mochi made from natural rice. They are incredible healthy and have a lot more taste than 白米餅 white rice mochi. Really nice =D

人形劇 Puppet Theater



Not enough I also got something from a special friend who studied with me in Germany. The day after the 遍路 pilgrimage, I decided to take a half-day holiday to recover some strength. As Fortuna blessed me, just at this day came a real packet for me right to my door! (Getting it yourself would have been quite a nuisance) It contained a complete set of a puppet theater with Kasperl, the thief, the crocodile, the grandmother, the king and queen, the witch, the wizard, the ghost and the fool. All to be played with finger (finger puppets). I was so surprised and touched, that I can't put it in words! That's probably the most romantic present I have ever gotten =D

音楽と物語 Music and Fairy Tales

Before my birthday I already got two very nice presents from two other very dear friends. Two music cds with self designed covers and a little tape with a wonderful story of a little king. For the tape I got to a second hand store and got their last ancient Walkman, which they had.They thought they'd never sell it. Then I got home, put in batteries, plugged in ear plugs, hid below my blanket in my bed. And listened to the story already half dreaming...
dwelling in dreams...

Thank you all my wonderful friends! I love all of you by heart! Please feel hugged by me how ever far you might be away!

your friend eternally
mika

追伸 P.S.
In preparation for the pilgrimage, we went to a cool store called "workman's store". In short that means high quality cloths (resistant to work conditions) for a very low price. So I got this 80s outfit for 2000 Yen (12 Euro) and came with a fit hair style ^^





ok ok the sock-shoes don't fit, I know.

和食 Japanese Cuisine

This time I want to tell you some of the secrets of the Japanese Cuisine.

大切 Important

Good Food is really important to the people here. You can find many facts that argue in favor of this. For example television. If you zap through Japanese TV-channels you will most likely find several of them broadcasting about food. In fact there is a whole channel devoted to food and shopping channels are also mostly about selling food.
Secondly if you ask Japanese people, male and female, for their hobbies, not few of them will answer "eating". On the other hand will Japanese people immediately ask you: "What do you think about the Japanese Cuisine?" and when they tell you about travels to different places and countries, they will always first talk about food.

選別 Selection

Don't be mistaken and think Japanese Cuisine is only about rice and 寿司 (Sushi), it has by far the largest selection of food, I have ever seen within one country. If you for example go the top floors of shopping malls, you will most likely find about 10 - 15 restaurants, each selling different kinds of meals.

伝統 Tradition

Of course there are also several traditional or popular meals, that you will find anywhere across the country, such as for example

そば Soba (buckwheat noodles)
うどん Udon (thick noodles)
天ぷら Tmnpura (fried fish and vegetables)
天丼 Tendon (Tempura in a bowl with rice)
寿司 Sushi (raw fish)
カレー Curry
納豆 Nattou (fermented soy beans)
焼き鳥　焼肉　grill your food on your own place (the first ones says birds, but nowadays means fish, and the second one meat. But don't worry you can also get lots of vegetables)
しゃぶしゃぶ Japanese version of hot pot, boil your food in pots containing different 'soups' at your place
オムライス rice in an omelet like wrapper around rice
お好み焼き Okonomiyaki mix stuff you like together with some floor and make a big pancake out of it
お握り Onigiri rice balls wrapped with nori (seaweed) having some filling in the middle

But even these have no strict way of serving them, and you will find it different at each restaurant. In general however the two most important parts of the Japanese Cuisine are rice and fish. For the fish I can't tell you much, since me being vegetarian (菜食主義者) , I don't eat animals, but the rice nowadays bears some problems. At work we have a doctor for the whole building, which you can go to for asking questions and examinations, if you feel up to it. Having had this offer, I didn't say no and went to him. The doctor explained me the problem of Japanese rice:

ご飯 Rice

After WW2 white rice was something really precious and special, because it was a lot of work polishing the rice until it gets white. Today having machines and living in one of the most powerful economies of the world, it is no longer difficult. That might be the reason why today you get white rice everywhere and only white rice. Now the crucial point is, the doctor explained, that by polishing the rice until it gets white, the rice looses all the nutrition and vitamins. The positive side is for people desiring to loose weight, it doesn't give your body anything, so it doesn't make you thick. On the other hand, you can't live of it. For most people it is no huge problem, since they get most of what their body needs from fish. But for vegetarians and vegans, it is a problem. And still for the others it is no good either, since they easily could live much more healthy eating real rice.
This is really said, considering how much the Japanese love and value their rice. If they'd only return to the way they used to eat their rice before and right after WW2, it would be so much better for everyone...
So the doctor's advice for me was to eat more potatoes (which are really huge in Japan) and to get real natural rice from a natural store. And in fact I am planning to prepare some 玄米 (natural rice) for me everyday and take it with me in an お弁当 (~lunch) box. ;)

日本人は狂っている These Japanese Are Crazy

Oh yeah they are. For example I will tell you about 'German version' meals. They are very easy to prepare: You take any meal you like, e.g. Italian pasta, pizza or even Japanese meals like カレー　or うどん and ... put a sausage on top. Voila you got yourself a German meal. Also really popular is German pizza with sausages on top.
But even apart from country version meals, you find really crazy stuff mostly in the same fashion. The standard recipe is to take a good old traditional meal and put a random amount of things on it (no matter how disgusting it may look afterwards). Apart from sausages you often find meals with a random burger on top.
They don't even stop before deserts. I've seen several parfaits which are mostly a big glass stuffed with random single deserts, like ice cream, yogurt, waffles, cereals , etc. All in one glass just stuffed together... Luckily for this one, and the one with the hamburger on top, I got pictures (see below).
Apart from this you will very often find japanized versions of meals. カレー Curry for example is completely unlike British or Inidan curry having been optimized to Japanese taste.

料理屋 Restaurants

Of course there are also many chains in Japan, but they are still outnumbered by little private owned restaurants. This adds to the broad selection of individual food, I mentioned above. Even though in Germany, we also have many many private restaurants they mainly serve the same meals. Here the key to the broad selection is that each restaurant specializes in one kind of food. It gets even nicer, when you leave the 'downtown' area and follow streets in any directions, because on the side you might find countless even smaller restaurants, which are mostly only one or two extra rooms in the house of a family or an old couple, which also serve food. Family business ;).
Although the prices go as far up as 6.000 円 per person (~45 Euro), they go as far down as 300 円 (~ 2 Euro). So it is really really common to eat in restaurants and instant food is still really uncommon, except for instant noodle soups. Although because of these partly cheap prices, it is in fact sometimes more expensive to cook by yourself.

日本にいる菜食主義者　A Vegetarian In Japan

Well I must admit that it is not as easy as I though, living in Japan as a vegetarian. I had set my hopes on a a rich variation on processed Tofu and soy beans in general. Alas such things apparently only exist outside of Japan. Here you can only get standard raw Tofu and nothing else. Even in restaurants it is hard to find vegetarian things. Most times I was lucky, either we had the freedom to take a restaurant, which had at least one vegetarian meal or I or some friend could explain the waiter, that it'd be nice if they could prepare some meal for me without meat and fish. This usually works in private restaurants and sometimes even in chains, which really cook by themselves. However in others, naturally, it doesn't.
I even encountered one waitress, which happened to never have heard the Japanese word for vegetarian (菜食主義者) before and could not figure out what it means, or for that what I mean, when I tried to explain it...
Another problem is that even if they know the word, they seem unable to grasp the concept of vegetarianism. So even after I explained that I cannot eat fish and meat, they still will give you a salad with bacon cubes inside. Of course reasoning as far as "this soup is made with soup stock, so it does contain fish" is too much for them. If you ask e.g. if Miso soup does contain fish, they will say no, although the it uses fish soup stock. This happens to me almost every time, I enter a restaurant and makes eating out with friends really tough for a vegetarian (and for the friends).

僧寺料理 Temple Food

Weeeee! Recently I have heard that there are places, where you can get vegetarian meals out of the believe not to harm or kill life. That is because in Japan, even if small now, in the past Buddhism had a major influence on the people. And deeply rooted in Buddhism is a deep respect for any kind of life, which encourages vegetarianism. So in open Buddhist temples apparently you can really get vegetarian food.

食事の委細　More On The Dishes

A common Japanese meal: Miso Soup, Tea, Rice, pickles + something











オムライス Omuraisu
















オムライス, rice wrapped in a kind of omelet. And well for no reason at all, a burger on top ouwhah.

Parfait





here's one of the parfaits I spoke about. Just take a couple of deserts and stick them together in a glass.














お好み焼き Okonomiyaki



Step 1: mix and mingle



Step 2: distribute it on your table plate



Step 3: bake it just like a pancake

You get Okonomiyaki in a bowl with all kinds of delicious stuff you like most, so no problem to get vegetarian ones. Than you put that stuff on a plate, that is actually your table and make it similar to a pancake. Finally you eat it topped with a delicious sauce and/or mayonnaise.

お握り　Onigiri





Manu and me eating お握り in 川越 (Kawagoe)



お握り is usually in a triangle form with some or more のり (nori) as wrapper



in supermarkets and konbinis you always get completely wrapped up お握り

お握り (Onigiri) is a traditional Japanese dish. It can easily be taken on a journey or as a お弁当 (Obentou) for dinner to work/school. It basically consists of Japanese rice formed in the shape of a triangle and usually has nori as a wrapper. Sometimes you get it with filling in the rice.