Adventures in Japan (Food)

Posted on 21 April 2009

Back in 2004, I took a business trip to Japan.  While away for a total of 4 weeks I wrote this random collection of notes.  They were not meant to be much more than simple emails to my friends and family, so don’t expect fine art.  Some are pretty amusing, others are just odd, and still others are a bit sad.  It’s also fairly entertaining to see how little I knew about Japanese food at the time.  So pour yourself a glass of plum wine and read on.

Introduction:
The food here in Japan is, in a word, interesting.  Not to say its bad… its not.  It’s just very different then what I’m used to.  I sent reports almost every day of my latest culinary experience to my wife. 2009  Editors Note:  The sauce of legend is most likely Tonkatsu sauce, but I’ve never found any in the US that was nearly as good.

Enter the Sauce:
Breaded Pork chops for lunch with rice and cabbage.  MMMMmmmm Matt like.   The Japanese have this very tasty sauce (which they call “Sauce” believe it or not).  It’s like a cross between barbecue and soy.  Its looks like soy, but its much better tasting (tangy).  It’s very good on fish and pork. It must have another name, but how do I figure it out?  It’s a puzzle.

I like booze and chocolate 12-8-04
Wednesday looks like nice weather with a strong chance of meetings followed by heavy drinking in the evening.  We’ve done so much drinking I swear I’m in a frat.  It’s just crazy.   I had chicken skin and liver for dinner.  As well as Japanese “Vodka” which has no taste and no burn, its really just there to get you drunk, a stealth booze if you will.  Also some kind of fish.  I really can’t tell the fish apart.  They all kinda taste the same, unless its sushi.  Then I can tell.   Also I had a giant radish, which actually tasted ok (for a radish).  I realize that I could never live here.  They have no chocolate!  Well very little.  Kinda sad. You would think that this would make them healthier, but between the drinking and smoking, I’m pretty sure they’re still pretty unhealthy.   Luckily there is still the American chocolate.  I can always get me a snickers.

Broccoli-san 12-15-04
It’s was a normal lunch, well as normal as the Japanese lunches get anyway. A chicken soup of sort, with a cream base and lots of veggies.  At first glance it seemed safe then Dish choice #2, fish with several unknown slimy items on the side.  But there was more going on than I first suspected.

I began to eat my prepared lunch as usual (my usually approach with food here is to eat first and never ask questions later).  But then I notice a familiar shape.  The vegetable that must not be named!  Its hideous green trunk with its drier fuzz like branches was all over my soup like little evil tree shaped land mines, Just waiting for me.  For the last few weeks I had not seen a slimy green trace of the veggie that must not be named.  But here it was, and in full force.  Apparently it had followed me to the land of Godzilla and cartoons about Ninja School girls.  Is there nowhere that is safe from its evil world domination schemes!   Luckily I was equipped with the latest in Chop stick technology (brown plastic simulating wood, only the best here) I was able to pick my way though the mine field of a soup.  And now I know it’s out there…. waiting….

<insert dramatic music here>

The other “Hard Boiled” 12-16-04
So I think we had the Japanese version of spaghetti and meatballs for lunch. The meatballs where ground beef with a hard boiled egg in the middle (minus the shell, duh).  It was ok.  I put more of that “Sauce” on it, which helps a lot (it was REALLY dry).  I still really like that stuff.  Maybe I can find it in the super market and I can do some chemical break down or something.

Of Mackerel and Tuna 1-10-05
Baked Mackerel (that white fish) with a side of tofu mixed with beef(an odd mix, but whatever).   A salad (with mini croutons), miso soup (heavy on the sea weed today), and of course rice.

The 2nd choice (which I passed on) was scrambled eggs mixed with chicken and pork with bamboo shoots.  I thoughts the eggs might have milk in them.  And we’re not quite back into dairy products after last nights stomach rebellion.

I’m trying to decide what fish I like, and what I don’t.  I don’t like salmon much, but mackerel is good.  There’s another random white fish I’ve had fried a few times which is tasty as well.  Sadly there is no English translation for it.  That happens a lot (see example “Sauce”).   I know I like shark and Tuna.  Maybe I can define a few more before I go home.  Seems like a reasonable quest.  Its better then my “see a real live ninja” one.

That is all… for now.  Carry on…

God save the fish 1-11-05
So today’s lunch was an odd one, but was almost seafood free,  which is unusual. Barbecue chicken served over white rice, shredding egg, peas, and sea weed. The soup was an egg based.  The fact that it wasn’t Miso was a bit of a letdown.  I like Miso soup.   Still it was ok.  It seem like it would be less food, but somehow I felt pretty full when I was done.  Which is good, cause I was hungry and if yesterday was an example, its going to be a long time before I eat again.

The other option was a baked fish.  It looked like leftovers from yesterday.  While I like fish, the idea of day old fish didn’t interest me. The lack of a truly odd and or gruesome aspect to my lunch is a bit disturbing.  That means I’m heading for a really gruesome dinner.  Well if my usually luck holds.  Perhaps this trip will be different

Extra gruesome edition.1-12-04
Today we had the still beating hearts of baby puppies with a heaping side of cute monkey brains.
Mmmmmmm.

Ok ok not really.  I’m just trying to make up for yesterdays poor performance.  Its all a ratings game after all.  What I really had for lunch was fried shrimp.  But not like you would normally have fried shrimp.  This is Japan, they do it different here.  This fried shrimp seems to have been created by rolling a large number of shrimp together, smashing it down into a patty, then frying it.  It ends up looking like a pork chop.  But its shrimp.  Really.  All pink and shell fish like inside.  I checked.  This was served with a curried potato.  This is green and also fried.  Its tastes good, kinda like twice baked, if it was twice baked, fried and then green. Thinking back on that sentence, it doesn’t make much sense.  I’ll move along and pretend it didn’t happen.  There was also a salad, miso soup (heavy on tofu), and rice.

Now as an aside, another mission of mine this time around (yes from the hunters guild) is to gross out the Japanese people with their own food.  How you ask?  It seems there are set ways things are meant to be eaten.  Mixing things out of orders disturbs the people of the land of the rising sun. This makes me happy.  For example, today there was tarter sauce.  Which is good.  But the “sauce” sauce is awesome.  Unsure what to do, I combine them. The general response… “I think that it tastes baaad”.  It helps if you read that last line like the big muppet from “Labyrinth”.  Yeah the “Smell baaad” guy.  I think that’s a bunch of bonus XP for sure.

The other choice for lunch will remain unnamed.  I looked at it for some time.  I could not comprehend.  It was just a large bowl of stuff I did not recognize.  Like my brain saw it, but fail to translate it. I could look right at it, and still couldn’t see it.  It was like it was a SEP.  I asked Hiro.  He stammered around a bit.  But then shrugged and said he didn’t know.  I think it was a very tiny UFO.  That must be it.

Moooo 1-13-05
Ok, get this, start out with a cow.  Take all the muscle off the bones…now pay attention this gets tricky, then grind said muscle into something like ground turkey.  Then flatten out into a small round serving, lets call it a patty.   Its almost like …like a hamburger!  But to make it even weirder add some onion!  Ok ok so it’s just a hamburger.  But the side dish , now that was crazy.  Its hard even to explain it!  See you take potatoes… and you ..smash.. them… up.  Add a bit of milk…. and …ok ok it was just mashed potatoes.  They did add some pickles though, that’s a little off.  And the hamburger was served with brown gravy.  There was also an egg, cooked into the shape of a star.  I don’t know why, I don’t ask questions.  We again had Miso soup (with sprouts of some sort added) and rice.  Cause you have to have rice.  It is where they add the pills that keep the people from asking to many questions about the weird star eggs.

The second dish was fish soup.  White fish with white veggies with a clear broth. <Yawn>  It is like the interesting monster came and sucked anything remotely interesting out of the lunch.  It was so boring; I got sleepy looking at it.  In fact I’m drinking coffee right now.  Just to stay awake. From seeing the soup…. really.