It feels like I have not written a post in a million years, in fact I think it has only been 2 1/2 weeks. But this is because I have been in Japan on an energy security study tour for work. Of course whilst I was there I sampled much of the weird and wonderful of Japanese cuisine and so I thought I would share some of it with you. A note to all the sashimi lovers - I realise you will think that a large amount of beautiful fish has been completely wasted on me because I do not eat it! Feel comforted by the fact that it did not go to waste and I traded it with other people on the trip for their vegetables :)
So first off a Japanese breakfast.... Well I must say that in terms of what we were served in the hotels there seems to be very little difference between what the Japanese eat for breakfast and what they eat for any other meal of the day. There are the staples of miso soup and rice and then a selection of pickled vegetables, seaweed salad things, tofu in a variety of ways and fish in a variety of ways. The only thing I did notice was that there doesn't seem to be any raw fish for breakfast. I did try miso soup for breakfast one morning... I just could not stomach it or anything else Japanese for that matter for breakfast! It seems that Japanese hotels seem to think a western breakfast consists of lots of hot chips and potato wedges so I ate a lot of them, and the tiny slices of orange that were meant for tea or palette cleansing for breakfast for two weeks! Of course this was intermingled with whatever other foods I could find. Happily the Japanese seem to have a HUGE obsession with France and so there were plenty of croissants available to accompany my wedges.
So onto lunches... and dinners I think since there is little to no difference. For nearly the whole trip we were catered for. One day we had Indian for lunch which was terrible and made me ill and one night we had a western set menu which had Australian beef in it (they had paid a fortune for what I can eat anytime I like at home) which was also dreadful. The Japanese food was the bets by far! So I recommend when in Japan stick to what they are good at!
The Japanese food that we got served at these catered dinners and lunches was amazing! There seems to be an endless supply of tiny little dishes that come out through the night and everything is beautifully arranged. Also each part of the meal seems to have its own little dipping sauce in a cute little bowl. Some of the staples are miso soup, rice, a savoury baked custard, tofu, pickled vegetable of some kind and several types of seafood! The highlights for me were the pickled daikon which is amazing, the miso soup which was always delicious and tempura! I absolutely loved the tempura. I think tempura improves the taste of anything!
Of course when we went out to restaurants ourselves the food was not nearly so fancy and we ate far more like what the everyday Japanese person would. I mostly ate tempura, udon noodles and ramen noodles. And of course in picking meals I was guided by the every present plastic food displays! These are actually fantastic once you get paste how off putting they are. The menus very rarely have any English so the point at a plastic dish is the perfect was to order.
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And finally on the last night when we were in Kyoto we decided to try something which had been described to us as the Japanese version of pizza.... I'm not sure how much like pizza it was but it was very delicious nonetheless. I even took a photo of the menu so I could remember what it was called: okonomiyaki and negiyaki. They are more like an omelette than a pizza, but you can get them with different toppings. They do all seem to come with lots of cabbage, meat of your choice and other chopped up bits of vegetable. Some come with shallots and eggs. An okonomiyaki is flat like a pizza and a negiyaki is folded kind of like a taco. They are presented on a grill or hot plate at your table and they are delicious
So my ultimate favourite meal??? Miso ramen soup with pork and steamed vegetables. I am definitely going to try cooking this one at home! And still not convinced of??? Raw fish and seafood in shells like the slimy sea snails we were served one night. Strangest thing??? It appears no one in Japan actually eats sushi! I was never served it and saw it only once at the airport. It seems that sushi is pretty hard to come by!
I think that is enough for one post! I'll go into dessert and drinks another time :)
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