it’s the japanese food (and drinks) that i came accross:
– omu rice is a thin omlette over rice. in my case it was accompanied by curry, very popular in japan. the portion size was too much. doggie bags…
– the variety of seafood one sees in any store can immediately be turned into very fresh sashimi for the customer to enjoy on the spot
– white strawberries are a new trend: jewel-like fruit wrapped exquisitely and priced accordingly, meant for you to buy and give as gifts (japan has a huge gift industry/culture)
– in otaru, in the office for local products, they are selling strips of 1 m algae.
– hairy crab was in season (the red/orange kind that can get quite huge) so all the stalls were full of it
– in sapporo, the beer comes in mind boggling flavours: peach, strawberry, chocolate…unfortuntely, it was early in the morning when we found them so no sample tasting took place.
– the cream puff is quite popular. we had a green tea one just off the philosopher’s path, in kyoto. there were green tea pots for customers to get their cup to accompany the very cool green sweet.
– osaka has this crazy, over crowded area called namba. it’s there that we found the self-service frozen yoghurt place.
– udon is the yummy, thicker noodle. yum!
– we had various kinds of okonomiyaki in osaka, in the kind of place a tourist never finds, as it is off any regular path and the menu is japanese only and so is the staff. akira took us there and shared with us some of the the many secrets of this osaka staple dish.
to be continued tomorrow
