japan

A visit to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo

maki — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:18:56 +0100

This is not perhaps strictly food related…but I’ll make it as food-oriented as possible! Back in early February, my sister Mayumi and I went to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, a suburb of Tokyo. Here’s a brief report, with practical details as to how to get there and so on. I know that many Just Hungry readers are Ghibli fans, so I hope you find it useful.

The Studio Ghibli Museum, officially called the Forest of Mitaka Ghibli Art Museum (三鷹の森ジブリ美術館) is a small yet perfectly formed jewel of a museum. It’s located in a park that’s about a 15-20 minute walk, or 5 minute bus ride, from the Mitaka station. Mitaka is a suburb of Tokyo.

I can’t show you any photos of the inside of the museum, since it has a strict no-photos allowed policy. Their reasoning for this is explained on their web site:

Photography and video recording are not allowed inside the Museum.

-The Ghibli Museum is a portal to a storybook world. As the main character in a story, we ask that you experience the Museum space with your own eyes and senses, instead of through a camera’s viewfinder. We ask that you make what you experienced in the Museum the special memory that you take home with you.

Fair enough. Still, there are areas within the museum that seem to be crying out for a photo op, such as the fabulous, furry Cat Bus (from Totoro), over which little kids (age limit: 12) scramble in pure glee. Oh well. But it is wise to abide by their rules - there are smiling, friendly yet firm museum attendants stationed all over the place, watching out for rogue cameras.

Fortunately the outside, the rooftop garden and the cafe are not off-limits to cameras. The most prominent photo-op is on the rooftop garden, the giant metal sculpture of one of the Laputa robots from the movie Castle In The Sky:

Another great photo op is around the back of the museum - not at the main entrance. If you can’t find it, just ask one of the attendants. It’s a ticket booth that is manned (if that’s the right word…creatured?) by a giant Totoro:

Note the small round window below, from which soot sprites peer (there are little round windows like this all over the place - keep an eye out for them):

Straw Hat (Mugiwara Boushi), the Ghibli Museum cafe

There are two places to eat at the museum. One is a small hot dog and snack stand, with some tables to sit outside. The other is a very pretty cafe called the Straw Hat. We were not allowed to take photos of the interior of the cafe, but were allowed to take photos of the food. So…here are some photos! First the façade…

The entrance, just before the cafe opens (at 11:30 this day):

This character holding up the Daily Specials chalkboard looks on first glance like the pig from Porco Rosso, but it may actually be Hayao Miyazaki’s alter ego:

A small yet definite highlight: the cat (Jiji?) -shaped faucet handles on the sink just outside the cafe! Incidentally, the sink itself is of a style that is instantly familiar to Japanese people. It’s the same kind of sink that is installed at every elementary school, for the kids to wash up in. Nostalgia heightened with color and..cats!

The inside (which I can’t show you pictures of) has a sort of Scandinavian-American Country-Anne of Green Gables feel to it. The food is appropriately pretty and cute. I guess it is a bit overpriced…but it is a museum cafe after all.

A peek at the very cute menu. All in Japanese…so ask the smiling waitstaff for assistance. Basically the menu consists of many hot and cold drinks, desserts (there is a display case full of cakes), and a few savory dishes.

Here’s what I had - a sky blue cream soda, called “Field Soda　Cream ” on the menu (the straw is made out of real straw)…

…and a katsu sando (pork cutlet sandwich), complete with a Totoro flag. By the way they sell these flags in sets of 3 for an astonishing 550 yen, so if you want one as a souvenir, grab the one from your lunch.

Here’s what my sister had - a baked vegetable open-faced sandwich with delicous burdock (gobo) fries. And a Ponyo flag! She was cold so she had coffee with her meal.

There is also a hot dog and snack stand outside the cafe. The detail I loved here is the little wooden steps underneath the sign posting the list of items available. Kids can stand on this and take a look at the list up close:

The cafe gets full quickly, so if you are determined to go I would recommend lining up outside early, around 11am if possible, have your early lunch and then see the rest of the museum later. When we left at a little past 12, it was already manseki (all seats taken)!

More photos!

I have a lot more photos in my Ghibli Museum flickr set.

Should I go?

Is the Ghibli Museum worth a visit? If you are a Ghibli fan, absolutely! Fans various forms of nostalgic, retro, country, historically-inspired design (think of labels such as homespun American country, steampunk, Taisho period art deco, Art Nouveau, and Showa Retro - not to mention pre-Mussolini era Italian design!) will find this place fascinating. Sounds like a mess I know, but it does all work together. If you have children (I would say over the age of 5 or 6), I think this museum is a must too. I didn’t see a single child there whose eyes were not sparkling with delight. Unlike many such child-oriented places (and there are so many of these in the Tokyo area), they don’t push Entertainment in your face here, but let it unfold gently before your eyes. I can’t wait to go back.

If I don’t understand Japanese, will I still enjoy the museum?

I think you will, especially if you have some knowledge of the Ghibli movies. I didn’t actually spend that much time reading the descriptions and so on. Just let the delightful visuals wash over you! I swear, even the bathrooms are fun!

The day I was there, I saw a lot of Korean visitors, and a sprinkle of non-Asians, all with slightly dazed smiles on their faces.

How to buy tickets for the Ghibli Museum

Tickets to the Ghibli Museum are time and date specified. For instance, you would buy a ticket for 10 AM on March 10, and you have to line up at the entrance about half an hour before then.

In Japan, tickets to the Ghibli Museum can only be purchased in advance at Lawsons convenience (konbini) stores, from the Loppi ticket vending machines. Lawsons stores are everywhere in the Tokyo area and elsewhere in the country. If you don’t speak Japanese, ask your hotel or a Japanese-speaking friend how to get tickets, or just go to a Lawsons and see if someone can help you out. I would bring a paper with “GHIBLI MUSEUM TICKETS” written on it, with the number of tickets you want plus your desired time and date, and show it to one of the helpful shop assistants. There are instructions in English on the Lawsons web site. By the way, the correct pronounciation for Ghibli is “JI-bu-ri”, not “GI-bu-ri” with a hard G.

ETA: Tickets go on sale about 2 months in advance at Lawsons.

If you are nervous about trying to buy a ticket in Japan though, it is possible to buy one in advance before you leave in certain countries. (Don’t believe erroneous reports on some trip-review sites that say you must buy tickets outside of Japan! How do these people think that people living in Japan buy tickets, sheesh.) Follow the links on this page on the museum’s web site for instructions. Tickets cost 1000 yen each for adults, and less for children.

When to go, when not to go

The museum is open from 10AM to 6PM, and is closed on Tuesdays.

Because of the time-staggered entry system, you don’t feel that the museum is overcrowded (well, at least compared to many other Tokyo venues), except perhaps for the gift shop, which is packed to the rafters! Nevertheless the museum is very popular with Japanese people, so you may want to aim for a weekday when school is in session if possible. So, avoid the school holiday periods, Golden Week (the first week of May - a major holiday week in Japan, and an awful time to travel if you hate crowds), and so on. In any case you should try to buy your tickets at least a few days in advance to avoid disappointment.

I would recommend getting a 10AM ticket if possible. On the day of your visit, get to the entrance by 9:30AM and line up. Your Lawsons ticket (or voucher) will be exchanged for a real one, plus a little film strip which is your entrance ticket for the in-museum short movie. (I was hoping to catch Mei and the Kittenbus, but they were playing another one…)

How to get there

If you’ve ever been to Tokyo you know that it’s foolish to contemplate renting a car there. But even if you do, don’t take it to the Ghibli Museum, because they have no parking, and the language on their web site actively discourages driving there. (Hayao Miyazaki is a noted environmentalist in Japan.) To get to the museum, go to the Mitaka station on the JR East line (about 20-30 minutes from Shinjuku station, depending on whether you get an Express or Local train), exit from the South or Minimi entrance, and follow the signs for the Ghibli Museum. The Ghibli bus, operated by the private Odakyu company, departs from the no. 9 bus stop. Tickets are 200 yen one way, 300 yen round trip for adults as of this writing, and can be purchased at the vending machine right at the stop. You can also walk to the museum following the signs. (We didn’t because it was freezing cold the day we went!) The bus itself is decked out in Ghibli-livery on the outside, though quite plain and ordinary on the inside.

One suggestion would be to take the buy to the museum, then leisurely stroll back to the station afterwards. Mitaka itself is an old suburb of Tokyo, with some interesting old shops and so on to look at.

Where to eat

The cafe and hot dog/snack stand are very cute, although if you are looking for traditional Japanese food you’ll be disappointed. The menu is designed to appeal to children and young ladies really, with sandwiches, desserts and many sweet drinks. You could bring along a bento or picnic with you and have it after you leave the museum, in the park (Inogashira park) in which the museum is situated. The Mitaka station area also has tons of eateries.

What to buy

Frankly you will probably find more Ghibli character goods at Kiddyland in Harajuku. But the gift shop, Mamma Aiuto! (I have no idea what that means) (apparently this comes from Porco Rosso - thanks to everyone who sent me the info or commented!) is very interesting nevertheless, with items ranging from small handkerchiefs for 500 yen each to 80,000 yen limited edition hand-painted models of Porco Rosso’s plane for sale. You’ll find some museum-only items too. The little Ghibli character badges and pins are hard to resist, as are the Ghibli-design dinnerware. The bookstore next to the gift shop is stocked with many children’s books in Japanese, plus postcards and so on. Grab the museum’s official catalog (1,000 yen).

A tour through a fabulous Japanese department store food hall - Yokohama Takashimaya

maki — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:56:10 +0100

One must-do in Japan for anyone interested even remotely interested in food is a visit to a depachika(see footnotes), or department store basement food hall. One of the more impressive food halls that I have seen is in the Yokohama branch of the Takashimaya department store. I recently had a chance to tour of the Yokohama Takashimaya food halls, with permission to take photos to my heart’s content (something which is usually not allowed in department stores).

Takashiyama is one of the oldest and most respected high-end department stores in Japan. The Yokohama branch (link to English floor guide download page), while not the biggest in terms of floor space, is the one with the most foot traffic and the highest sales in the entire chain, and the food department is a definite highlight. There are several other department stores clustered around the huge, bustling Yokohama train station, but for some reason the Takashiyama food hall floors are always the most busy by far — it always seems to be packed, especially in the afternoons and evenings. My mother, who is even pickier about the quality of her food than I am, swears by Takashimaya’s food halls.

I’m a big fan of department store food halls, and try to go and visit them wherever I go. In my opinion, in terms of quality, Yokohama Takashimaya doesn’t have to take a back seat to anyone, anywhere in the world.

Yokohama Takashimaya’s food halls are spread out over two underground floors. The upper level (B1) is taken up by counters operated by various well known vendors of prepared foods, from pastries (both Japanese and Western) to tempura to bentos to pickles, tea and more, plus a dry goods department. The lower level (B2) is where the fresh produce, meat, fish and so on are sold. While the upper level has a lot to offer, it’s the lower level that impresses me the most.

The first thing that catches your eye is the big vegetable display. All kinds of vegetables, both familiar and not so familiar to Western eyes, are sold here. Even in the middle of winter it’s a sight to behold. I can vouch for how fresh the produce is — their leafy greens for example are still in perfect shape a week after purchase and storing in the refrigerator. They have a mix of organic and regular produce, and everything is clearly marked by their place of origin (sometimes even down to the county or town.)

Gorgeous turnips and daikon radish, two quintessential winter vegetables:

A beautiful cucumber display. (These cucumbers are quite tiny by Western standards by the way, about 8 inches / 22cm long at most and 3/4 inch / 1.75 cm or so in diameter).

Their fruit is just as great. They were just starting to sell early strawberries (this was in early February) when I took these photos. You might think that strawberries in February would be hard and tasteless, but not these. They not only looked good, but tasted wonderful (there are lots of free samples on offer). Take a look at these monsters, a special kind of strawberry from Hakata on the southernmost main island of Kyush.! They too, tasted great, despite their huge size. (There is also a ‘fruit parlor’ where you can sample delicious, albeit rather expensive, sorbets and juices on the same floor, beyond the elevators.)

Then there’s the absolutely fabulous meat counter, which is operated by a famous butcher and prepared foods store based in the Ningyocho area of Nihonbashi in Tokyo, Imahan (Japanese only web site). I never really thought of meat (not charcuterie like ham and so on, but just meat) as being beautiful to behold before…but their display cases say something else. Everything they sell is domestically produced. Here’s some thinly cut wagyu beef with the most amazing marbling, for sukiyaki use:

Here’s some more wagyu, this time as steaks. Yes, they are rather mind-bogglingly expensive. (The price you see is yen per 100 grams, so a pound of the more expensive one on the left is around US $130 per pound…though that’s about what Lobel’s charges for American wagyu tenderloin steaks…):

Even their ground meat looks great though. The upper level has pork, while the lower level has ground beef and and ‘aibiki’ (mixed pork and beef, a common combination in Japan):

Here’s a section of their chicken counter. The upper level has ‘jidori’ or free-range, organically grown chicken with the place of origin clearly marked. The lower level has all the bits - heart, kidneys, liver etc.

And of course, there are the fish counters…from fresh to dried and everything in between. Everything is of the highest quality, and quite a lot of it is caught locally (in the seas around Kanagawa prefecture, where Yokohama is located).

These are some himono (干物), or semi-dried fish. They are salted and sometimes flavored with something else, and dried for a short while. They are eaten simply grilled.

Sashimi, ready to go…just put out on a plate and eat! A popular choice for a quick dinner.

Prepping some asari (small clams).

These are urume iwashi, semi-dried sardines. They are also eaten simply grilled.

I only took a few photos of the upper floor, since it was already getting way too crowded by the time I got up there (around 11am on a weekday). This is the place to purchase prepared foods, both for consuming yourself or as gifts. You can also pick up some great bentos here for lunch or dinner in your hotel room, but you need to get there by 11am or after 3:30 or 4pm to grab one of the popular ones.

Just a selection of their soy sauces…you barely, if ever, see any of these brands outside of Japan.

A shelf full of special-brand curry powders, roux and ready-to-eat cans. Again, all brands you don’t really see in supermarkets.

A peek at one of the several patisseries….

Some melon pan on display at a bakery counter (operated by a famous old-time bakery in Ginza).

(Want more photos? You’ll find them in my flickr stream.)

There seem to be several keys to the Yokohama Takashimaya food hall’s success. First and foremost, each section of their food halls is operated by a real expert, not just any department store employee. For instance, as I mentioned above, the meat counters are under the care of an outside vendor who is renowned for their quality. The same goes for portions of their fish department too. The guys in charge of the fresh produce are also real greengrocers who know when something is in season and when it’s not. (A couple of weeks after I took these photos, I went back there with my mother, who was after a certain type of satsuma orange or mikan. One of the greengrocers steered her to another type of mikan because he said the ones she wanted peaked earlier than usual this year, and that the lesser known type were at their real peak. The difference between the two in terms of high season was only about 2 weeks! But we could really taste the difference — even though they were both priced the same.)

Another key is that, beyond knowledge, the service is absolutely great. From the speed and neatness at which the cheerful lady workers pack your groceries for you (with little ice packs, which are returnable and reusable) to their very reasonable same-day delivery service, they really have your back in so many ways. Here’s Mr. Asano, who posed rather shyly behind one of the meat counters for me:

There’s also the fact that the outside vendors that are invited in are under quite a lot of pressure to perform or else. If they don’t have good sales, they are pushed out and replaced by another vendor. So the competition between vendors is quite fierce indeed, and their products simply have to be good to attract customers.

Finally, there’s the fact that Yokohama station is one of the busiest in the country. Six train lines converge there, not to mention buses, so there’s lots of foot traffic (Takashimaya can be accessed directly from the station via the basement level, and the main entrance it just steps away from the ground level train station exit). Still, as I mentioned already there are several other department stores with similar easy-access from the station, that are not nearly as busy. Sogo on the other side of the station for example is never really that busy — even though they have quite a few of the same outside vendors that Takashimaya does! But then, their greengrocer for example is not nearly as good as Takashimaya’s. And they certainly lose out in terms of the level of service.

In any case, it was certainly a very enlightening experience to be able to get a glimpse of the workings of a successful department store food hall.

One Hundred Flavors Festival (Aji Huyakusen) and other Takashiyama fun

Besides the food halls, Takashimaya also periodically has a food festival called Aji Hyakusen (100 Selected Flavors), usually on the 8th floor. Various vendors from all over the country are invited in to sell their stuff, and it’s kind of a party atmosphere, with lots and lots of samples to try and little elderly ladies with sharp elbows and shopping bags poking you in the ribs or lower. (Incidentally I’m only 5 foot 3 or about 158cm tall but I’m still on the tallish side in Japan…) I have some pictures from the Aji Hyakusen held in February on flickr.

If you can manage to make it to any branch of Takashimaya before opening time (which is usually 10am), try to get to the main entrance with a good view of the glass doors. You may see the greeting ladies or girls, decked out in uniforms complete with hats, marching in rhythm and lining up in preparation for the opening. It’s pretty amusing in a sort of fascist kind of way, if that makes any sense. Certainly something you don’t see happen in American or European department stores!

I talked earlier about the great customer service Takashimaya offers. You’ll find this on any of their floors. For example, the other day I had to get a small non-stick frying pan in their kitchen equipment department. I finally decided on the cheapest 3,000 yen model, and asked for assistance. The store assistant led me to the counter, asked me to take a seat there, fetched the pan from storage, gift-wrapped it for me, and otherwise made it a most pleasant experience — for a cheap 3,000 yen frying pan!

Practical Notes on Yokohama

Yokohama Main Station (just called Yokohama, vs. Shin Yokohama, which is the Shinkansen station) is just about a 20-30 minute or so ride from Shibuya (depending on if you take a local, express or a special express train), on the Tokyu Toyoko line. Takashimaya can’t be missed - there are big signs pointing to it, and it’s right outside the West or Nishi entrance. There’s also access from within the station.

If you make a trip to Yokohama, you should also visit Sogo, which is at the East or Higashi entrance. Even though I did rather dismiss their food halls, they do have a branch of a pretty amazing dry goods store there called Tomizawa Shoten. They sell about 20 kinds of white wheat flour (for bread and pastries) alone. It’s sort of dizzying. Sogo also has a big branch of LoFT and a Muji (Mujirushi Ryohin) on the 7th floor. For bento and kitchen supply fans, there’s also a large Tokyu Hands about a 5 minutes walk from Takashimaya.

If you have the energy, you can combine a trip to Takashimaya and so on with one to Yokohama’s Chinatown, the oldest and most populated Chinatown (or so they say) in the world (outside of China, where they don’t actually have Chinatowns, obviously). Yokohama’s Chinatown or Chuukagai (中華街) is on the Minatomirai line, which connects directly to the aforementioned Tokyu Toyoko line.

Another place you can visit in Yokohama is the Shin Yokohama Raumen (Ramen) Museum (English site). This is near the Shin Yokohama station, which is a 10 minute ride on the Yokohama City Metro (Yokohama shiei-chikatetsu 横浜市営地下鉄）from Yokohama station. My report on that soon…

Other food halls

Most if not all department stores have food halls. One of the biggest and most impressive is the Tokyu Food Show, which is in the Tokyu Toyoko store in Shibuya station. Isetan in Shinjuku also has a very well regarded food hall.

Footnotes

In other cities, I might recommend going to the open-air markets for serious food action, but in the Tokyo metropolitan area I think it’s safe to say it’s the better department store food halls where the action is. (There is the Tsukiji market, but that is basically for wholesale.) Department stores are where regular people shop for ‘gourmet’ stuff, and competition between stores is fierce, thus raising the overall quality.
You may be familiar with the Takashimaya store on Fifth Avenue in New York; that store is really an anomaly since it’s more of a specialized boutique than a department store. The Takashimayas in Japan are regular department stores, selling a wide variety of products.
The term depachika (デパ地下), which is an abbreviation of the words　depaato (デパート) or department store and chika （地下）actually has derogatory connotations, so people who work there and so on don’t really use the term anymore, if they did at all. A depachika onna （デパ地下女）is slang for a woman (usually a bored housewife) who goes around tasting all the free samples on offer in a food hall, and never buys anything!
My thanks to Ms. Yokota of the Public Relations department for showing me around and letting me take tons of pictures (as well as patiently answering my questions!) 本当にどうもありがとうございました！

Happy Valentine's Day from Japan!

maki — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:38:25 +0100

Happy Valentine’s Day to you from Japan!

As I’ve reported here previously, Valentine’s Day is a huge, serious, and often rather ridiculous day here, and it seems to get wackier every year. I saw a report on a local news program here the other day about the new trendy chocolate packages this year, such as chocolates for female bosses to give to their male underlings to tell them to ‘hang in there’ and to ‘be more of a man’ (apparently these are intended especially for soushoku otoko or “vegetarian men” (or in other words men who are not manly enough to eat meat…not necessarily referring to real vegetarians). Another one which I thought was hilarious is the “Propose To Me Or Else” chocolate gift set; it contains a fake diamond engagement ring with a note that says “I’ll be expecting a real one of these soon”, a card that says “Good until” with place to write a date in, and oh yes some chocolates.

Of all the myriads of chocolates on offer, this is my favorite this year:

Called Kobato (which means little dove or pigeon), it’s a tiny, white chocolate dove, barely a mouthful. I am not normally a fan of white chocolate, but this level of cuteness is impossible to resist. The Kobato come packaged in a little box like so:

They are made by a famous confectionery maker or okashiya (お菓子屋　- maker of sweet things) based in the historic town of Kamakura called Toshimaya (Japanese-only website). Besides Kamakura, they have stalls or counters in several department store food halls in the Tokyo/Kanagawa area. Their main claim to fame is this, a light, buttery cookie called Hato (dove or pigeon) Sablé (鳩サブレー). It too is adorable, though expensive at about 100 yen per cookie.

Anyway, I hope that Valentine’s Day is as sweet for you as you want it to be!

Cool stuff from Japan: Beautiful traditional candies

maki — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:59:16 +0100

Traditional Japanese food is known for being beautiful and colorful. Nowhere is this more evident than with these jewel-like traditional candies from Kyoto.

The ones in the box here are ame (飴) or hard sugar candies. They mostly just taste like pure sugar, though a couple have some fruit flavor. But I find it hard to eat them anyway - they are so gorgeous.

The bumpy ones are kompeito (コンペイ糖 or 金平糖), which you may know from various anime and manga. They are simply colored candy, but rather fun to eat.

The ones with the flower designs are called kintaro ame (金太郎飴). You see versions of this type of candy in many other countries, known by various names. Glass and polymer clay beads are made with this ‘cane’ method too. These candies are so dainty and pretty, aren’t they?.

I don’t know what these ball shaped ones are called, but they are so cute. They look like little embroidered balls that girls used to play with called temari (手鞠).

Kyoto has a long tradition of find handcrafts, but Tokyo is not to be outdone either. These way too cute to eat things are hard sugar coated chocolate dragées in the shape of hina dolls, or hina ningyo, the dolls that are brought out to celebrate hina matsuri (see about hina matsuri here).

Cool stuff from Japan: Plastic food models used for nutrition education

maki — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:25:27 +0100

You’re probably already familiar with the sometimes disturbingly lifelike, plastic or silicone models of food that are used as window displays in many Japanese restaurants, both in Japan and around the world. They are great visual aids for ordering unfamiliar food. Here’s a typical display of such models at a ramen shop:

And here’s one at a famous curry and yoshoku restaurant in Shinjuku called Nakamuraya, showing their East-West fusion type desserts:

And here is…well, do you see something different? Instead of prices, the tags show nutritional information.

That’s because this display is not in front of a restaurant. It’s in the Nutrition Counseling Room at the hospital my mother is in at the moment. The very nice and sweet dietician told us that the models are made by a famous maker of such food models, under the strict supervision of the hospital to ensure accuracy, and are as realistic in terms of portion size and so on as possible.

Here’s another view of the nutrition counseling room. In the foreground you see a set of plastic drawers that are labeled by the type of food model they hold. They have single-serving versions of various food. In the background, where the lady in the white lab coat is (that’s the dietician who counseled my mother) is a glass display case that holds various commonly eaten dishes.

I guess listening to someone explaining the nutritional value of a food is best if you’re looking at the actual food, but these realistic models are the next best thing — plus, they can be stored and reused and taken out again and again without worrying about spoilage.

Here’s the dietician holding up a bowl of miso soup. The lighting in these photos is not the best (it was after all, hospital lighting) but in person, except for the fact that the surface wasn’t moving, it looked just like a bowl of miso soup!

Here’s one of the meal displays in the glass case, in this case a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce. The numbers indicate how many units of a certain type of nutrition it has on a typical food chart used mainly for diabetics, since it seems they are the ones that need the most guidance (1 unit is 80 calories). The bottom row shows the total calories (605) and sodium (2.5g). And that’s for a smallish Japanese-restaurant portion.

The bottom shelf of the display case had various snack foods and fast foods, which had the actual nutritional breakdown rather than units on their labels. For instance, here in the middle is a “large” sized portion of fast food french fries (called fried potatoes in Japan). It has 4.1g of protein, 34g of carbohydrates, 20.5g of fat, 2g salt, and…338 calories! The apple pie on the right is worse - 380 calories, most of it carbs and fat. Pies will have to be occasional treats from now on for me… ;_;

Here is an 80 calorie pat of butter, on a standard tablespoon-sized (15ml) measuring spoon. Seeing it like this, and holding it in your hand, really has impact. Incidentally, food units in Japan are based on 80 calories, because that happens to be the approximate calorie count of a lot of foods - 1/2 a standard bowl of cooked white rice, 1 egg, 1/2 slice of bread, etc.

When it comes to sweet things, you really see how sparingly you should be eating them if you’re watching your weight. This tiny sliver (about 2 inches / 5cm long and maybe 1/2 inch / less than 1cm thick at the widest point) of strawberries and cream filled spongecake, called ‘strawberry shortcake’ erroneously in Japan (it’s the most popular kind of cake here by the way) is 80 calories. So a standard slice of cake is more than 400 calories. With buttercream icing, it would be way higher. I knew this kind of thing before but as I’ve said, seeing a three-dimensional representation leaves a much bigger impression than reading it in some calorie chart, or even seeing pictures.

Beware how you cook your fish!

My favorite set of food models was one that showed how various cooking methods affect the calorie count. Here’s a model of a piece of uncooked fish (mackerel or something) - I think it was 70 grams, or about 2 ounces. It’s 80 calories.

Dry grilled or panfried with just salt, it’s the same amount of calories with a bit of added salt of course. (And for oily fish, plain grilling is one of the best cooking methods anyway.) So here’s the grilled fish model. Looked actually appetizing!

But once you cook the fish with fat and other things, the calorie count shoots up. This tray shows three different ways of cooking the fish, together with the amount of oil or butter, flour, egg, breadcrumbs etc. that are added to a typical piece of fish. From right to left, you have a meuniere (coated in flour and panfried with a bit of butter and oil) at 134 calories; karaage (coated in flour and deep fried in oil) at 145 calories; and finally _furai) (coated in flour and egg, dipped in bread crumbs, and deep fried) at a whopping 181 calories! For one tiny bit of fish!

I think using these food models is a fantastic way of driving home the point about portion sizes and cooking methods. Wouldn’t it be great if they were used all around the world, especially in schools to teach kids? One drawback is that these very realistic and accurate models are expensive, since the originals from which the casts are made are handcrafted. Still, I do wish that use of these models could someday become universal in nutrition education everywhere.

I’ve posted some more photos of the nutritional food models in my flickr stream. And by the way, great news: Not only is my mother getting discharged from the hospital later today, she was told by the dietician that she can basically eat anything she wants, as long as it’s healthy and balanced. After years of having to watch what she ate all the time, she’s absolutely ecstatic.

Cool stuff from Japan: Mammoth Meat?! Snack

maki — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:25:01 +0100

If there’s one thing I don’t like about Japan, it’s that everywhere you go, there are constant reminders to do this, don’t do this, go here, go there, and so on. When you’re going up or down an escalator, a high pitched polite (usually female) voice tells you to watch your step, hold your kid’s hand, stay within the lines, don’t put pointy things like umbrellas between the steps, and whatever you do, don’t get your long hair caught somewhere (!). On a bus, not only does that high-pitched female voice (probably not the same voice, but they sound alike) tell you what the next stop and the next next stop are, but the bus driver usually repeats that information right after it’s been announced. The female voice also tells you to not stand up until the bus comes to a full halt, don’t smoke at the bus stop, give up your seat to the elderly…blah, blah blah, every 3 minutes. And as for the trains… it’s enough to drive one batty. You just have to tune it out, if you can. I’m sort of trained to listen to and obey public transportation announcements (since they actually mean something in Switzerland) so I’m having a hard time.

Which somehow brings us to today’s Cool (or in this case, wacky) item: Mammoth meat snack!

This is a snack made by Tohato called マンモスの肉！？　(Mammoth Meat!?) - the !? are part of the name. (The subtitle is “A Prehistoric Period Experience Snack”.) It’s available at any konbini. As you can see, the front of the packet shows a cartoon piece of meat, as seen in caveman anime and manga. (Some one even recreated this cartoon meat in um, meat form.)

The snacks themselves are small round (a bit less than 2 inches / 5m in diameter) wheat based crunchy crackers with artificial coloring, flavors and something called “pork paste”. They are meant to look like slices cut from that round of mammoth meat. They rather resemble flattened, dessicated coils of sausage. They do not taste that spectacular, though they are not totally disgusting either. There is a much more thorough review of the actual taste of this thing on the always entertaining Japanese Snack Reviews blog.

But you know, with some food, taste is really just an afterthought. This thing is all about the joke. This little disclaimer on the corner of the packet really cracks me up:

It says, “(This is a) snack food that is inspired by mammoth meat, and does not include real mammoth meat.”

Umm yes, right, especially since mammoth have been extinct for a few million years!

Maybe it’s aimed at innocent kids who might think it’s real mammoth meat - but I prefer to think it’s tongue in cheek, almost a parody of all the warnings and stuff you get all around you in Japanese society.

Given the obvious World of Warcraft connotation and the sheer fun factor, I am quite surprised that this has not shown up on the J-List snack section yet (Peter, are you listening?). Have you seen it at your local (not-in-Japan) Japanese grocery store? I mean, just imagine the WoW parties you could have with this.

Mammoth Meat?! comes in four flavors: Wood Smoked (bright pink bag), Onion (negi) Salt (light green bag), Siberian Salt (yellow bag), and Yakiniku Sauce (red bag). Frankly I could not taste much of a difference between them. Product page in Japanese.

Cool stuff from Japan: Soy milk that's an instant tofu 'kit'

maki — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:47:37 +0100

During my stay in Japan, I thought I’d feature some cool stuff (or things that you all may find cool) that I’ve seen. Here is a bottle of soy milk or tounyuu (豆乳) that I got at a shop in the local Tokyuu line train station (or in other words, it’s not like a special brand or anything).

It’s just plain soy milk, but it’s sold with a little packet of nigari (magnesium chloride), a tofu coagulant, and instructions for making tofu in the microwave. Freshly made tofu is soft and delicious, and this little kit makes it so easy to do. Compare this to making soy milk from scratch, which is a long and messy process.

Here’s a closeup of the nigari packet. There’s enough to make two batches of tofu:

I wish they’d do that with soy milk sold elsewhere!

In Japan!

maki — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:32:21 +0100

I’m in Japan! I’ll be here for the next three months. I am here primarily for two reasons: My mother is in hospital; and the bento cookbook photoshoot will commence next month. But of course I’ll be filing plenty of reports on what I’ve done, not to mention eaten, here! I’ll be taking and uploading photos every day, which you can follow here on flickr.

The photo above is of dinner last night with family - a seafood nabe and a sashimi assortment. Delicious and so simple, and not at all easy (or inexpensive) to recreate properly outside of Japan!

Fugu (puffer fish): Would you or wouldn't you?

maki — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:55:56 +0100

(Note: Your responses to the question posed below may be translated for a Japanese blog! Read on…)

Even though I’m Japanese, I do think that we eat an awful lot of food that could be considered to be odd. One of them is the infamous fugu, or puffer fish. Fugu’s main claim to fame, besides its extraordinary appearance (it puffs itself up to make itself look a lot bigger to predators), is that its skin and organs are highly poisonous. Nevertheless, it’s considered to be a great delicacy in Japan. It’s now fugu season in fact, so many people are tucking in to fugu sashi (fugu sashimi), fugu nabe (fugu hotpot), and so on.

In order to serve fugu, a chef has to go through a strict certification process. If an unskilled or careless person accidentally pierces the organs or otherwise contaminates the edible flesh of the fish, then the diner may find that meal to be his last. Despite all regulatory precautions, every year there are reports of people getting sick or even dying from fugu poisoning. Recently there was a case in Toyama prefecture, where nine people who partook of fugu at a sushi restaurant were taken ill; of the 2 people who lost consciousness, one is still in a coma. (Link to news story in Japanese - this hasn’t made the news in any English online media outlets as far as I can find out.)

Non-lethal fugu may be on its way to our tables, but fugu fans often cite the thrill of possible poisoning/death as part of the appeal of fugu. A few die-hards even like to put a tiny bit of the poison on their fugu, for that numbing/tingling sensation on the lips. I wonder if they liked to stick their tongues on batteries when they were kids. (This was in fact how a famous kabuki theater actor died of fugu poisoning, many years ago — he put a bit of the poisonous live on his fugu pieces.) In case you are wondering just how you die, it’s not a very nice way to go.

I’ve had fugu sashi, and while fresh fugu is indeed delicious, I am not sure if the risk of a very uncomfortable death, or an even more uncomfortable recovery time in the hospital, is worth it.

Fugu: Would you? Have you? What do you think of people who do?

So…what do you think about Japanese people (and others) who eat a highly poisonous food willingly? Does it say anything to you about Japanese culture or society?

Would you try fugu yourself? Have you tried it - and if so, what did you think? Was it worth it? (Note: Nippon Restaurant in New York was the first restaurant in the U.S. to serve fugu; there are a dozen or so other restaurants in the city that serve it now. I’m not sure about other cities though.)

Now as I said in the Note at top, your comments/answers to this question may be translated for the Japanese blog MHK - Maou Housou Kyoukai. This is a fun blog where various discussions around the interweb on all kinds of topics are translated into Japanese, for people who are curious about what ‘the world’ thinks, especially about Japan and Japanese people. The comments are quite interesting to say the least. This post was in fact inspired by a comment left there, and used with the owner Michiru-san’s blessing. So go ahead - now’s your chance to tell Japanese people what you really think!

Real beef

maki — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:56:36 +0200

As opposed to the previous post, this is about real meat.

First, I got an email from one Tony McNicol, a Tokyo based photographer and journalist (he’s originally from the UK). On his site, he has several fascinating photo essays depicting some off-the-beaten-track slices of Japanese life. One of them is about Kobe beef, which is a very special (and expensive) kind of beef.

[Kobe Beef, June 2009 - Images by Tony McNicol. Used with permission.]

Kobe beef is (as Tony says) not just wagyuu, and it doesn’t mean beef from the city of Kobe. It is beef from a particular kind of cow, in a particular place, in a special way. Only about 2000 of these specially raised cows are slaughtered every year, and it it sold at retail (if you can get a hold of it) for $500 a kilo.

Now, it is quite obvious that Kobe beef is not some kind of happy accident of nature. It is a manmade product in all senses of the word. The cows were bred to be a certain way, and they are raised with plenty of human intervention. It is really agriculture - which is, after all, the process of growing food for human consumption - taken to its extreme.

This reminded me of another manmade meat product, which for various reasons has been the center of controversy, especially in the U.S., for a few years: fois gras. A few people object to the method of producing a duck or goose with a fatty liver, called gavage, which involved force feeding food into the bird’s gullet with a tube. These few people have been very vocal, and in some places successful. The anti-gavage movement has even spread in a small way to Europe, though most people here (from my very unscientific observations and conversations - though some EU countries have started the procedure to ban gavage) shake their heads at the very notion of the government trying to ban its consumption.

The best observations on the fois gras conflict in the U.S. that I have read is in from Incanto, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco (via Elise’s Twitter). Note that I think it’s the best partly because I wholly agree with the opinions expressed there. (It’s also quite well written, as are their past newsletters, which you can also read on their site. It’s the first time the quality of writing on their web site or newsletter has made me want to visit a restaurant!)

The point made there that I agree with the most is this: I think there is far too much preaching and pushing of ones opinion on other people going on in the food world. It is one thing to decide for yourself, and possibly for your family, how and what you eat. It’s quite another to try to force others to do so, particularly through government legislation. I tend to be sort of left of center when it comes to politics, but some of the tactics used by people and organizations who have a particular food agenda makes me want to shy away from them - even if I actually share their particular stance on a food issue.

As humans, we have to eat to survive, and except for a very few people, we rely on other people to grow or make the food for us. It is good to keep a vigilant eye on the process by which food reaches our tables, but “your way” is not always the “right way” for everyone. We all have to make our own decisions, and hopefully we can continue to do so.