Kay Eats Asia

Chengdu Revelries, Part I

2011-09-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

This is Kay Eats Asia, not Kay Eats Tokyo so eventually I have to venture into the frontiers beyond Japan. This last adventure took me to wild west of Chengdu, China. The main point of the trip was actually the giant panda reserve, but the food was also pretty darn amazing.

We ate so much that I am not really sure where to start. I was going to use the first food picture I found to break the writer's (is this really writing even?) block, but that ended up being some shots from Dairy Queen. Not that I have anything against it, of course, but I wouldn't call it Chinese food. The first Chinese food pictures I have are from a tea house in Kuanzhai Alley.

There was nothing that drew us to this tea house in particular. In fact, I realized that I have no pictures of the actual tea house, just the food and drinks. First, here is what you would probably expect from a tea house:

Iced Coffee Creation I

Iced Coffee Creation II

Crazy Tea Apparatus

Tea Apparatus Close Up

Well, the tea apparatus is not really what I was expecting, but it is still tea. I can't even remember what it tasted like because I was so intrigued by the brewing mechanism. It was genius. There was water in the bronze colored vessel that boiled from the heat of the little flame. As it boiled it moved into the clear glass with the tea. The bronze container got lighter and moved up. When it was fully empty it was high enough so that it no longer blocked the cap. The cap fell and the flame went out. Auto shut off!

Besides sophisticated tea brewing, Chinese tea houses have a more extensive menu than I had ever imagined. Since we were eating dinner later, we just got snacks:

Shredded Beef

Sausages

Bacon Wrapped Veggies

Definitely exceeds the Starbuck's offerings! My favorite, of course, was the bacon. Bacon is always the answer. The wonderful thing about this bacon in particular is that it had a bit of kick to it, a certain spiciness that complimented the crispy veggies. The beef was a bit like jerky, but in a good way. The sausages were, well, like sausages. Why hasn't this caught on anywhere else??

China report, to be continued!

Cafe Amar 吉祥寺

2011-08-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

The whole reason we trekked out to Kichijouji was for this swing:

I can't remember the name, but we saw a picture of it in a cafe magazine and thought it was worth a sit. It was perhaps not their most comfortable seat ( you had to be always on guard not to swing into the people sitting behind you), but it was certainly novel. +1 for creative design.

We almost didn't get a chance to sit in it actually. When we first walked in the supremely bored-looking server asked us to sit at the counter. The place was hardly full so we asked for the swing instead. Annoyed, he said "Fine. But if a bigger party comes in you have to leave." This is when we abandoned hopes of remotely attentive customer service.

Despite having 3 people behind the counter and hardly any customers, it took an inordinate amout of time to bring the following drinks:

Iced Mocha

Expresso

Not bad, but not memorable either and I shall talk no more of beverages. There are more important things to discuss! The food! First up is the sortof cheesecake. I say sortof because its actually tofu. While it didn't have the same sharpness and density that a real cheesecake has, the creaminess was very satisfying. The lightness made it too easy to devour. Lifespan was around 5 minutes.

The apple pie lasted only slightly longer, mostly because the crust crumbled a bit and it was hard to eat. It was crunchier and drier than the apple pies I'm used to, but not bad. It would have been better warmed and with a generous helping of ice cream, but that might just be the American in me.

Overall, it was a cute cafe although not sure if I'd ever come back. There are too many other places to explore!

Atmosphere: 7/10

Service: 2/10

Food: 5/10

Drinks: 5/10

Map Link

Homepage

Irving Place 白金台

2011-07-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

そろそろ日本語をあきらかも。難しすぎる！決意は短命な物。。。

Anyways, next up in my backlog of pictures is Irving Place. It really is all about the atmosphere here. Take a look at the outside:

That's like my greenery for the month! 一ヶ月分の植物。１階が園芸店で、２階は洋品 and very nicely decorated:

3階はカフェ：

明るくて、いい感じだけど、ちょっと紺でいる。Even so, it seemed like a pretty nice place to have a leisurely coffee or brunch. The server had other plans though. She came back many times in close succession to take our order despite having been told maybe 1 or 2 minutes prior that we were not quite ready. When I went to look at the dessert case she followed close on my heels and hung over my shoulder. It was not a well-meant solicitude though. She never smiled and as soon as we ordered and her duty was done she disappeared, neglecting to check on us even once.

After much harassment, we settled on the スウィツ盛り合わせ, a house coffee (which we later realized was americano or just really watery) and a carmel iced coffee.

Despite my chocolate loyalties I must say that the apple cheesecake stole the show. The cinnamon apples really complemented the thick cheesy topping. The chocolate terrine would have been better without the yogurt sauce and the little fruit tart thing was probably the laziest excuse for a dessert ever.

With cream, the carmel iced coffee was quite nice. Without, it tasted like drinking carmel-flavored syrup.

While the service was off-putting, I would come back to appreciate the decor and check out the brunch items.

Atmosphere: 8/10

Service: 3/10

Food: 6/10 ← saved by the apple cheesecake!

Drinks: 5/10

Map Link

Homepage

Cafe de Ginza Miyuki-kan 銀座

2011-07-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

今日のテーマは。。。マダム・タイム！ And what better place than 銀座 to get your マダム on!

いつものように、エクステリアから始める：

From the outside, it looks pretty unremarkable. Since it had a good amount of real estate on a prominent street corner, I thought it might be one of those mediocre places that survives on single-visit tourist traffic. However, the menu out front had some tantalizing parfaits:

Seeing this I thought that if they actually delivered on the parfaits pictured, I'd be one happy camper. And they did! Behold, a tower of parfait goodness!

And diving right into that fabulous macaron:

As for the taste, this was a more quantity than quality dessert. The chocolate sauce was watery and the ice cream was okay. But that's totally fine. Sometimes you're just in the mood for a lot of whipped cream with a macaron on top.

Atmosphere: 4/10

Service: 6/10

Food: 6/10

Drinks: 5/10

Map Link ← forgot this last time! Ooops!

Homepage ← forgot this too!

Point Weather in 綱島

2011-07-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

Blog resuscitated! ブログ生き返た！日本語で書くのは難しすぎて、両方を使うことにした。ではでは、今日の口コミは：

このカフェ！Point Weather 綱島. Here's a few pics of the interior:

Cute and quirky, right? 好みのカフェと思ったけど it was all downhill after entering. First and most importantly, it was god awful hot. There were a few fans but they didn't reach our table.

We ordered a tofu cheesecake set with hot lotus tea (the only option for the set) and an iced caramel latte：

The cake and the latte were unremarkable, but the tea had a unique herb-y flavor. It would have been nicer iced, however. I could barely drink it considering the heat.

The service was unusually inattentive. The staff did not smile and had this どうでもいい attitude that was rather off-putting.

In short, not worth it.

Here's a quick rating:

Atmosphere: 7/10

Service: 3/10

Food: 5/10

Drinks: 5/10

Better luck next time!

これから　。。。日本語！

2010-05-31T15:20:00.000-07:00

練習のために、これからKay Eats Asiaを日本語で書く。難しいけど、頑張る！間違えを見つける時に教えて、ね？

ちょっと遅れているけど、豆腐レストランの（写真）報告：

Taylorも写真をいっぱいとった

これはもち。ナマコと思った。

Nakulは目を食べることを心配していたけど結局全部食べた

名物（と思うけどよく分からへん）

ちょっと目みたい？

すごく楽しかった！！

Action in Shibuya

2010-04-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

Today I saw two interesting things in Shibuya station:
1. A Tom and Jelly T-shirt combo:

2. A commercial for who knows what featuring a girl in a silver body suit and a walking monkey statue (statue walked away as I was taking the picture):

Tokyo, I love you.

魚ちゃん

2010-04-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

I hadn't really noticed this, but I am told that people in Japan are really into fortune telling. So much so that you can actually get your fortune told at a restaurant. It's a long and boring story, but some friends and I have been talking a lot about 魚ちゃん and we finally decided to go to her restaurant. As usual, my main concern was the food:

This was cheese on something tasty. Probably unhealthy but oh-so-good.

Mmm... close up.

You can't really tell from the picture, but this has some adorable little pieces of たこ(octopus) in it. A very tasty little fried treat!

Spicy! Proceed with caution and beverages!

And what about the fortune telling? Well, since we were a large group she just went around pretty quickly and said whatever came to mind. I am, apparently, もてない (not attractive/popular) no matter what country I go to. Everyone was really worried that I'd be terribly upset by this but I considered myself lucky to get off so easily. I can think of a lot of more offensive things she could have said!

I don't get it either

2010-04-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

Is it just me?

2010-04-03T18:25:00.001-07:00

Is it just me or does this look sketchy:

Temptation, thy name is Beard Papa

2010-04-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

Kyoto, Part 2

2010-03-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

I've done the hanami thing before, but I don't think I've ever seen the aftermath until I got up early on my last day in Kyoto:

(excessively?) Fun times...

Kyoto, Part 1

2010-03-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

My study abroad program was having it's 20th anniversary so all the alums descended on Kyoto for the "Jubilee." I had high hopes, but it was much, much more fun than I ever could have hoped. The only thing lacking was food. So after the closing party on Saturday, a group of us went in search of sustenance. Nothing satisfies like ramnen after light finger food. Here it is, like a beacon:

The speciality of the house is either negi or chashu. I went for the chashu:

Believe it or not, this was gone in two minutes. One of my old classmates commented "That was some targeted eating." Hey, when you're good, you're good.

Food? Check. Next stop drinks. We found the legendary Mushroom bar of intoxicated Totoro Man fame, but alas it could not accomodate a herd of gaijin as large as ours. I still took a picture though to prove I saw it:

We ended up at some nondescript place that wasn't worth photographing. The "tax," however, was:

I don't know if this is a new thing or if I just never paid attention, but I guess to get around tax rules they bring out these little appetizers and then charge you for them to make up for the tax they're missing out on. Rumor has it that you can refuse it, but it is super, super hard. Oh well, who doesn't want a few little squidlies with their drinks??

とらや and Adventures Getting Home

2010-03-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

The Kyoto countdown begins! Actually, its been in effect for the past month or so. Since I can't show up to the reunion empty-handed, I hit up とらや on my way to class yesterday. I'd never heard of it until my friend told me about it but apparently it's the oldest 和菓子屋さん (Japanese style confection store) in Japan. Personally, I can't get too excited about 和菓子 because they don't involve chocolate. As my friends know, if it doesn't have chocolate, I'm not interested. However, the bag is pretty snazzy:

But back to the 和菓子. I never realized how heavy ~$45 worth of 和菓子 are. They're solid little suckers! I learned last night at class that while they remind me of little bricks, it's not okay to set them on the floor. I was showing the nice wrapping to my Japanese teacher and she was horrified when I set it on the ground afterwards. I didn't realize even food in a bag with multiple layers of wrapping needs to be on a chair or table. Either that or she was puling one over on me.

My poor little bricks and I barely made it home last night. None of the train lines that could take me to my place were running, the last bus had left, and the line at the cab stop was snaking around in the rain. It's hard for me to understand the crackly Japanese blasting over the loudspeakers, but I actually wasn't the only one who was totally lost. The station was a total zoo. At one point I saw the station guards escorting a screaming women out of the crowds. I heard today that some loser threw an antenna on the train tracks or some other such nonsense and that's what set the whole problem off. Seriously, who does that? If I ever find that out, I'm going to demand compensation for the 2.5 hours of my life I lost last night. Not to mention how stressed I was that my nice bag would get ruined in the rain and crowds. I couldn't very well bring the candy without the bag!

Oh, and I have some random pictures:

A cat? I always thought of Sherlock as a dog person...

I have never passed by this place when it was open. But I would so buy something here just because I love the sign. A chicken. With geta. Genius!

By the way, sakura season is upon us! Let the 花見（blossom viewing) begin!

Dear Salarymen

2010-03-18T18:12:00.001-07:00

Dear Salarymen,
Please stop vomiting on your way home from the bar. I am so, so sick (pun intended) of seeing it when I walk to the station.
Sincerely,
金髪の外人

だまされた！

2010-03-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

I caved and bought a California Burger. Curiosity overcame me. I was disappointed. Honestly, does this:

Look anything like this

Yeah ... not so much. It didn't taste anything like California either.

Riddle

2010-03-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

Riddle:
What do the president of my alma mater, my EAS academic heroes, and the US ambassador to Japan, and I all have in common?

Answer:
This was our first course tonight:

Yeah, awkward set-up I know. I can't think of anything cute to say about this fine piece of fish though. The rest of the meal was pretty good too, but not quite as pretty so I didn't take pictures. Also, my fellow table mates were giving me strange looks. They really had no business looking so surprised. After all, we were sitting at the kids' table. What else do you expect?

Don't Try this at Home

2010-03-15T05:11:00.000-07:00

Some people know 3/14 as Pi Day. Most people in Japan know 3/14 as White Day. However, only a select few know it as　火渡り祭　(Fire Walking Festival). And by "a select few" I mean about 1/10 of the Tokyo and surrounding suburb population plus a strong showing of vacationing 外人. Seriously, this place was packed.

Not having really read up on this beforehand, all I knew was that it involved watching monks walk over hot coals. I am now much more knowledgeable. Like I said in the title I do not recommend trying this in your backyard but if you were to give it a shot here's how it's done:

1. Get a lot of branches together.

2. Set them on fire.

3. Run around the blaze with 御輿　(portable shrines).

4. Dump water on it.

5. Walk through it.

Voila! 火渡り完了！
Just don't forget to have a fire truck on hand.

I'm Confused

2010-03-14T05:56:00.000-07:00

Package:

"It is delicious even if it is cooling and eats.
It's made with such attention to detail
because we want the maker's
sentiments to be passed on to you
the form of good flavor"

So what worries me is the "even if it is cooling and eats." Do I have to worry about this jelly getting into my chocolate stash?

Score!

2010-03-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

Despite living in various parts of Japan, I've never actually gone to a movie theater. The ticket prices are ridiculous. Sometimes I wondered if the theaters were special in some way (reclining seats?), but I was never curious enough to fork over the　二千円.

However, when work pays that's a different story. I went with coworkers to see 涼宮ハルヒの消失 (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya) for a team offsite. There were definitely subtle differences in the movie theaters than what I remember from the US, but nothing mind blowing. It reminded me a bit of a cross between an AMC and a concert hall. You get an assigned seat and you're expected to stay in it for the full duration of the movie. No sneaking in during the previews, no getting up to go to the bathroom. The snack bar was limited, but there was a gift shop.

Since the experience isn't spectacular, I can imagine that it's hard to get people to come to the movies on a regular basis. And as for seeing the same movie twice, that's an even harder sell. You need something extra to sweeten the deal. For example you might offer a film bookmark:

We found out that you could exchange 2 ハルヒ ticket stubs for piece of the movie. They didn't seem to care whether the two stubs were from the same person or not so we got to cash in even though it was everyone's first showing. I was one of the lucky ones that got to keep the goods. Kinda cool little 記念品　(momento) of my first film in Japan.

There is a clever comment for this, I know it.

2010-03-07T18:16:00.000-08:00

Food Shots: Stuff on Sticks

2010-03-03T05:05:00.000-08:00

I pass by this place every day on my way home and I finally went in tonight. So good that I forgot to take a picture of some of the plates. But here's what I remembered to capture:

Great advertising

2010-03-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

My friend and I were at a pub when a lady from the British consulate came by and handed me one of these:

For some reason a lot of people think I'm from Europe. I'm not. I'm an (occasionally) obnoxious American. But I'm still impressed how good the Brits are at finding and engaging their "customers" even if they make a mistake from time to time.

The US Consulate is actually not to shabby either. When I first came to Japan as an intern in college I neglected to call home. I wasn't intending to be irresponsible; I was just too embarrassed to admit that I could not figure out how to dial internationally from the phones in the company dorm. My parents called the consulate and the consulate called my work.. I'll never forget the tone of voice of the man whose job it was to track me down: "You need to call your parents ... NOW." There are a lot of areas where I would not rely on the US government, but I know from firsthand experience that they can track down wayward interns pretty quickly.

I learned a new word today

2010-02-26T00:05:00.000-08:00

食品連鎖=Food Chain

(There's a parrot nibbling blossoms in the tree)

Because I'm Pimping Out my Video

2010-02-24T00:08:00.000-08:00

Best Burgers in Tokyo

2010-02-16T22:02:00.000-08:00

Let me teach you some Japanese

食べ掛け=partially eaten

別腹=dessert stomach

Good Morning, Fudo-san

2010-01-07T17:40:00.000-08:00

Creepy American Tourist?

2009-11-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

Can you believe that this

is across the street from this

Well, the Harajuku stop caters to all tastes. Luckily I happened to enter the latter because today they were doing 七五三 (shichi go san/ 7 5 3). I'm not exactly why these particular ages are important, but when girls are 3 and 7 and boys are 3 and 5, then their parents take them to the local shrine. Thus the main shrine at Meiji Jingu was full of kids and parents decked out in their kimono today.

I tried to sneakily catch this girl's outfit, but sadly it came out really blurry. Her kimono was modified to be more modern, including some really cute high black boots. I really wanted to take photos of other children too, but it made me feel a bit like a creep taking pictures of strangers' kids.

I didn't have the same reservations about the wedding procession that was also going through though:

I figured if you're going to celebrate your wedding at a famous shrine, you've got to be prepared for tourists to take your picture. Or movie.

After I had my fill of watching other peoples' milestones, I went to catch the train home from Shinjuku and I saw the longest line ever for Krispy Kreme

Lord have mercy, I hope I never need a donut that badly.

Eats Asia?

2009-11-03T04:54:00.000-08:00

I've moved to Tokyo and I have a camera -- I think my life might be getting interesting enough to warrant a blog. I'm not much of a writer, so I'm thinking mostly pictures. One of these days I may be inspired to write as well, who knows.

So about the title . . . I was originally thinking "Kay Does Asia" but that sounds a bit like "Debby Does Dallas" and that was not quite the feel I was going for. Although I suppose if I were so inclined stores like this might help me out. But I'm not going that route.

Since I do take a lot of pictures of food, I figured "Eats Asia" would be more appropriate. Plus it sounds like "East Asia" which is where I'll be spending most of my time.

Unfortunately, I don't have any good food pictures to start this whole thing off. Instead, I will leave you with a scene from Shibuya:

Kay Eats Asia

Chengdu Revelries, Part I

Cafe Amar 吉祥寺

Irving Place 白金台

Cafe de Ginza Miyuki-kan 銀座

Point Weather in 綱島

これから 。。。日本語！

Action in Shibuya

魚ちゃん

I don't get it either

Is it just me?

Temptation, thy name is Beard Papa

Kyoto, Part 2

Kyoto, Part 1

とらや and Adventures Getting Home

Dear Salarymen

だまされた！

Riddle

Don't Try this at Home

I'm Confused

Score!

There is a clever comment for this, I know it.

Food Shots: Stuff on Sticks

Great advertising

I learned a new word today

Because I'm Pimping Out my Video

Best Burgers in Tokyo

Good Morning, Fudo-san

Creepy American Tourist?

Eats Asia?

これから　。。。日本語！