Japanese Food, Mochi and a Movie

I shot some really nice pictures at the river near my house today. Someone asked for the river's name, so I'll make a post about that with the pictures soon. It's amazing the kind of nature you can find right inside of Tokyo. Too bad, but the opposite is also true.

In the meantime, one of the best things about being in Japan is the food. I know for some the opposite is true, and I admit to insatiable cravings for pizza and spagetti at times. Anyway, here are a few things I like to eat here:

Unagi - Sea eel. BBQ'ed. Yum, but kind of expensive to get the good ones that are "grown" in Japan. Cheap Unagi are imported from China, but you really can taste the difference, I guess.

Taro - "Fatty tuna" in English. A tuna fish is divided into many different cuts of meat, and Taro is the best (or the best I know of). This isn't something you BBQ; it's best to eat raw as sushi or sashimi. Mmm. Melts in your mouth.

Ramen - When I want a cheap, unhealthy meal full of flavor and cholesterol then I go for Ramen every time. Tokyo is full of "famous" ramen bars, and it's a joy to discover them one by one.

Salmon - People eat loads of Salmon here. It's generally cheap, and we sometimes have it for breakfast. But I found out recently that the orange oil that sometimes comes out of cheap Salmon is dye. Apparently farmed salmon are fed man made pellets, and the result is that the meat is not orange like the flesh of salmon that eat a natural diet. So they put some orange dye into the pellets. Clever, huh?

Mochi - Mochi is made by pounding the heck out of a special kind of rice. After enough pounding it becomes a sticky, gelatinous blob. This is formed into mouthful sized balls, and it's not bad. Plain mochi is like eating plain gum, but you can get mochi in many flavors, from green tea to sakura (cherry).

By the way, mochi is considered a choking risk for young children and old people. One of my favorite food movies is Tampopo. It's too complicated to summarize the plot right now, but there is a scene where a family drops "grandpa" off at his favorite restaurant with a warning: "Don't eat the mochi; you almost died last time." Of course, he orders noodles with mochi type dumplings inside. After voraciously slurping down all the noodles, he attacks a mochi with passion. Sluuuurp, glug. He grips his throat and falls to the floor unable to breathe. There's a big scene which ends when someone from the restaurant fetches a vacuum cleaner, sticks the narrowest attachment down his throat and sucks out the mochi.

Tampopo is actually one of the best and funniest food movies ever made. You should watch it sometime.