Fujiya - Richmond

I feel weird about reviewing a grocery store, but I had to hand it to Fujiya for making pretty decent, and affordable "fast food".  I don't think they make it fresh here at the Richmond location, but the location on Clark definitely has freshly made bento boxes, as well as made-to-order boxes. 

The tuna combo wasn't too bad actually, decent quality (probably the same supplier as most Japanese restaurants), or maybe even cut from their own inventory.

This was Fujiya's Z-Roll.  basically, it's a hodge-podge of end-peices put in a roll is my guess.  There's salmon, tuna, avacado, cucumber and some other bits.  It's filling because it's so big and overall, didn't taste horrendous or anything.

Saba and Salmon Bento

As you can see, the Saba and Salmon Bento come with variety of side dishes that actaully make the overall meal quite interesting.  There's carrot, broccoli, egg, takenoko, konyaku, yama-imo, and some sort of fish cake

The rice comes with a single umeboshi in the middle = Japanese flag.

The fish are actually incredibly good.  I love saba and Fujiya does it well.  The salmon is also moist and tasty.  A lot of places overcook salmon and it always comes out all dried out, but I've had Fujiya's salmon before and it's always nice and moist.  The flavour always tingles the back corners of my mouth...love the salmon from Fujiya.

There was one time our sado class was doing chaji, which is about a 4 hour event including the preperation of the charcoal, a kaiseki meal and two different sessions of tea (thick tea and thin tea).  We didn't have time to prepare the kaiseki meal, and for the sake of practice, ordered the meal from Fujiya.  I remember the meal being incredibly tasty, as though it came from a restaurant (or maybe I was just really hungry).  Anyway, as far as cooked food is concerned, Fujiya delivers when it comes to their salmon, their saba, and their beef. 

2nd April 2004 Japan Trip AC Business Class food

Here are a few shots of my meals on my second trip to Japan in April, 2004. As soon as you're seated, the flight attendant offers you a choice of champagne, juice or water....or pretty much whatever you want, but I got a simple O.J.

In business class, they don't just give you a small, plastic cup for water, they give you the whole bottle.

So after you've settled in, you almost forget that you're on a plane. The service just keeps coming. They serve you a snack, and not simply a bag of peanuts, we got a small plate of gyoza (pan fried meat dumplings) and a bit of smoked salmon.

We were given a choice of a western meal, or a traditional Japanese Kaiseki meal. I chose the latter and here's a shot of the first course:

Bamboo shoots, snow peas and a shaped carrot slice, finely presented and very tasty.An assortment of pickles, not to strong in flavour.Tofu, with a hint of wasabi.There was also a kani (crab) sunomono with tobiko but the picture I took was way too blurry. Anyways, here's a shot of the lobster tail, with some sort of Japanese-style tartar sauce Japanese tartar sauce generally has egg as one of the ingredients, so it tastes more like egg salad. There was also unagi (eel) rolled in tamago (egg). The scallop was actually my favourite part. Baked in a Miso-mayo, it tasted quite different from your standard Oyster Motoyaki. Throw in a bit of miso in the mix, and it gives it an extra tangy flavor. I was quite surprised that all of these dishes tasted so good when chilled. After the lobster tail, they clear your tray and serve you a bowl of rice, bowl of miso soup, and grilled black cod, or sable fish with some string beans and a carrot shaped like a maple leaf....Nice Canadian touch. The cod was heaven that melts in your mouth. I love black cod.

By this time, my belly is full and I'm feeling content, but the service keeps coming, and being the greedy pig that I am, I indulge myself in further gorging. A fresh assortment of fruit, cheeses and crackers, I say yes to all of the above.And after that, ice cream....chocolate ice cream, with a hard chocolate coating, sitting in a bed of frozen Mango....something...sorbet maybe? Anyways, who am I to say no?A quick, blurry shot of breakfast. There were several choices to pick from, but I went with a simple assortment of sandwiches, inari (rice ball wrapped in sweet tofu skin), and a plate of fresh fruit.

It's been a while.....

Well, it's been a while since I last posted. I've been a bit lazy, I have to admit. Sometimes it's hard to find the time to post when I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this. But I told myself, well, what the heck, if I don't post, then it defintely won't get viewed. So I'm back with a few more shots of airplane food. These shots are of a business class meal on Air Canada from Vancouver to Narita back in April, 2004. AC's business class was a nice service with big, comfy seats, miles of leg room, a crew that was often quite pleasant, and on this trip, a half-decent Kaiseki meal as we as could be prepared on an airplane.

Actually, I was fortunate enough to go to Japan twice that April, and I managed to get upgraded to business class on the return flight on my first trip in April, as well as on the outbound flight of my second trip.