Fresh Seafood near the Beach

Although it was winter, it was worth the trip to the beach in Niigata, Japan. Some of the freshest seafood I've ever seen and tasted came from the little shops that lined the beach. If you're wondering what those two skewers are, the skewer on the left is BBQ squid, and the one on the right is chicken skin. That's right, chicken skin! Grilled chicken skin, in all it's fat, unhealthy glory.

The Longest Nikuman I've Ever Seen

Nikuman is basically a meat bun, similar to the Chinese chashubao, or BBQ pork bun. There are lot's of varieties of nikuman, my favourite comes with a pizza style filling, but the standard is pork. I found this one at a little shop in a ferry terminal somewhere in Tokyo.

Horse Anyone?

Well, it's been a while since I last updated this blog, not that anyone noticed. I thought that I should post something a little unusual for North American tastes. Horse sushi. To be honest, it did't taste particularly good or bad. This picture was taken in January, 2004 in a district of Tokyo called Ginza. This is the place where a bowl of strawberries could cost over $100 CAD. Anyways, I had horse once more a few years later, but didn't really like it the second time. Instead of a nicely prepared, somewhat dry slice of meat on top of sushi rice, my second time trying horse was just a plate of bloody meat (supposedly sashimi).

My First Bowl of Good Ramen

When it came to Japanese food, my first choice would have been to go to a sushi restaraunt, or a fry place, or tempura place, but never ramen. I was never a big fan of it. Before these photos were taken back in January, 2004, I would rather have a bowl of pho. Well, I was in Shinjuku with a couple of friends and we stumbled on this little ramen shop and I was hooked. The thick miso-based broth with extra fat, noodles cooked to perfection, and Japanese-style chashu....also with extra fat. What a great combination on a cold winter day, and on that cold winter day, I learned to appreciate a good bowl of ramen.

I was hooked and had to have ramen all the time. Unfortunately, Shinjuku was not my home, Richmond, BC was, and there was not a decent ramen shop within, oh say 4,090 nautical miles. There's a few shops now in downtown, Vancouver, but they pale in comparison to the ones in the land of the rising sun. I gah-ron-tee there will be more pictures of ramen to come in this blog.

By the way, this shop is no longer around, as far as I can tell. The last time I was in Shinjuku, I could not find it anywhere. I spent hours walking around looking for it, but no luck.

Moby Dick's fish and chips

There's fish and chips, then there's Moby Dick's fish and chips. Everything here is big. The fish don't come in fillets, they come in slabs, served on a mountain of fries with a side of fresh coleslaw and a tub of their homemade tartar sauce. I think dill might be their magic ingredient in the tartar sauce. One other thing about Moby Dick's is they always give you one more piece of fish than you order.....and this information is not on the menu. Actually, since this photo was taken back in 2003. The plates have gotten bigger, and the extra real estate is filled with golden fries and huge chunks of deep fried fish.

My BBQ's Great for Holidays and Special Occasions like Wednesday Nights

When people come to one of my bbqs, I make sure that they leave completely satisfied, craving nothing more than a lazy-boy and their saftey blankets. My philosphy for bbq is feed you till you die. Here are shots of two items that are commonly on my menu - back ribs and bacon-wrapped scallops.

The second one is a piece of cake - find the biggest scallops you can buy, then wrap them with the fattest bacon you can buy, thow them on the grill for a bit and start stuffing your face.

My back ribs are a bit more complicated, and I have to acredit my friend Eric with the recipe. First I boil the ribs in a vat of water, onions, garlic, olive oil, various spices (whatever is in the cabinet really) until the ribs are ready to slide off the bone. Then I carefully take the ribs and dip them in a chosen bbq sauce (eric used his own bbqs he made from scratch....I cheat and just add a bunch of stuff into an existing sauce base). Let them sit over night in the fridge so that once it cools, the sauce is the only thing keeping the meat and bones together. These ribs are then ready for the bbq the next day. I usually grill them for a about 5 minutes on each side on high heat so that parts of the outside are slightly crisp, all the while retaining a nice, gooy core that used to be called meat. They literally melt in your mouth and the bone always comes away so clean, you'd swear it was bleached.

I'll post some pictures of the finished products when I can find them

The Fallen Warrior

Our last morning in Japan was spent having Jay perform the most ridiculous thing....a curry eating challenge. It was the beginning of February, 2003 and we were all packed and ready to help my bro go back to Canada. We stopped in a CoCo Ichiban curry shop and let Jay ruin his day.

Let me give you a little background on Jay. At the time of these photos, he was probably about 133 pounds, but he could eat more than anyone we knew. This guy had eaten three prime rib dinners and one chicken dinner at the Keg, all in one sitting. He could easily eat a large pizza by himself. So, we figured, what's 1.3 kilos of rice with curry on top? Jay could probably do it twice.....but it was not meant to be.

He had 20 minutes to accomplish this feat, but his momentum began to fade around the 11 minute mark. and near the end, it was just pitiful. Defeated and shamed, we left CoCo's curry, never to return.