MARUKAME and Kona's Coffee in Osaka -Udon and Pancakes-

Udon is popular food in Japan. I love it, and miss it when I can't eat for long time.
When I was in Canada, I cooked once, and my friend had a sip of soup, and said, " This is awesome soup but talking of noodle, I prefer ICHIBAN to udon."
ICHIBAN is ramen.

Now Udon is trending overseas. So happy to hear that.
Marukame UDON, Japanese udon restaurant group,  is opened  in Hawaii, and other udon Japanese udon restaurants are also opened in United States.
http://www.toridollusa.com/

MARUKAME UDON is famous in Japan, and this company's food business has been wide spread more than that. Udon, Ramen, Tenpura, Yakisoba and Pancakes, they are a kind of Japanese flour food business. That company's name is Toridoll.
http://www.toridoll.com/en/

We have Hawaiian Pancake Cafes in Japan, just several cafe in Japan, luckly in Osaka.
I visited there last week. It is opened first a few years ago, still packed with many people.
When you go around Neyagawa city in Osaka, enjoy this pancakes of udon company☆
Talking about Marukame Udon, we have lots of restaurants here.



Tiramisu Pancakes


Abocado humberg and Pancakes
 

Eggs benedict pancakes

Favorite Chefs

  

I love baking when I was young. It is because of my mother.
I learned a lot from her and watching cooking TV show or enjoy cooking together sometimes. We used to get lots of recipes from TV, papers or cooking books, and currently I search online or TV.

The most attracting chef for me was Giada De Laurentiis.
http://www.giadadelaurentiis.com/

 One day I watched her TV show "Giada at Home", I was crazy about watching it . I watched Giada at Home every day before going to work, bought her books and DVDs, searched her recipes online and I tried her recipes.

Recently I like Laura vitale. Sometimes I can find a couple of chefs online who are so amazing. Giada and Laura are so active about entertain people while they are cooking.
I love that. They tell us recipes and more witness of how to live more comfortable when we are in the kitchen.

My mother also loved one Japanese chef. I took over her cooking books or recipes notebooks. The chef was Kuniko Mukoda, who already passed away because of air crash. She was truly not a chef. She was a writer. My mom loved her, so read her books a lot including cooking books.



Kuniko Mukoda's cooking is very homey. Now I read her cooking books, I found dishes which my mom used to cook for my family dinner. I remember that was so good. I now understand how much my mom loved Kuniko's recipes. Their taste was not same but have some similar heartwarming.

  

I challenge all the time for my family to love, miss and want to take over my taste.
However, it is hard for my boys. Now it seems important for them to have more quantity than taste of food.

Chia Seed Pudding and Granola

Healthy food stream has come to around the world, recently into here.
I tried some of them, it is a little bit long time to get used to my life. Eventually I settle down on homemade granola and chia seeds. Easy to make them.

I am going to dig them very quick and fly to Melbourne tomorrow!

Abusolutely delicious Japanese white bread

I got a loaf of white bread from my sister which was selected one of the best white bread in Japan.

http://nogaminopan.com/     (Japanese)

This is so delicious without butter, jam, even toasted. Very fluffy.

I thought white bread is same in every country before I knew other country's bread because bread culture came from them. In fact, I realized when I went to Canada, it was totally different.

I couldn't find white bread like Japanese fluffy and thick.
I couldn't find bakery like Japanese various kind of meal bread like curry buns. I just found very thin white bread,buns or pastries.

It has been so popular to bake bread at home using bread machine since years.
Put all ingredients in the bread machine, we can eat fresh out of like an oven next morning. What this machine is great is we can bake so many kinds of bread not only white bread, but also pastries.

I sometimes dream about foreign oven like big and huge gas power, but is impossible in here, and baking bread is usually tough amd tale a long time to make, so that's why bread machine is getting popular here.
I want to have one in the future.





Love honey toast☆





Tearing off this loaf of bread is best way to taste!


Here is one more special. Curry bread.

  

This is deep fried bread which has curry inside.
It is so good.  Crispy outside, thin bread dough, and amazing curry paste inside.

http://www.sunny-side.co.jp/   (Japanese)



If I hava a chance to drop by here, I want to get other kinds of bread.

Japanese pickles in Kyoto -Tsukemono-

    

I went to Kyoto last Sunday to meet my old friends.
Most of time we chatted in cafe or restaurant because we met since 10 years, but we felt to do something seems like Kyoto. So we went to famous huge food market in Kyoto called Nishiki Ichiba.

http://www.kyoto-nishiki.or.jp/ (Japanese)

http://kyoto.travel/en/thingstodo/entertainment/252 (English information)

This is long street which has more than a hundred food shop. We can get anything here, and enjoy Kyoto food.  There packed with people including foreigners.
I enjoyed to buy Tsukemono, Japanese pickles, here this time.

Japanese pickles taste salty, sometimes miso taste, not vinegar, so a little bit different from other country style.
We can buy pickles in local supermarkets but Kyoto is very famous for Kyoto veggies pickles. So good to eat with  rice.


      ↑                  ↑                 ↑
eggplant　　 burdock　　asuparagus


   

This is my favorite pickles, red beet. Tastes sour, salty and sweet a bit.

What I was surprised while shopping, I found Tsukemono which I can keep in room temperature. Usually Tsukemono should keep in fridge, so sometimes it is hard to bring them home. Easy to try for tourists!

I eat Tsukemono every day at supper time. I believe that rice, miso soup, and Tsukemono are exact basic Japanese cuisine.

GOHEI MOCHI

GOHEI MOCHI is local cuisine in Chubu region of Japan, especially famous for northern area of Gifu prefecture, Hida.

This is GOHEI MOCHI, which is skewered rice cake with sweet sauce. This Sauce is made of miso, soy sauce, sugar and walnuts, so very thick and tasty.  I love that!


It is familiar food even I don't live in Chubu area because GOHEI MOCHI vendors come to Kansai area from Hida. However, when I was a small child, a vendor came to supermarket near my place just once a month. I remember my mom was excited when she found a vendor. She knew my father loved GOHEI MOCHI.


Also, MITARASHI DANGO is good.


We can buy MITARASHI DANGO anywhere, but sauce is different as regular one.


This very tasty sweet sauce is special, that's why I really like those sweets, and probably makes me miss my childhood.
Now I can find HIDA vendors, anywhere in Osaka, and very often. I can buy anytime not once a month.
But, every time I see GOHEIMOCHI vendors, I can't help have feeling to buy it.
And actually buy, sometimes too much!

ABOTAKU -Abocado wtih Takuwan-

ABOTAKU is a dish which my mom made for my family.

Just prepare avocado chopped into chunked and takuwan  (Japanese pickled raddish, usually this is yellow)

 

Mix those with soy sauce and wasabi.



Good to eat with sushi, on crackers or natto, if you like.
All people I gave recipe are happy to eat, and this becomes popular food now.

Nothing better than this,
My mom had made this for my family more than 20 years ago, in no internet, unpopular food at the moment.

She was a great seeker based on books or papers she read every days.
She is good at getting small tips from books, and always had challenge mind as she tried anything she had never done before.

She is amazing.
Abotaku is amazing.

Deep-fried GOBO

I can't stop eating deep-fried Gobo (burdock).
Soak Gobo in soy sauce and sake, and then deep-fry Gobo with starch into vegetable oil for several minutes.
Hot and crunchy Gobo is so tasty. Putting mayo with it is also amazing.

Anyhow I want to tell foreigners how delicious gobo is.
I know basically they don't eat Gobo.

lots of fiber,
various kinds of dishes,
easy to cook,
healthy for sure.
Those notes are known since old times but the reason people don't like is bad look?
looking roots? Or smell like soil...?

In the past, I was cooking dinner using canned tuna.
A Canadian, who lived with me, getting in kitchen and said,
" Oh, you are cooking fish. Looking great! but my friend is coming over soon, so open the window please. I want to put away the fishy smell."

...I was awkward at the moment.
my dinner looked great.
but this meant smell was bad.

Probably Gobo could be same situation.
Looking good, like fried potatoes, smelling terrible, like roots.

Matcha flavored shaved ice

Early summer has come!

This shaved ice is the best in my life.
With matcha syrup and condensed milk, and this has vanilla ice cream inside. Fluffy and silky in my mouth.

This cafe "Kadoya" in Osaka has lots of kinds of flavors. Can arrange as you like.

I never thought about I make shaved ice at home.
Love KADOYA☆

KADOYA address
2-8-22, Morishoji, Asahi-ku, Osaka