“Cock Sauce” at Chelsea Market

I took a walk over to Chelsea Market today for a look around. The official Chelsea Market website describes the space as “a one-stop, NYC culinary food [...]

Washoku

My review of Washoku: Recipies From The Japanese Home Kitchen by Elizabeth Andoh has just been published online at JapanVisitor.com.  Check it out here.

ANA Lounge – Udon

Here’s a photo of the meal I had in the ANA Lounge in Narita Airport. There was a huge bar of free drinks and snacks (BTW, did I mention that free upgrades to Business Class ROCK!). I had this bowl of udon noodles with a piece of kamaboko (surimi fish paste) with the [...]

Hakata Kinryu Ramen 博多金龍ラーメン

Last night, I had dinner with the girls (Tash, Natalie, Isa) at Hakata Kinryu Ramen, a ramen restaurant across the street from my house. In local foreigners lingo, we often refer to this place as the “Green Dragon” becauce of the cute mascot on the sign and on the menus, but curiously, the Japanese [...]

Usa Shrine 宇佐神宮

I went to visit the Usa [oo - sah] Shrine with Tash yesterday. The Usa Shrine is one of the most important shrines in Shintoism and is dedicated to the god Hachiman, who is the god of war and the divine protector of the Japanese islands and the Japanese people. Even though this [...]

Festival 祭り

On Monday night (July 24), Tash and I headed over to Aki-machi to visit our friend Jessica and to check our her local matsuri (festival).

Local girl (above) wearing a yukata (cotton summer kimono)
The highlight of the festival (below), a fire dance on a boat in the river.  According to a local that chatted us up, [...]

The Nishimura Family 西村家

On Saturday night, I went to have a final dinner with the Nishimura family. I used to live next door to them in the inaka (countryside) outskirts of Nakatsu during the first year that I lived in Japan, before I moved to my current house in “downtown” Nakatsu. The two Nishimura children are [...]

Pushkar

Luke and I went to one of my favorite restaurants in Nakatsu, Pushkar, an Indian restaurant in an old, converted traditional house, for lunch today. Pushkar has a real Indian chef and a real tandoor oven as well. They serve up a good mix of Northern Indian and Anglo-Indian classics (in other words, [...]

相合傘 (ai-ai-gasa) Sharing an umbrella

On Friday night, I had my going-away party with my Board of Education. My office bought me a traditional Japanese paper umbrella (和傘 – wagasa) for my going away present. The paper is coated with some sort of oil-based water proofing and is hand-made in Nakatsu. Apparently, there are only a few [...]