Archive by Author | Jenny

Hello!

Mr. Ojisan Ramen says hi!

Funny picture yeah? This was a cup noodle I had in Japan. I bought a nishime pack from the grocery store to eat with it. Their nishime is awesome – it even came with the half egg. And you know how much I love Japan eggs. Had a bit too much lotus root and they were a bit hard for me but I ate em anyway. But yeah! I put some of the nishime into the cup noodle and this is how it floated to the top! Do you see the ojisan like I do? Green bean eyes, a brown little nose and a shiitake smile. I swear I didn’t do this on purpose!

Anyway, I apologize for the lag time between Japan posts. Life happened and things have been quite topsy turvy for me, emotionally and professionally. Nothing crazy so not to worry. I was expecting work to slow down by now but it’s actually picking up again even though the semester is coming to an end. I can’t wait for summer. So I hope you are all doing well! I know my little updates are usually made of complaints so I wanted to share a good story!!

We all know how awesome Costco is but last night was another example of why they are even more awesome! It also serves as another reason why I should always purchase my contact lenses from them! So I had my annual check-up and my doctor shared that my brand of contacts (Acuvue) changed their policies and made it so that everyone had to basically charge the same rate or higher…I assume to help doctors get orders from their clients versus going through 1-800-contacts or people like me, who order through Costco.

Anyway, my contacts used to have a $10 coupon every couple of months so I would always be able to order my contacts cheaper. I noticed Costco stopped offering the coupon so I figured it was related to this new rule. I was almost tempted to order from my doctor but she mentioned, maybe Costco would have it in stock right away so I held back. I went in last night and ordered my contacts. And yes! They had them in stock and yes! They process your insurance claim right away so I paid the amount after the insurance coverage. So the person ringing me up is doing all kinds of typing and printing, etc. I patiently wait because well, I sorta went in at 8:20 (they close at 8:30) and I felt pretty bad! Anyway, he finishes up my transaction and hands me a Costco Cash Card and tells me it’s for $25. So I’m like super confused right? And he tells me all about how Acuvue put that new rule into place but Costco has been trying to negotiate with them to keep doing the $10 coupons but haven’t come to an agreement yet…so Costco is voluntarily giving $25 gift cards until they can get it resolved. I mean, how’s that for service right? It’s something they totally do not have to do but they are doing it because they care about the customer. It was such an awesome experience that I just had to share it.

I hope you are all doing well. I’ll try to get some more Japan updates scheduled this weekend.

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Japan 2015 Day 2 – Food!

Apr8

A day of eating. Wait, let me change that. A trip of eating. Delish! No shame in my game, I had to make sure I ate it up during this trip. I sure did. Well, since we spent all day in Tokyo Solamachi, all our meals were from there too! Let’s get started shall we? First was our brunch meal in the Food Court. You order your food and get a buzzer that goes off when your food is ready to be picked up. Actually these were beepers/buzzers so the food court was abuzz with beeping the whole meal through. When you are done with your meal, you take it back to your establishment’s tray return window. Great system!

Kristian got a tonkatsu curry. He liked it a lot and let me have a taste. The curry had a nice mild flavor, I liked it! The Japanese are serious about their shredded cabbage. They love it there.

I got a Chinese set. It was a chicken and gravy over noodles dish that came with two siu mai and this mochi rice thing. The mochi rice thing was great, it was a mushroom sticky rice thing and it hardly stuck to the leaf/wrapper. The siu mai was okay, not great. Tastes like it looks, plain and bland. I was also a bit disappointed because I am pretty sure there was MSG in my food, I was thirsty all day! Not recommended. After a full day of shopping, we headed to the restaurant levels for dinner!

My salad! I love how they put in all these herbs in the butter and cheese. This was a good salad. The bread had some kind of pate on it so it was a bit hard to eat. I used my fork and knife.

French Onion Soup that came with my meal. Pretty good! It came in a mini Le Creuset pot, love it.

Kristian had two steak dishes during this trip that included an herb butter on top, I got super jelly for both! Looks awesome. Made me crave steak…gotta get my fill when I come home.

My dish! Omurice with Hamburg Steak WITH Foie Gras. You can hardly tell there is foie gras but it’s sitting there behind the hamburg steak! The burger was delicious and juicy as was the foie gras, the rice was alright. I’m not a huge fan of the rice but liked the egg.

As we walked through the mall, we walked through a bakery called Cheese Garden and they were sampling their Imperial Villa Cheese Cake, oh my god it was amazing. Somehow, the cheesecake is super rich and dense yet light at the same time. The cheesecake had an intense cream cheese taste. Kristian bought the cheesecake and we brought it back to the apartment, it took a few days to finish it but finish we did.

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Japan 2015 Day 2 – Tokyo Skytree

Apr7

Our first full day in Tokyo! We didn’t have much planned for this day. The two days after this would be all Disney all day. We also didn’t have our JR passes yet so it wasn’t a day for jumping in and out of the trains or subways. I woke up super early this morning because we slept early the night before knackered from the flight.

I woke up, took a shower, did a small load of laundry because I have a thing about the clothes I wear on airplanes. We decided to go to the Tokyo Skytree on the Asakusa subway line to Oshiage. Did we go up the actually Skytree? Nope. That costs money. Hahaha, so we checked out the SUPER AWESOME mall attached to the Skytree. The mall is called Tokyo Solamachi, perfect mall to start off with.

This is a quick shot of their food court. I will share the food from this meal tomorrow. I was just amazed by how clean their food court was. The Japanese are serious business in cleanliness. There was an attendant cleaning up after every person finished, they also had a great water station. You know what I noticed about cleaning attendants as well? They were always greeting people and welcoming them onto the floor, not avoiding contact like they do here you know?

A Studio Ghibli store! Very cute but I didn’t buy anything. I have enough Totoro stuff and it’s pricey!

I didn’t go up the Skytree but check out this cool shot I got from the patio area! I love it! And the patio area is great for kids. They had all sorts of physical games for kids to play…so lucky! Day 2 food post coming tomorrow!

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Japan 2015 – Day 1 Food

Apr5

We got a bit lost looking for our apartment initially but once we found it and dropped our bags, we laid around a bit playing with our devices since we had wifi. I really learned how much I depend on the internet through this trip. Forreal. Anyway, after a while we decided to head out and get ourselves some dinner. We were tired and weren’t in the mood to have confused conversations with restaurants. We finally ended up in a ramen restaurant. The waiter was very nice but didn’t know English. We figured we could point at things in the menu. Soon the waiter disappeared and he actually got help…his colleague spoke English! Really good English! That was super cool.

And guess what? I realized that we were eating at Santouka Ramen! Yes! The sister restaurant of our very own Hokkaido Ramen Santouka! I was really happy to realize that and noticed this restaurant had the same exactly bowls that we have in Hawaii. How nice and comforting that was. Our waiter told us a story about going to Seattle to teach people about Japanese culture but getting arrested at the airport and being sent back to Japan. That was quite the interesting story to hear, didn’t know how to follow that! I’ll just follow that with food.

Tan Tan version of their Ramen – of course I had to get it!

Very open kitchen. This whole restaurant is just a bar against the kitchen. I watched as the soup was boiling away on the side.

My friend’s ramen, yummm

Tan Tan Ramen! This was mine. It was delicious. I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the brown stuff on top was meat from the picture but it wasn’t. It was like preserved chinese cabbage, I like that though. Very good!

Free egg! We initially ordered gyoza but they had run out. The waiter was very nice and told us that to make up for it, my friend and I would get free egg! He talked it up. He didn’t have to, I know Japan eggs are awesome! Very nice gesture, very delicious gesture. This dinner was nice and warm for a cold night. It was a nice end for a crazy travel day. Day 2 coming soon!

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Japan 2015 – Day 1 Recap

Apr4

Ah yes. My spring trip to Japan! I’ve been to Japan once before in 2011 and it really helped this trip around. It was my friend’s first time to Japan so I was able to guide us around pretty good. I am now pro at the Yamanote Line. Sorta. I am going to journal out my trip here on my blog as tips for you guys and of course for me to document back to! I’ll try to give you folks specific details as much as I can.

First off, my plane tickets were a crazy good deal. I don’t know about you folks but I thought $645 was a great deal for a round trip ticket. I was watching the ticket prices every day and this one looks like it got added late so I got it for a good price and was able to pick some good seats! Yen was also awesome – I was able to get them for 121, it was much higher than like the 80 I got a few years back. This is a great time to buy yen!

Ready for take-off!

Chicken Dinner – small but good!

Small snack pack before we landed! It’s a ham egg salad sandwich. That was interesting.

We got our luggage and headed towards the train ticket kiosk. Our JR pass would not be validated until later in our trip so we took the Keisei Skyliner and transferred at Shinagawa Station to jump on the Yamanote Line to make our way to our apartment. The Keisei Skyliner ticket was pricey, about 2,500 yen.

Did Jenny say apartment?? Yes! We opted for an apartment rental over a hotel. We booked pretty late so the hotel options were slim. It was okay though because this apartment was great! Two beds, quiet and safe neighborhood, close to the subway and on the Yamanote Line! All great stuff! The bathroom was insanely small….the shower allowed us basically to stand up straight and in one direction. Hahaha…the biggest perk?

Pocket WiFi came with the apartment rental! We could carry this around everywhere we went! No getting lost with google maps (just super long winded walks…more to come on that later…) I booked my apartment from airbnb.com.

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I’m home!

Apr3

Yes, I have returned safe and sound from my trip to Japan! The trip was AWESOME! I enjoyed it very much and am excited to share with you folks! In fact, if you don’t want to learn about Japan – you may want to avoid my blog for the next few weeks. I’ll probably have to do a general tips post and then of course a food post for the day! Can’t be in Japan without eating. I hope you are all doing well. I’ll leave you with a picture of cherry blossoms I took from the Imperial East Gardens.

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Happy April!

Apr1

No, this is not an April Fool’s joke. The food I am featuring on this post is legitimate! If you work at UH Manoa, I highly suggest you give it a try. Today! All jokes aside, we noticed long lines every Wednesday at the Campus Center food court and found out it was because of their steak plate special. I decided to give it a try the other week and I can see what the fuss is about. The plate is very reasonable and they are very generous! I am scheduling this post ahead of time so maybe you’ll see me in line today for this plate. I also hope my jet lag is gone by the time this publishes too! Warning: gratuitous pictures of meat follows…

They also had macaroni and cheese as a choice, I was VERY tempted but decided to get some greens on my plate.

Steak steak steak. And look! Not overcooked at all. They actually just refilled it as I got to the front of the line. It was fate.

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Superb Sushi – Kalihi, HI

Mar30

I know I posted about Superb Sushi before but I can’t stop raving about their food. And I love that the front line person remembers me! It’s very sweet to me, as antisocial that I am. Their sushi is great and their ahi poke is some of the best I’ve tasted. It’s seasoned wonderfully. I also like that they serve up the ahi poke bowl with the spicy sauce on the side – that really works out for people who cannot handle spice. I got their combo this past visit and it was great as always, they serve it up with miso soup. I hope you folks get to give them a try, I highly recommend it!

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Veggie Friday

Mar29

Is wanting to eat better a sign of maturity? Actually, not even just wanting to eat better but a craving for fruits and vegetables! I’d say so! A recent Friday at work included tofu for breakfast and salad for lunch. It was SO good. Just wanted to share quick pictures from it.

Tofu Watercress from Don Quijote – my absolute favorite and the best I have ever tasted. They sell this in the ahi poke case and it’s not much to look at in the case but it’s absolutely delicious. Every morsel is so flavorful. I highly recommend it. In fact, have I talked about this before? Anyhow, give it a try!

The salad I whipped together. I got the ingredients from our on-campus farmers market. My coworker brought some tomatoes and feta cheese which went very well with the salad. I think the salad dressing I used was what made the salad extraordinary. It was Kewpie’s Wafu Dressing – you folks should give it a try! It’s so delicious!

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Recipe: Chicken Enchilada Rice Casserole

Mar27

When I saw this recipe on a blog, I knew I had to make it. I was really craving some good mexican type rice dish and this fit the bill! The ingredients were simple and the pictures looked amazing, I deviated from the recipe a bit because mainly because of the price of chicken breast. Don Quijote only had organic chicken breast and it cost an arm and a leg! So much for being supportive of the organic movement huh? Well, I did buy the chicken – my recipe just had much less chicken and much more rice. I had to budget my budget (points to those who get that joke).

YUM!

Shredded Chicken in Enchilada Sauce

Basmati Rice! I bought it special just for this recipe. It was worth it!

Corn and Cheese sprinkled on top and ready to bake!

Yes, it was good.

Chicken Enchilada Rice Casserole

INGREDIENTS

3 cooked chicken breasts, shredded (I used 2)
2 cups dry Basmati rice (I used 3)
2 cans (10 oz each) Enchilada sauce (I used Old El Paso)
1 can (16 oz) refried beans (I used Old El Paso)
1 cup white cheddar, shredded
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1 can (11 oz) corn kernel
cilantro for garnish (didn’t have, didn’t use)
salt and ground black pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Cook the rice. I cooked it with 4 cups of water and ¼ cup of butter.
Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.
Mix the 2 cheeses together.
In a large bowl mix the shredded chicken with the enchilada sauce, refried beans and half of the cheese. Add rice, season with salt and pepper if needed, and mix well. Pour rice mixture into a large casserole dish. Top with corn then with remainder of cheese.
Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes or until cheese melts and is bubbly.
Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve warm.

Jenny’s notes:
1) I cooked the rice in a rice cooker and threw the butter in with it.
2) I used 3 cups instead of 2 cups or rice which definitely made the dish more ricey, not as saucy. I’m fine with that but I think people prefer it saucier.

Recipe from jo cooks.

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maybeitsjenny

Hawaii based food blog with foodie travels!