reika

I think the Germans knew a good thing when they thought up of the idea of a beer garden. Pitchers of beer, good substantial food like sausages and potato salad, and lots of space for the biggest of groups to spread out make for a good time.

Where I've been:
Loreley - LES
Studio Square
Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden
Bia Garden
Zeppelin
Radegast
Loreley - Brooklyn (5 Sept 2010)
Mission Dolores (23 Feb 2011)

To visit:
Berry Park
Zum Schneider
Der Schwarze Kölner
Standard

(l-r, top-bottom)
Salmon bento from Sunrise Mart
Salad combo from Once Upon a Tart
Lobster roll from Better Being Underground
Salty Pimp from Big Gay Ice Cream Truck
Peach tarte tatin from Sho Shaun Hergatt
Petits fours and Milk chocolate palet from Sho Shaun Hergatt

My favorite part about eating ice cream in a cone wasn't really the ice cream so much, but the crisp sweet cones. Ice cream was easy enough to get, but cones were special. The cones that were available from the supermarkets (at least when I was a child) were nothing special, tasting faintly of cardboard if I recall correctly. But going to an actual ice cream shop, there were these special treats called waffle cones, which essentially improved the entire ice cream eating experience by a few hundred percent.

So, discovering these cookies was an epiphany to me. Because to my mind (and taste buds), they're the cones -- without the shape, but with all the yummy sweetness and crispness. They suggest having this with tea, but I think it goes along okay by itself and all your memories of childhood.

As a child, I was prohibited from eating street food because god knows what disease I could catch from eating food that's been exposed to all that grime, dust, & pollution. Granted, this was Manila, so those things were all plausible.

Fast-forward to 2009, where street food is the new "it" cuisine from New York to LA. It must be the cheapskate in my talking, but I love street food: you get so much for so little money.

I wish I had a chance to try more street food in Japan.

In the heart of Tokyo is an area called Shinjuku and “Yakitori Alley.’’ Literally an alley, this walkway has tiny yakitori stalls on both sides. Grilled on pressed wood or coal, these skewers hold juicy beef, chicken, chicken meatballs, and shrimp, all glazed with teriyaki. Equally delicious are chicken cartilage yakitori - the white triangular tip of cartilage between the two breasts, crunchy but amazingly tasty - and also chicken livers and kidneys, all cooked until pink and juicy. [Source]

Despite what shoujo manga has taught us, the majority of Japanese men seem to have brought up with that particular kind of Asian machismo. Men are strong. Men shouldn't cry. And more importantly, men don't cook. They have lunch cooked for them.

But it IS 2009, and there's a new generation of Japanese Man. The media has called this group the "bento danshi," the boxed-lunch men.

The source article is actually fairly fluffy, but this section below jumped at me, if only to emphasize that even when things change, some things still remain the same.

Gyotoku also said he has become addicted to home cooking and has developed a taste for seasoning. He pays particular attention to a book titled What Did You Eat Yesterday? —a cartoon book by Fumi Yoshinaga about the dietary life of two men living together published by Kodansha Co—and the cooking show "Taichi x Kentaro Danshi Gohan (Men’s Meals)" broadcast by TV Tokyo Corp and featuring Taichi Kokubun, 34, of the pop group Tokio, and cooking teacher Kentaro, 36.

This summer, Pepsi Japan is featuring its shiso flavor for a limited time. [Source]



I really wish that there was some way to obtain these flavors here in the U.S., other than paying an arm and a leg for them on eBay.

This flavor actually sounds somewhat palatable, unlike the Blue Hawaii and Ice Cucumber flavors of years past.