food travel

Postcards from Southwestern France: Gazpacho or cold soup, Cassoulet, Albi, Moissac, Conques

maki — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:04:28 +0200

We left Provence this week for a little trip to the Midi-Pyrénées in the southwestern part of France. We’ve been trying to save money by cooking at home most of the time since we started our nomadic existence in France (see previously; not that that’s much of a hardship, since the produce and other foodstuffs in Provence are spectacular). But this week we’ve been staying in an apartment in a 17th century townhouse right around the corner from the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in the heart of Albi, the capital of the Tarn Department. Since there are tons of great little restaurants here, we’ve been indulging ourselves a bit.

One thing I have noticed while eating out a lot more is that many places are serving little cups of what they usually call gazpacho, as an amuse bouche or as part of the entrée (appetizer). They are basically cold soups, made with various vegetables. I’m not sure this is a regional custom, but it is very nice regardless. Here’s one we had the other day in the small medieval town of Moissac, as an amuse-bouche. It was basically a cold tomato juice, but very nice and refreshing.

Here’s another kind of gazpacho - a cold melon soup, served as an amuse bouche also. It was just pureed melon with nothing added I think.

Here’s another one, served as part of an entrée. This time it was a cold sweet pepper soup.

Here’s a more classic gazpacho, made with tomatoes and cucumber, served in a tumbler. This was a full entrée portion.

Finally, here’s my favorite - it was merely described as a gazpacho des legumes (vegetable gazpacho). It was a cold vegetable soup; I tasted sweet corn, maybe carrot, celery, and so on. I know gazpacho purists may shake their heads, but it was really refreshing and delicious. It was one part of an amuse bouche - the other part was what you see on the spoon in the back, a piece of rough paté with a tiny bit of chutney. The combination was really nice.

Once we get back ‘home’ to Provence, I think I am going to start more meals with a little cold soup of some kind. It’s really a great start to a summer meal.

Cassoulet and more food from the region

The most famous regional dish is cassoulet, the hearty dish made of white beans and loads of hearty (fat!) meaty bits, such as duck, sausage, and - fat! I’ve had cassoulet elsewhere many times before, and made it myself, but the the way they make it here is really much better in my opinion. Here’s a relatively light yet still rich version that we had at a restaurant with the adorable name of La Fourchet A Droite (The Fork (is) to the Right) in Albi. The abundance of fat just makes it unctuously creamy rather than greasy. I liked it so much, I’ve managed to have it twice so far…and am contemplating having it again for dinner tonight! (Actually cassoulet is supposed to have originated in the town of Castelnaudary, which is about an hour from Albi. I think I need to come back here when the weather is cooler and more conducive to enjoying piping hot bean-and-meat casseroles.)

This is a Pastis Gascon, a speciality of the Gers region, also in the Midi Pyrénées. It’s a pastry made of many layers of phyllo dough, and is filled with Armagnac-soaked and caramelized apple. I’m not sure I totally love it, but it is so pretty to look at.

I much preferred this pie though. It was filled with poached apricots and served with a sour cherry sauce and rich vanilla ice cream. Gorgeous! This was dessert at the meal that started with the gazpacho des legumes amuse bouche pictured above, at the Hotel Sainte Foy in Conques.

A little more Albi, plus Conques and Moissac

Albi is a fairly large town, but very mellow, and not crowded at all, even though it is the hometown of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and has a fine museum dedicated to him, not to mention a big, fortress like cathedral, beautiful riverside views, a quaint old town and more. The town is built of red brick, which is a gorgeous pink-rose color. Here it is in the early morning…

…and in the late afternoon…

Here’s the inside of the large Marché Couvert (covered market) in the center of town. It has several produce stalls, a fish stall, bakeries and pastry shops, and a lot more. It may not be quite as awesome as the larger markets in Provence, but it’s still quite good. We bought stuff from here for the meals that we ate in.

I loved this little store, called L’Artisan Pastellier. They sell clothing, accessories and other products made from the blue Pastel dye that was highly prized in Europe until indigo was imported from India. The blue is softer than indigo. They also sell art pastels, watercolor paints and other art supplies, mostly made with vegetable based dyes. Their web site.

We also made side trips to the medieval towns of Conques (that’s a photo of Conques up at the top) and Moissac. One reason why I brought my mother here is because she’s been rather obsessed by the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostella, and Conques and Moissac were key stops. Both are beautiful places, though Conques is quite touristy. Moissac is a bit more relaxed I think. The Gothic cloister there is breathtaking.

If you’d like to see photos, they are all on my Flickr.

All in all, we really enjoyed our week here, even though the heat was stifling for much of it. (It felt a lot more humid than Provence, though that may just have been an anomaly.) I don’t think I would choose to live here full time over Provence, but I think I’ll try to come back here again in the cooler months - for, you guessed it, more cassoulet.

Borough Market, London: A Very Literary Food Paradise

maki — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:44:37 +0200

When I found out that I’d be in London this week for a couple of days, my thoughts immediately turned to what food-related things I could fit into my schedule. Tea and scones, check. Curry, check. A visit to Japan Centre, check. But at the top of my list was a proper roam around Borough Market.

Long time readers of Just Hungry may know that I absolutely love markets, and go to them whenever and wherever I can. One big reason I’ve decided to move to the south of France is because of the wonderful markets here. So, how does London’s oldest market compare to some of my favorites? While Borough Market is not the biggest market, nor does it have the widest selection, or even the best selection, of foodstuffs, it’s a very special place. In my opinion, it’s simply the most intellectually pleasing market there is.

Let’s start with the literary quotes on colorful banners, hanging from the beams:

Of course, there has to be at least one from Shakepeare.

I think this one is my favorite.

A little lower down, there are the boards displayed by individual vendors. This one is at the Fish Kitchen (aka Fish!), a fish and chips purveyor.

(This is the fish and chips they talk of, eaten sprinkled with vinegar and salt of course.)

This tree shaped sign stands next to a stall selling jams and chutneys.

This one is so beautifully done, I wouldn’t mind hanging it on my wall as art. I wonder if there are graphic design pros that create these display boards, or if the stall holders letter them themselves?

A sign of the times, but with a sense of humor.

How could you resist pies with such cheerful features?

Here’s the cheese display at Neal’s Yard Dairy. The contents and provenance of each cheese is carefully noted, though of course if you ask the cheesemongers they’ll happily explain it to you all over again, together with a sample.

One big cheese, made with love.

It’s not just the fans of the written word that are happy here. How about these displays of vegetables, just like still life paintings?

Even humble onions and potatoes get the artistic treatment.

I’ve seen witty signage and beautiful displays like this elsewhere in the UK, but at Borough Market you get to see the best, all in one place.

Food wise, the prepared foods are the main draw of Borough Market, especially for visitors. You can get everything from fish and chips to Thai green curry to hot dogs to chicken sandwiches. You can eat things on the spot, or take them home with you. And the samples are plentiful - here some rose-scented Turkish Delight; there some date and apple chutney; and how about some gluten-free chocolate brownies, or perhaps some Eccles cake? You could probably make a meal of just the samples. But don’t miss out on the meat pies, the sausage rolls, the domestic and imported cheeses, and so much more.

Having spent some of my growing up years in England, I have a special spot in my heart, not to mention my stomach, for British food. I know that British food still has a bad reputation in other countries, but a visit to Borough Market will do a lot to rid you of such misconceptions. At its finest, British food is grand.

Borough Market is open to the public on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Check for hours and directions on the official website.

(Footnote: My favorite food of the whole market:)

A Frugal Eats blitz through Düsseldorf's Japantown

maki — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:25:59 +0200

I’ve long been intrigued by the famed Japantown or Japan Quarter area of Düsseldorf, Germany, but haven’t had a chance to go there. It’s about a 5 hour drive from Zürich, and there was no work-related excuse to go there - until last week that is. So, following up on my mostly Japanese frugal eats blitz through Paris, here is my 2-day all-Japanese blitz through Düsseldorf.

Düsseldorf has a Japantown because a lot of Japanese businesses have their German or European headquarters there. It is said to have their third largest Japanese expat population in Europe. (I think the top two are London and Paris, though I can’t confirm this.)

The Japantown, or Japanese quarter, is centered around Immermanstrasse. There are restaurants, travel agencies, appliance stores and the like, all catering to the expat population.

There are grocery stores too of course. The two that are on Immermanstrasse are Shochiku and Taiyo Shokuhin. Shochiku is a cramped store that has just about all the Japanese groceries you could want. It seems to be Japanese owned and operated, since the store people were yelling out at each other in Japanese, though the cashier on the second day I went there was an extremely bored looking German woman. (She stared blankly at the Japanese customers asking questions in Japanese; eventually a young Japanese man showed up and sat near the register to politely respond to the Japanese customers. It was kind of funny.) It also carries a lot of Korean foodstuffs - about 60 to 70% Japanese food, 30-40% Korean. There’s a nice looking fresh fish and meat counter, which had sashimi-grade fish, and a small fresh produce section. There’s a small selection of prepared food like sushi and salads. I saw Japanese familes/couples with small children, Japanese businessmen on their way home from work juggling a shopping basket and a briefcase, and a few German people shopping there.

Dae-Yang Asiatische Lebensmittel or Taiyo Shokuhin is just a couple of storefronts down from Shochiku. It is Korean owned and operated (they were yelling at each other in Korean). The customer mix was similar to Shochiku, though there were more Germans there, perhaps because the aisles are bit wider here than at Shochiku. The stock is about 50/50 Korean/Japanese.

There are a couple of Japanese bakeries too. Here is Bakery Taka, again on Immermanstrasse; they have things like anpan, melonpan and of course, Japanese white bread or shokupan. There’s a small eat-in area.

Maruyasu, with several locations in Düsseldorf, is a Japanese delicatessen. They sell bentos, sushi, and cooked food or osouzai. (I wasn’t that impressed by their sushi or bentos though. The sushi at Shochiku was better and cheaper, and the bentos were just ok. The onigiri were pretty mediocre to be honest. Surely green seaweed is not supposed to dye the rice a bright green.)

At Takagi, a small bookstore on Marienstrasse, just a short block south of Immermanstrasse, there were a noisy group of German tweens squealing in delight at some cute manga or Hello Kitty or whatever. (Actually there were quite a few Germans who seemed to be treating the area like a tourist stop. There was a group of about a dozen older teenagers in Taiyo/Dae-Yang getting all excited by the Japanese candies, and a group of 5 middle-aged people loudly wondering amongst themselves what this or that food was and making rather rude comments, as though they thought none of the Asians around them could understand what they were saying. A bit off-putting.)

Once more to the ramen

What cheap Japanese food does a Japanese expat crave? That’s right, ramen, as I did in Paris. From perusing some Japanese web sites, there aren’t that many ramen places in Düsseldorf, but the one we went to, Takumi at Immermanstrasse 28, was not bad at all. All the seats, including the outside tables, were filled at 12 noon on Saturday, mostly with Japanese families. (At the table next to ours, a young mother breastfed her baby under a discreet large bib before tackling her ramen. That kid is going to grow up to be a ramen lover for sure.) Takumi is a Sapporo style ramen-ya, which means the soup is a bit lighter than other styles (Kyuushuu style, Nagoya style, etc). Here is negi ramen with shio (salt/plain) soup. It was very good, though the noodles could have been better. A level better than the ramen I had in Paris I’d say.

The Guy had their egg ramen (it had some cute name, like Ajitama Ramen or something, but I may have that wrong) with miso flavored soup. It was really nice, but what blew us away were the freshly cooked, crispy, juicy and meaty chicken karaage.

So is Düsseldorf worth a detour?

As a tourist destination, the city itself lacks the character and atmosphere that you get in many other German cities. It’s a strictly business kind of town. As for the Japantown itself, similar areas in say, New York’s East Village or Los Angeles or San Francisco, or even Paris or London, are really more vibrant and interesting. On the other hand, if you live nearby (especially in Germany) and want to do a bit of Japanese grocery shopping and the like, it’s a good place to go.

Overall though, I was a little underwhelmed by Düsseldorf. One thing I noticed was that the Japanese people walking around there really stood out, in the way that Japanese expats in Paris, or London, or New York, don’t (it’s easy to tell the tourists apart from the residents in New York for example). The way the girls/women dressed for instance was very Japanese and not at all adapted to their location, if that makes any sense. I am guessing that the Japanese community in Düsseldorf may stick to itself and doesn’t really try to become part of the overall city or German culture much. I could be wrong, but that’s the impression I got.

Addresses

Takagi GmbH Books & More 高木書店: Marienstr.41; 40210 Düsseldorf; TEL: 0211 2107238; Website; Japanese books, gifts, stationery; Japanese language learning aids. Has a small selection of Clickety-Clack bento boxes. The owner lady is very friendly.

Takumi: Immermannstr.28; 40210 Duesseldorf; TEL: 0211 1793308; Mon-Fri 12:00 - 15:00 and 17:30 - 22:30, Sat-Sun 12:00 - 22:00; Sapporo-style ramen restaurant. The young staff don’t seem to speak much German.

All the other addresses mentioned are listed on the Japanese food stores in Germany page.

Addendum: We stayed at a low-service apartment-hotel via Central Apartment. A low-service apartment-hotel means that they don’t come to change your linens and make up your bed every day, but you have a small equipped kitchen, laundry in the building and other comforts of home. The apartment we got was in a residential area just a few blocks from Innermanstrasse, and was large, modern, light and impeccably clean. The kitchen even had a Zojirushi rice cooker, and JSTV was available on TV. (They seem to market quite aggressively to Japanese travelers.) The rates were very reasonable too. I liked it a lot more than a conventional hotel. The only thing against it was that the furnishings are on the Ikea level, and feel rather flimsy, but it’s basically just like staying at a friend’s apartment while they are out of town, without their clutter to deal with.

Workshop Issé: Purveyor of the finest Japanese food and sake in the heart of Paris

maki — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:22:20 +0200

From the outside, Workshop Issé looks like just another unassuming little Japanese grocery and gift store. There are quite a few stores of this nature scattered about Europe these days. But inside this little boutique in the heart of the Japanese quarter in Paris, you can experience something quite special: A crash course on top quality artisanal Japanese food and drink.

Inside the tiny store, sleek modern shelves are filled with what, to the untrained eye, might seem like the normal Japanese cooking ingredients - soy sauce, vinegar, spices, sake and other alcoholic beverages. Look closer though, and you soon see that these are no ordinary products. There’s a soy sauce that’s been aged for 2 years in ancient barrels; a pitch-black sweet miso that’s been aged for 3 full years; finely sliced and dried battera konbu seaweed for making marinated mackerel. There are salted cherry blossoms that have been matured for six months, so no trace of bitterness remains. There are gardenia seeds (kuchinashi no mi), used as a natural yellow colorant - I’ve never seen these for sale outside of Japan, anywhere. There are what seem like dozens of fine sakes and shouchuus, and vinegars of all flavors and colors. This is a store with some seriously high end foodstuffs for sale.

The variety and quality of the selection is a little overwhelming, even for someone like me who at least knows what the products are. This store would be quite intimidating to someone not familiar with Japanese cuisine. But the Workshop part of Workshop Issé’s name is a clue to their selling approach. Here, you can do a sampling of products, a degustation in fact (the method normally used to by a wine maker or merchant to sell wines), gently guided by a knowledgeable staff member, at least one of whom is a sake sommelier.

I had a chance to sit down and chat with with Monsieur Toshiro Kuroda, the owner and president of Workshop Issé. Having owned and run a Japanese restaurant in Paris for nearly 4 decades, he started Workshop Issé two years ago. His main reason, he said, was simply because he couldn’t get a hold of the high quality ingredients he wanted from Japan through existing channels, so he decided to import them himself. There are no mass produced products here. All are of the highest artisanal quality; a typical supplier has 20 employees or less, and has been in business for more than 200 years. Here’s M. Kuroda with his dog Pii-chan.

Besides selling via their web site and the boutique directly to customers, they also supply some of the best professional kitchens in France. For instance, if you’ve had the yuzu-flavored macaroons from Pierre Hermé, the yuzu juice and powder came from Workshop Issé. They also sell to the Michelin three star restaurant Troisgros.

I asked M. Kuroda about his marketing approach. He said that his mainly French customers take very well to the concept, since they are after all used to buying wine this way. They also don’t blink an eye at the prices for their Grand Cru equivalent sakes, which can cost up to €250 per bottle and more.

It’s obvious that M. Kuroda, not to mention his staff, take great pride in what they are doing. And no wonder - their product lineup would be impressive even in Tokyo. I don’t know of a store like it anywhere, certainly not outside of Japan.

My budget that day was not up to buying a Grand Cru sake, so I picked up a few things that intrigued me. Here are a bottle of ume vinegar, and aged soy sauce. I love the classic labels, and the simple list of ingredients - for the soy sauce, just soy beans, salt, wheat. The ume vinegar is made from organic ume plums.

And here’s some stone ground yuzu powder. Now I usually have this sent to me from Japan (or I buy it there), but it’s nice to know it’s available on this side of the world. The fragrance of this slightly coarse powder is wonderful, and the slightly bitter citrusy taste is addictive.

Is Workshop Issé worth a detour in Paris, even if you go to Tokyo regularly? I would say absolutely yes, unless you are thoroughly familiar with Japanese cuisine, speak and read Japanese fluently, or have a Japanese gourmet guide at your side. The combination of the carefully selected range of products and the knowledgeable staff, who speak Japanese, French and English, make this store a real winner. And if you aren’t going to Tokyo on a regular basis and live anywhere near Paris or are visiting, and love Japanese food and cooking, it’s a must stop.

I guess the only negative things about Workshop Issé are: They don’t really have much in the way of fresh ingredients. There is a small refrigerated section with a limited supply of things like tofu and vegetables, plus real grated wasabi in a tube (€15, but worth it). Also, their prices are not cheap by any means, but you are paying for top quality.

Workshop Issé: 11 rue Saint Augustin (Paris 2); Tel: 01 4296 2674; Open 7 days, 11:00 - 19:30 with no lunch break. Closed on national holidays.; French and Japanese website. Mailorder within France and throughout Europe (but verify if they can ship something to your destination first).; Besides food and alcoholic drinks, they also have a small selection of dinnerware and gift items (they did have a couple of nice bento boxes).

You may also want to check out the rest of the Issé & cie. Japan-in-Paris mini empire: Bizan, a high end kaiseki restaurant; Issé, a ‘tempura and tapas’ restaurant; Momonoki, a tonkatsu and obento restaurant; and O-bento, a bento delivery service. All are described on this page (French). You can buy some readymade foods (osouzai) from the last three establishments at Workshop Issé too.

For a look at cheap Japanese eats in Paris, see A Frugal Eats mostly Japanese blitz through Paris.

(Merci beaucoup to Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini for telling me about Workshop Issé!)

A Frugal Eats (mostly Japanese) blitz through Paris

maki — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:54:30 +0200

As I wrote a couple of days ago over on Just Bento, I recently spent a scant 3 days in Paris, on the way from Brittany back to Zürich. A normal person would spend such a short time in the gastronomical capital of [insert your favorite geographic superlative here] exploring la cuisine française. But my objective for this trip was different. My digestive system and palate were rather exhausted from 2 weeks of consuming the delicious salty cultured butter, crême fraiche, galettes (crêpes), seafood in creamy sauces, and oh yes, pastries to die for, all washed down with cider both brut (dry) and doux (less dry), that are the specialities of Brittany. I was craving the plain white rice and tea like you wouldn’t believe.

Because of a lack of planning, we had to book a rather expensive hotel in Paris, which meant our food budget was really tight. No indulging on sushi fests and kaiseki dinners, even though both are possible there. So I made it my objective to pursue cheap Parisian Japanese eats. Therefore, this article is part of Frugal Food Month. (See how I shoehorned that in?)

There seem to be three major concentrations of East Asian food in Paris. One, and the biggest, is the Chinatown area in the 13th arrondissement. Then there’s another enclave of sorts in the 15th arrondissement. But for tourists with little time, like myself, the most convenient area especially for Japanese food is the area that straddles the 1st and 2nd arrondissements near the Opéra. Every other storefront on certain streets there seem to be either a Japanese restaurant, or a Japanese-oriented store.

You do need to take a good look at those allegedly Japanese restaurants though. I have been reading a lot of Japanese expat bloggers (and there are quite a lot of them in Paris), and most complain that these so-called Japanese restaurants are not good. Not all are run by Japanese people or have Japanese cooks. That does not of course preclude an establishment from not being good, but I guess you could say that the odds may worsen.

So, the best thing to do may to just follow the crowds. By 19:00 (7pm), the popular restaurants are crammed full. Some even have lines around the block.

The center of this Japanese community in Paris is arguably Kioko, a small grocery store that’s been in business for 37 years.

Inside, you’ll find a regular Japanese grocery store. The selection is comparable to similar stores you’ll find elsewhere - nothing fancy, all the basics. They also have a baby food club (join up to order Japanese baby food), special events, a free Japanese community paper, and so on. (For bento fans, they do have a small selection of boxes upstairs.)

BookOff is a Japanese second hand book store, with branches throughout Japan as well as in several North American cities. They have two stores in Paris right by each other. This is the Opéra store, at 29-31, rue Saint-Augustin. They have a Point Carte that you can also use at Kioko (get enough stamps on your card, get free stuff.) (Book Off English web site.)

There are also Korean grocery stores that carry a lot of Japanese food. Here’s Ace Opéra. I found their prices to be a tad cheaper for things like bottled green tea compared to Kioko and the bento store Jujiya.

The food

So, what did I eat? Well, the best cheap food I found in the area (besides takeout bento) was ramen. We tried a couple of places, and weren’t disappointed at either. Here is tonkotsu ramen (pork bone soup ramen) at Sapporo Ramen.　The soup was very good, the noodles could have been better. But then, this is Paris, not Tokyo, and I was happy.

And here’s negi ramen (ramen with lots of sliced leeks) at…I think it was Higuma. Again, soup was fine, the char siu a bit fatty but good, noodles could have been better, but was still ok.

A bowl of ramen on its own is around 7 to 9 Euro; as a set menu with gyoza dumplings and such, it’s around 12 to 14 Euro. It compares favorably to set menus at French restaurants in the area.

(On the other hand, cheap sushi in Paris - just say no.)

We did venture out beyond the Opéra Japanese area. Following up on a rave review on a Japanese blog/site aimed at expats and tourists, we sought out some Korean fried chicken at Han Lim, an established Korean restaurant in the 5e, right off the Rue Mouffetard at the Place Contrascope.

I had been craving KFC ever since…oh ever since I was in New York in November, to be honest. And the version here did not disappoint. It was some of the best Korean fried chicken I’ve ever had. Crispy, light, and juicy; very more-ish. It was 14 Euro per person for a menu starting with soup (I had a delicious spicy-pork soup), the KFC with the usual delicious Korean vegetable side dishes (kimchi, namul) and rice, and tea. I seriously wanted to take home a bucketful of that chicken, but was reluctantly convinced not to since we had other dinner plans. Not to mention scheduled afternoon stopovers at Sadaharu Aoki and Berthillon. I sometimes wish that I had an extra stomach. (Besides, I don’t think they do takeout…)

I wasn’t able to stay 100% focused on Japanese/Asian food. I couldn’t resist a stopover in the Marais (my excuse: I wanted to check out the newer bento boxes at Muji) for a Middle Eastern food fest at Chez Marianne.

I am not sure what I like the best: the tarama, the falafel, the bland yet oddly addictive chopped liver, or the green olive tapenade. It’s all good though. With a big basket of bread it’s 12 Euro per person.

And speaking of falafel, there’s also l’As du Falafel, right around the corner…we passed on it this time since we were full to the brim from Chez Marianne, but next time…

Epilogue: ‘Other cuisines’ and Paris

As I write this and look over my photos, it really strikes me that there’s something seriously wrong about the last sentence in this article about Paris ‘never embracing other cuisines’. Maybe not by the kind of people who participate in Zagat surveys, but judging from the lines forming around ramen places and okonomiyaki places and falafel places and more, it seems clear that many other Parisiens are embracing good food, whatever the origin. I would argue that people who are used to good local cuisine are likely to know what good ‘other’ cuisine is as well.

In any case, now that it looks even more likely that I’ll be moving to France, I’m looking forward to exploring Paris and its inexpensive yet good ‘other’ cuisines as often as I can. 3 days was far, far too short.

Next time, I’ll be talking about a very special Japanese store in Paris, one that’s not quite frugal.

A few addresses

The grocery stores are all listed on the Japanese grocery stores in France handbook page.

Han Lim: 6 rue Blainville 75005 Paris; Tel : 01 43 54 62 74; Métro: place Monge (7); Wed - Sun 12:00～14:30 / 19:00～22:30; closed Monday, Tuesday lunch; Korean restaurant. Has all the usual things - barbeque, soups, etc. The fried chicken is a house speciality. Yum!

There are many ramen stores in the Opera area; here are just two. Look at the menus in the windows, judge the number of people inside and waiting in line, and dive in accordingly.

Higuma: 32 bis rue Sainte Anne, 75001 Paris; Tel: 01 47 03 38 59; Métro: Pyramides or Opera; Ramen (or as they spell it on the storefront, Lamen) restaurant. Japanese spoken.; Mon - Sat 11:30 - 22:00, closed Sun; Also at 163 rue St-Honoré, near the Louvre

Sapporo Ramen: 37, Rue Sainte-Anne, 75001 Paris; Tel.: 01 42 60 60 98; Métro: Pyramides or Quatre-Septembre; Mon-Sun 11:30 - 22:30; Ramen restaurant. Chinese spoken.

Chez Marianne: 2, Rue des Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais, 75004 Paris; Tel. : +(33) 1 42 72 18 86; Métro: Saint-Paul, Pont Marie (Cité des Arts); Mon-Sun 12:00 - 00:00; Middle Eastern restaurant; a few tables, plus a takeout window.; L’As du Falafel is right around the corner on Rue des Rosiers.

For a report on a definitely not cheap Japanese food store in Paris, see Workshop Issé.

A followup report on being vegan in Japan

maki — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:42:23 +0200

Asha, the reader who sent me the question that inspired me to write Japan: A Survival Guide for Vegans has sent in a great follow-up comment. I’ve posted it here so you won’t miss it. She found it a lot easier to follow her vegan regime in Tokyo than in Nagasaki, where she has been living. That makes sense I thin: any major metropolitan area these days is likely to have many people who are vegan or at least interested in a vegan way of eating, while the same might not hold true for more regional towns (Nagasaki has a long history of being a very international city, but is much smaller than Tokyo of course.)

What follows are Asha’s words.

I recently spent about four days in Tokyo and will admit that was the EASIEST time as a vegan out of the entire six and a half months I’ve been here. There are vegan restaurants EVERYWHERE. I ate with a fork for the first time since leaving America. I drank coffee at a cafe that wasn’t Starbucks. I indulged on things I haven’t had since leaving my home country and thoroughly enjoyed everything. It was incredible.

I am vegan, and though I’ve been pretty much unable to eat out at all here in Nagasaki, I don’t mind cooking my own meals. I spend a little more money than the other students from America but that’s because they are living off of incredibly unhealthy prepackaged foods. I really love experimenting with all the new and exciting vegetables and other things here. I recently found a small store called “vegetarian” [that actually sells meat…hah] and found 玄米もち [genmai mochi - brown rice mochi]！ I was so excited. I can’t wait to try it.

I really like making the Chinese savory version of 粥 kayu [rice porridge] with my own personal twist, usually using some miso, a package of natto.. various veggies.. sometimes tofu.. and of course seaweeds. It’s a great meal for any time of the day. I like to stir fry, make curries out of kabocha squash, cauliflower and red lentils [that my lovely boyo brought me from America- thank goodness for lentils!!!] and pretty much steaming or broiling [i have no oven] any vegetable I can find.

At first I ate the same boring mix of bean sprouts and carrots but thankfully have branched way, way out. Don’t forget to try all the different kinds of mushrooms and greens!! Renkon 蓮根 [lotus root], yamaimo 山芋 [mountain yam], satoimo 里芋 [taro root] and of course satsumaimo 薩摩芋 [sweet potato] are all delicious and usually quite cheap. I could live off kabocha squash- it’s THAT good.

I recently found pure organic soy milk and there’s organic tofu here that is super, super cheap. I like unsweetened ankou [azuki bean paste] on brown rice cakes and soy milk with fruit and brown rice flakes found in the organic section of one of the supermarkets I visit.

I’m rambling now, but I hope you get the gist of this entirely too long comment of me slowly adjusting to what’s available here. I think my visit to Tokyo [and enjoying things like sakura muffins and vegan tempeh sandwiches] will hold me over until August.

Thank you Maki for the awesome sites and post. I love all of your sites- especially Hungry for Words! Keep up the great work [and thanks for the email back about the bread!]

Thank you, Asha, for the very detailed comment! I thin it will be very helpful to other vegans venturing out to Japan.

Kitchens out of the past

maki — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:54:35 +0100

I know, I haven’t updated here in some time. Why, you may ask, am I updating Just Bento but not Just Hungry? Well, I had actually stockpiled up some bento posts before the Big Move and Nomadic Period commenced, and also arranged for some guest posts. My plan was for Just Bento to go on semi-autopilot (which it has), and for Just Hungry to be updated with food-related things about my travels. But it hasn’t quite worked out the way I wanted to on that front, due to getting really sick the first week on the road, then just being very busy.

But anyway, here I am. As I wrote before, I have now moved out of the house in the suburbs of Zürich where I had lived off and on for some years, and I’m now roaming around looking for the new place to call home. At this point we are about 60-70% leaning towards ‘somewhere in France’ (to be determined where). So last week, we started looking at some houses for real.

Now, we are mainly looking at houses that need some work done to them, since we figure that we’ll get more for our money that way. Besides, we never totally like someone else’s taste in decor anyway, so we might as well start off with an empty shell or something.

Of the houses we’ve seen so far, the kitchens in two of them were particulary memorable. (Actually, most of the other houses didn’t even have kitchens.) First up is this one, in a 1920s house in a town in the Vaucluse (a region in the northern part of Provence).

I’m sure the range is not from the 1920s - I’m guessing it’s circa 1970s. It’s tiny, and fitted into the beautiful, huge fireplace. My first thought was, wow what a waste to stick a cooker in that fireplace! But I guess it makes sense, for ventilation purposes? (No, I don’t get the birdcage either. It was sure pretty though.)

Here’s a closeup look. The chocolate brown cabinet thing is the tiny refrigerator - the other appliances (not shown, in a wall closet) matched. That fireplace…so gorgeous.

The other side of the fireplace. I am not sure if those cabinets were used as worktops. Maybe the occupant used a kitchen table for working. In any case, it’s a kitchen that is so different from our modern concept of what a kitchen should have. But despite the lack of ‘worktop space’, I am sure that the meals produced there were delicious regardless.

Now here is another kitchen that left a deep impression on me. It’s circa 1970s, un-renovated I think, and in perfect condition. It’s a symphony of browns!

Another view. The stainless steel handles, the mustardly-yellow tiles…the teak! Nothing says ’70s like teak. And mustard-yellow.

I’m pretty sure the appliances are not circa 1970s, but the plastic coffee pot does fit very well in here.

Their vacuum cleaner seems to be from the same era as the kitchen. I wonder if it works?

And the pantry down the hallway. It too was spotless. I do love the concept of a separate pantry.

It’s really fascinating to see for real how fashions in kitchens really do change so much over the years. Nowadays I guess we want lots and lots of working space, tons of cabinets, granite worktops, neutral colors, chrome and sleekness. I’m not sure we’d buy either of these houses, since it almost seems a shame to rip out the period kitchens (and other reasons). But it was so interesting, even educational, to have seen them in any case. We’re going to see more houses in the upcoming weeks, and more kitchens. I can’t wait.

Japan: A Survival Guide For Vegans

maki — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:12:27 +0100

At the moment I’m sitting in a cottage in France (recovering from a cold, but that’s another story), a land notorious for not being so vegan friendly except in the larger cities. The native cuisine is generally not vegan - even vegetable dishes often use things like dairy products or animal fats or stock in the cooking process, which can make things difficult. But if you are a vegan you probably know about this, and come prepared accordingly. (I think it’s a lot easier for lacto-ovo vegetarians in France; you could live on the delicious bread and cheese.)

If you are going to Japan, you might think that being vegan would be a lot easier. Japanese cuisine has a reputation for using lots of vegetables, seaweed and other vegan-friendly products. There is even a particular kind of cuisine in Japan called sho-jin ryouri (精進料理）, a mostly vegan temple cuisine, with a long and highly regarded tradition.

But as a reader who emailed me recently found out, being vegan in Japan is just as hard as it is in Europe.

There aren’t many vegans or vegetarians in Japan

I don’t have any numbers in front of me, but I am guessing that there are far more vegans or vegetarians in North America and the UK than there are in Japan as a percentage of the general population. According to this article in the Japan Times, most Japanese people, even those that frequent vegan/vegetarian restaurants, do so for health reasons rather than ethical or religious reasons (and most aren’t veggie 100% of the time). Generally speaking, the Japanese diet is based on fish, sometimes poultry and eggs, rice, legumes (pulses, beans) and vegetables, with meat and dairy being a later addition.

Traditional Japanese cuisine and dashi

Traditional Japanese cuisine, or washoku, is very healthy (the only thing you should watch out for really is the high salt content in some dishes). It uses lots of vegetables, seaweed, legumes and so on, with a relatively small amount of protein from fish or meat. However, one thing that makes it almost impossible to be a vegan in a traditional Japanese restaurant is the fact that dashi is used in practically everything. Here is my recipe for basic dashi; as you can see, it contains dried bonito (fish) flakes, or katsuobushi. All regular dashi recipes specify the use of katsuobushi or niboshi (dried fish). Even dashi granules, unless specified otherwise, contain bonito extract. There are dashi granules made from seaweed sources only, but these are not usually used in restaurants.

Dashi is not only used in the obvious places like soups and stews. It’s used in just about every savory dish. It’s used in dressings and sauces for vegetable dishes, as a cooking liquid for sushi rice, in dipping sauces, as a ‘hidden flavor’ (kakushi aji 隠し味) and so on. Just about the only things that are fairly sure to be dashi-free are plain rice and homemade pickles. Even things like umeboshi (pickled plums) often have some dashi added to them.

Ironically the only vegan umami flavor additive is probably pure MSG (the most common Japanese product name is Ajinomoto), which is made from soy beans. But the better a restaurant is, the less likely they are to be using straight MSG in their cooking. A better establishment would make their own dashi, and a cheaper one would most likely use dashi granules.

The use of dashi takes nothing away from the fact that traditional washoku is very healthy. For omnivores, I can’t think of many other cuisines that are better for you. But of course if you can’t eat fish in any form for whatever reason, the omnipresence of dashi can pose a problem.

Some regional cuisines like Okinawan cuisine use a dashi made of fish and pork or chicken. (Okinawan cuisine relies a lot on pork.)

So can’t I just dine on sho-jin ryouri all the time?

Sure, you could. You would need a very generous budget though. Sho-jin ryouri is Japanese haute cuisine, and a typical meal at a sho-jin ryouri restaurant can set you back 10,000-20,000 yen per person or more. (You might have luck finding less expensive places in the Kyoto/Nara area or from some temples open to the public.)

Non-traditional Japanese cuisine

So what if you were to avoid washoku altogether in Japan, and stick to ‘western’ style food? That can be a problem too. The reader who sent in the question was having a very hard time finding any vegan bread. In Japan, mainstream bread usually uses white flour, butter, and/or eggs. You can find things like baguettes and hard rolls that are probably butter-free, but you would have to ask. Whole grain breads are slowly gaining in popularity, but usually a ‘whole wheat’ bread in Japan means something with 10% or so of whole wheat flour, with the rest being white flour.

Japanese-style western cuisine or yohshoku is largely based on traditional French cooking techniques. So, the better yohshoku restaurants rely heavily on the use of properly made beef stock and demi-glace. (A pot of carefully prepared demi-glace is a badge of honor for a good yohshoku restaurant or cafe.) Besides the fact that most yohshoku dishes are meat or egg based anyway (beef stews, curries, omurice, etc.) this is not a good choice for a vegan or even a vegetarian.

So what’s a vegan to do in Japan?

For eating out, there is the Japan Vegan Restaurant Pocketguide in English - they say the new issue is due out in March. You can also try looking for macrobiotic restaurants (マクロビ　or マクロビオティック). The aforementioned page on The Japan Times site also has a small list (though it’s from 2007, so check before you go.) And treat yourself to an authentic sho-jin ryouri restaurant at least once!

But if your stay in Japan is more long term, as in many countries your best bet is to cook for yourself. You can even cook washoku for yourself, using vegan dashi. Use my vegan dashi recipe, or find konbu seaweed based dashi granules. There are all kinds of interesting vegetables in Japan for you to try, as well as different kinds of beans an legumes (dry or canned). And of course, there are the many varieties of tofu. If you can, get tofu from a tofu-ya (tofu store) that makes their own. Freshly made tofu is just amazing.

Try to eat brown rice instead of white rice. You can find all kinds of brown rice in Japan, some of which can be cooked exactly like white rice with no extra soaking time and so on. In fact, as a vegan in Japan you’ll want to base your diet around brown rice and zakkokumai rather than whole grain baked products, if only for the fact that rice is much easier to find. You can even buy things like microwaveable brown rice or brown rice porridge; even a tourist can take advantage of these handy products.

If you can’t find things like whole wheat bread at your local supermarket or konbini (convenience store), try the food halls of department stores, or look for natural food stores.

Lawson, the konbini chain, has a new ‘concept’ store chain called Natural Lawson. While they are not necessarily vegan or vegetarian, they purport to carry things like organic, low calorie and ‘natural’ products. List of stores (in Japanese); so far only in the Tokyo/Kanto area.

If you are in Japan long term, investigate joining a farming coop (農協）in your area, or just signing up for a national one that ships their products. Ask your neighbors, or look in magazines like Kurowassan (クロワッサン (Croissant)) which often has special issues on macrobiotic or vegetarian/vegan cooking, natural healing and such. There’s also a quarterly magazine called Veggy STEADY GO! that you can look for.

Incidentally, you can rest assured that any Japanese or not-Japanese recipe categorized as vegan on Just Hungry or Just Bento will really be vegan! For Japanese recipes, I always make sure to use vegan dashi.

Mochitsuki in your neighborhood?

maki — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:15:43 +0100

Mochitsuki photo by Ivva

Mochitsuki (餅つき）is a New Year’s ritual in Japan, where people get together to pound some steamed ‘sweet’ or sticky rice into gooey, sticky mochi in a big wooden barrel. Nowadays most mochi is made mechanically, but this energetic manual pounding is still practiced all over Japan. (My aunt and uncle still do it, even though they are both in their 70s.) If you’ve never had a chance to see a Mochitsuki in action, it can be really fun, with just a small thrill of danger (the mochi turner’s hands could get crushed by the heavy hammer!)

This is the week to start looking for mochitsuki events where you are, even if you don’t live in Japan. For example, in London, Japan Centre will hold their annual Mochi Pounding event in-store on January 2nd from 12 midday at 212-213 Piccadilly. In San Francisco, there will be a big Mochitsuki festival complete with taiko (big drums) at the Asian Art Museum on January 3rd.

I haven’t been able to find a lot of info about mochitsuki events online that are current (I’ve found a lot of reports about past years’ events) so look in your local papers, Japanese societies, and so on to see what’s going on. (If you find out anything, please let us know in the comments!)

Oahu, Hawai'i Part 2, Waikiki, Farmers' Market and Beyond

maki — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:21:43 +0100

Continuing my trip report! As I mentioned, I moved down to a regular hotel in Waikiki for the last 4 nights of my stay. (Several people mentioned that I should have rented a cottage or condo, and even sent some useful links. I actually prefer to do this most of the time when I travel, but because of the short notice and some other reasons, I wanted to stick to hotels this time.)

Waikiki

I don’t have a lot to say about Waikiki actually. It is beautiful, pristine, crowded, and full of tourists.

To be honest it really isn’t my style, but for someone whose ideal vacation is lots of beach time interposed with lots of shopping and eating out, a little clubbing time and some spa treatments, it’s perfect. Food wise, there are tons restaurants there, in all price ranges, to suit every taste. If you are a timid eater there are national chains, and if you like Asian food you’ll be in heaven. And the ubiquitous ABC Stores, where snacks and drinks among many other things are sold, are so thick on the ground that you can’t go half a block without hitting one.

(Derail: Nowhere is it more evident how much Japanese tourists are catered to on Oahu than in Waikiki. I have heard that some people are not too happy about this for various reasons, but just from a very brief observation it’s not really surprising. The beach is crowded with people of all ethnicities and nationalities, but in the shops you mostly see Japanese tourists, especially in the high end ones. This is something you still see in other cities too - for instance, the last time I was in Milan a year or so ago, the Dolce and Gabbana store was packed with young Japanese girls. I popped into Kate Spade in the Royal Hawaiian Center (I love her handbag designs, though I actually only own one), and during the 15 minutes or so I was there, only Japanese tourists came in - and yes I do know they were Japanese and not other Asians. I’ve always found this shopping habit of Japanese people from Japan to be bewildering and vaguely embarrassing as a fellow Japanese person. It may be that young Chinese girls are following in the footsteps of the Japanese girls in their pursuit of high end brands, and that would be sort of bad, imho. But enough about that…)

The best touristy thing we did in Waikiki was to go to the House Without A Key at the Halekulani Hotel around sunset, for tropical drinks and dinner. The food was okay, but it’s the setting that makes it all worthwhile.

I think next time I will skip dinner and just have drinks and snacks there. Here’s a mai-tai with the cold pupu (appetizer), which has a refined version of ahi tuna poke.

Honolulu

I actually didn’t get to see much of Honolulu due to a lack of time. I did do a bit of Japanese-food browsing, which I’ve written about on Just Bento. I think that if your time is very limited, Shirokiya is the best store to go to for your Japanese-stuff fix. It’s in the Ala Moana Center, which has lots of other shopping for your pleasure. The only other store I went to there though was the Crack Seed Center to pick up some li hing mui powder (a highly addictive red sweet-sour-salty powder that is popular in many Asian countries, though not in Japan).

Here’s a rainbow that broke out in the early evening sky as we drove through Honolulu:

It rained quite a lot almost every day, but it never was a downer, since the rain cleared up quite fast. Besides it was still warm, and it was fascinating to see the sky above us changing - blue sky over there, dark clouds rolling over there - as we rolled down the road in our rental car (yep we got a convertible), or sat lazily on the beach. Tropical paradise, indeed.

Saturday Farmers’ Market

Wherever I travel, I make it a point to go to a local market or marché (such as at my yearly summer destination, Provence), and this time was no exception. The highlight of my Oahu trip food-wise was the wonderful Farmers’ Market. It’s held every Saturday morning at Kapiolani Community College and elsewhere on other days (website). I went to the Saturday market, which is a just a short drive from Waikiki. (I think you can also take the bus there.) It’s not huge, but had everything a good farmers’ market should have: great local produce, plenty of ready-to-eat snacks, and a lively, friendly vibe.

I loved the displays of locally grown tropical fruit.

I’d never seen rambutan on branches before. I think we pay about this much for a single rambutan here in Zürich.

Happy eggs, flowers and baked goods - must-haves at any market.

Sweet corn and sweet onions grown on the North Shore. I loved this tablecloth.

There were also fish (locally caught and/or aquaculture) and meat (locally and organically grown) stalls. The colors of the stall here just shout Hawai’i to me.

I was a bit wary of these sea asparagus inarizushi, but they were delicious. The sea asparagus (which I know better as samphire, also known as glasswort and sea bean) are hydroponically grown locally by Kahuku Sea Asparagus.

The Two Hot Tomatoes stall was doing a brisk business in freshly deep fried vegetables. The sausage stall right nearby was also good.

Mmm, fried green tomato.

I also tried a huge strawberry daifuku, a refreshing ginger-pineapple ale, poke, and too many fruit samples to count. (I saved the daifuku, inarizushi and a bag of macadamia nuts for a picnic later at the beach.)

Needless to say, I highly recommend going to one of the farmers’ markets if you’re even vaguely interested in great local food. There’s more bang for your buck there than any high-end restaurant.

Some other culinary notes

I did not get to really a whole lot of Hawaiian food, because I just ran out of time. Also, I had some stomach troubles for about a day and a half, during which I just had onigiri (rice) from ABC and fruit, which I did not mind at all. (Fresh coconut…apple bananas…bright pink guava slices…incredibly sweet pineapple with li hing mui powder…) Next time I’ll try all those things that people urge me to.

I tried a loco moco…it’s a hambaagaa with a fried egg on top, rice and gravy. Was not bowled over. (My hambaagaa is much better than the one I had, which didn’t help.)

The Dole Plantation was quite Disneyesque, in its bland all-American-ness. The gift shop looked just like a Disney boutique. The best snack there is probably the Dole Whip, but the last time I had a Dole Whip was at Adventureland in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. We were there just briefly, mainly to look at the pineapple display garden out back. The little farmer’s market stall outside was good though (though you can find similar stalls along the North Shore roads.)

The Macadamia Nut Outlet is another tourist trap, but more endearingly down to earth. We got some coffee coated macadamias there.

Lead by a rave write-up (and a coupon) in one of the free Japanese magazines, not to mention the name, we went to Makino Chaya, a buffet in the Aloha Center. It was ok, but to be perfectly honest, they have better buffets of the type in the Northeast (specifically, Minado). But I did get to eat an indecent amount of poke there.

Wrapping up

Only 6 nights, which allows for 4 full days plus an evening and a morning if you come in from the mainland, was just too short a time to spend on Oahu. Next time I will plan a whole lot better, give myself more time, and will venture to the other islands too. I will be back for sure!

Some additional notes

If you’re at all interested in getting out of Waikiki/Honolulu and exploring the rest of Oahu on your own, a car is really good to have, even though the bus system covers the whole island basically. We rented a convertible, which was totally worth it. We also rented a GPS, which was not. It wouldn’t pick up a signal in some parts of Waikiki, probably due to the density of the buildings, and could not give instructions to natural landmarks like beaches or such - which is a serious oversight for Hawai’i! A good street map was way more useful.
Quite a few people have suggested it’s better to rent a condo or cottage in Hawai’i. I would agree. However, if you’re looking for a hotel, especially in Waikiki, be aware that most of them charge $20-30 per night for parking. The main reason we picked the Waikiki Parc was that the rate (which I found on Expedia) included parking. (The other reason was that it had access privileges to the Halekulani’s spa and things, for less than half the price. We ended up not going to the spa at all, and the House Without A Key was accessible to anyone, but at least the ‘free’ parking was worthwhile.)
Even if you don’t understand Japanese, it might be worth picking up a copy of the free KAUKAU magazine, which you will find at several magazine stands around Waikiki. It is packed with coupons for restaurants, shopping, spa treatments and such, and each coupon does have an English description. Oahu Gold (an English publication) has lots of coupons too, especially for things like tours and such.
Don’t be as unprepared as I was, and bring sandals and flip-flops from home! I ended up buying a pair of both, which ate a bit into my budget. The best footgear is a really good pair of walking sandals, which you will wearing around town as well as on the beach. Socks are like, so superfluous.
Web sites I found very useful include ‘Ono Kine Grindz, Go Visit Hawaii, and this forum thread on Trip Advisor. Someone took the advice offered there and made this handy Google Map of Oahu.