Just completed a run to the grocery store for some storm goodies ahead of the news that a storm is headed for Okinawa. Goodies means canned fruit and instant noodles. The storm (typhoon Kompasu) is ramping up and may be as strong as the last big typhoon here in 2007.
I have pulled down my laundry line, filled my tub with water and we will see how this brand new apartment building weathers the storm.
I just hope that the power stays on. See you on the other side!
I have a brief connection to the internet from my laptop tonight, so I can share a single photo from the past few weeks. The sky seems to change minute to minute from my bedroom, but this is how it looked the other night.
Real blog updates! I am currently mostly internetless, so the 10 or more updates I have coming on my apartment, the neighbourhood and yes, the food, will have to wait. I do not know exactly when I will get internet, but I hope it will be in the next two weeks. It takes a surprisingly long time to get internet here due to infrastructure issues (surprisingly) so I have tried to start in on it early.
I have already been a brave eater and tried things I thought it would take months to find and sample including Okinawan soba, goya (aka bittermelon), mimiga or pig`s ear and natto – the most famous of gross foods, fermented soybeans. Yikes!
I don’t know how businessmen do it; travelling around the world, arriving in a new city and conducting full days of business while jet lagged, then going out at night and waking early the next day to do it all again. These first few days in Tokyo have been draining, but exciting.
Last night, our prefecture hosts from Okinawa invited us out to an izakaya near the hotel. An izakaya is a place where you eat and drink then eat and drink; they are famous for all you can drink packages. Although I initially thought I might crash for the night or go out and explore on my own, I eventually decided to hang out with the crew. 10 or so of us from the group of 14 headed out with the two other JETs who have been in Japan for some time to an izakaya called “The Lock Up.” It’s got a theme of “haunted jail” and is kind of a kooky place.
We rode an elevator up 6 floors (which to be honest was one of the most terrifying parts of the evening) and then I stuck my hand through a guillotine to get the door to the bar to open. Inside, we were taken to a private “cell” in a sort of dungeon like restaurant where we indulged in a 3800 Yen ($38, give or take) all you can drink and non stop food option.
I think my favourite part were the science themed drinks. Many came in beakers, flasks and syringes and you had to mix them at the table. They were delivered by a sexy police officer.
Tony gets lead to our “cell” by “Officer Naughty”
Some of the drinks available, including a “OleOle” which was a milky boozy drink with an Oreo in a mortar and pestle you crushed then added to the drink, a test tube set with liquers you added to your mixers with a pipette and various other awesome drinks.
Here’s a video of one of the drinks in action; it was juice in a beaker you poured over another drink with cotton candy and pop rocks on top. As the cotton candy melted, the pop rocks fizzled in the drink.
Part way through the night, the lights suddenly went out. A siren came on; the “inmates” had escaped. The “inmates” came running through the room, scaring the shit out of us. Oh, Japan.
I’m glad I battled jet lag to stay up for this!
(Okay the second one was taken at dusk)
So far things have been incredible. The only thing suffering still is my appetite, sadly. It has been quite sedate the past few weeks, and even being in a culinary capital such as Tokyo has not brought it back. I’m slowly eating more though and hopefully will be able to stuff more down soon. Gotta head down for lunch now, actually. I had planned on eating Kyuubey sushi for lunch, but they were too busy.
ohgodohgodohgod
At the moment this entry is published I am (hopefully) taking off en route to Tokyo. Three days there, then onto Okinawa and then…?
eeeeeeeee!
I had to drop off “the guys” at an extremely helpful and kind acquaintance’s home the other day. She’s got a number of young tarantulas and scorpions and is going to harbour our friends for a while. Considering tarantulas live decades, this is no small task.
So, thank you to local photographer and very wonderful woman and insect sitter Jennylynn Fields of SPYD Photography.
Here are some photos from one of the last feedings.
Unnamed scorpion of Tityus falconensis species.
“Feathers” the salmon pink birdeater
“Truckee” the green bottle blue
Yes, I cried after I dropped them off.
This has been my living room for about 10 days. Finally, today, most of it was packed into suitcases. I think I’m overweight on one, but I have squeezed most of what I know I’ll need into the bags. 5 days to go.
chicken n waffles, elm cafe style
It is not often I dedicate a post to a single food item, but due to time constraints and overall fabulousity of this item, it must be done.
On Friday night I buzzed down to Elm Cafe to get a latte at a late hour. Nate mentioned he was whipping up 20 (and only 20) chicken and waffle sandwiches the next day – Saturday morning. The waffles were from Eva Sweet, the food truck darling here in Edmonton and the chicken from Four Whistle farm, lovingly braised and tenderized by Nate. I knew I had to get one. (or two!)
Saturday morning I waited until he tweeted that the sandwiches were ready and nearly ran down. It had really only been about 2 minutes since he tweeted, but already people were filling up Elm Cafe to get a bite of the action. It proved to be a very popular item – Elm sold out of the sandwich in just over an hour.
It was pretty fantastic, I have to say. The outside was crispy and carmelized with syrup, butter and chicken renderings. Inside, the savoury chicken offset the sweetness. I kind of wished the sandwich was a bit juicier – perhaps the addition of some more syrup at home would have remedied this. Nate also forgot to put the argula in our ‘wichs, but I don’t think it was a great loss.
It was a fantastic decadent treat, and I felt very privileged to be able to eat one. Limited edition food is the future!
credit: Rick Guzzell
This is me, my brother and our good family friend Ryan chilling in Thunder Bay sometime in the late 80s. Weren’t summers the bomb when you were a kid? Trips to the candy store (no adults, penny candy and fudgsicles), diving into Silver Lake at 8am and only coming out to eat a breakfast of pancakes and bacon cooked on a fire, solo bike adventures to find a new awesome playground, falling asleep in the family Honda Civic hatchback on a road trip somewhere in the middle of Manitoba.
I hope my last two weeks in Canada are half as good as I remember those summers being. Perhaps they could be about the same, only with some adult beverages sprinkled in.
Friend and former chef Connor graced Mike and I with his presence for a few days in Edmonton before continuing onto his new home, Berlin. We decided to indulge our love of great burgers and make some from scratch.
It was my first weekend off of work where I did not have anything else to do: no packing, no wedding crap, no appointments of any kind, so I spent some time at the City Center farmer’s market that Saturday. There, I picked up some peahen, goose and duck eggs from Greens, Eggs and Ham, asparagus from Edgar Farms, tomatoes from Gull Valley and morels from Mo-Na foods. To round out the menu, buns from Cobs, strip loin from Save On and beer from Sherbrooke Liquor store.
I may bitch about this city, but I am going to miss Edmonton and the local suppliers I’ve grown to take for granted.
Sauteeing the Mo-Na morels
Greens, Eggs and Ham goose and peahen eggs. Duck and turkey eggs are also quite good.
Edgar Farms asparagus ready for grilling
I am not really a Rubbermaid fan, but I do use two items from their catalogue frequently: bowls with snap down lids and the burger press. They’re great at shaping perfect burgers. We ground up the strip loin and it made the most exquisitely rich and meaty patties.
All meat, no fillers, save for some onion and seasonings.
Connor can simply touch a piece of meat and know when it’s done, so we put him in charge of the grilling, which was done at my parent’s place.
Loading up the burgers with fixings; home made mayo, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, Fallot mustard … perfect burgers, if you ask me.
Hopefully we’ll get to do this one more time before hitting Okinawa.
Mike and I talked a lot about restaurants going into the wedding. What restaurant were we going to host the reception dinner at? Where were we going to have the rehearsal dinner? Where were our parents going to meet over dinner?
And so on.
However, the most discussion we had was over our “honeymoon.” Honeymoon dinner, that is. Some people go on a fancy vacation. We just spent money on a fancy dinner.
Knowing that we wouldn’t be in Las Vegas for some time, there was only one choice: Guy Savoy. And once we decided (it was one of the simplest eating decision we made the entire trip) we talked about it almost every night going up to the trip. Mike stalked the Guy Savoy website for weeks, waiting for the Spring menu to be released. We discussed the champagne we’d get, the cheeses from the cheese cart and what breads were best with what. It was nearing on obsession.
Luckily the dinner did not disappoint. I was coming off of nearly five days of barely eating. I just lost my appetite – I heard it’s common for brides. The day of our dinner at Guy Savoy things were returning, though. I had a mai tai by the pool and relaxed, preparing for our meal. We took a taxi over to Caesar’s from the Palazzo, and strolled into the restaurant.
We were welcomed back with open arms. We were given special amuse bouche courses (three in total), Franck Savoy (Guy’s son) came out to greet us. There was an extra dessert course. If our first visit to Guy Savoy was memorable, this one was unforgettable.
The spring menu was fabulous, and featured many special items especially good at this time of year: asparagus, morels, so on. We indulged in the cheese course, though we agreed we would forgo it on our next visit after two tours of it. We got the six course menu elegance.
Although initially I thought I might take a night off of photo taking for the blog, I couldn’t resist once the first large course came out. It was just so effing amazing.
Asparagus “raw cooked” with lauris sauce. Lauris is a mayonnaise, cream and paprika sauce. This dish is a Guy Savoy speciality. I think the most impressive thing was the serving style. The mandolined “trees” of asparagus were stunning. Here’s the recipe. We also got a bottle of champagne to start off the night right.
Squab and morels with a miniature savoy cabbage. Not to be mistaken for a brussel sprout.
Admittedly the dish looks…well, bland. Even after doctoring it a bit in Photoshop. But the flavours were rich and creamy and anything but bland. It just lacked visual charisma, I guess. Sort of like when the snow melts off from Edmonton, leaving that horrible dry brown dead grass, until the spring starts to appear in green grass and trees. Or atleast until the street cleaners appear.
Always the charmer. Back off ladies, he’s mine.
Ah yes, the cheese cart. My old friend who I had dreamt of many times.
Between Mike and I, I think we got one of each kind of cheese. The aged Edam was my personal favourite. The ancient goat cheese (below, at 12 o’clock) was especially intense.
We also got a soup course (the Savoy traditional: truffle artichoke) and a fish course.
Hmm. Some kind of sorbet; lychee? This was a freebie. They were very good about adding in extras that night.
And then dessert.
First, the coconut, six ways.
Coconut shavings on top. Coconut sorbet and granita. Coconut tapioca and julienned coconut meat. Coconut cream. It was best when you hit all the layers and experienced each one. And yes, you could taste each one.
Chocolate praline chicory cake. Super rich chocolate fondant cake with crispy praline layer and roasty coffee flavoured chicory cream on a dish that was made for this dessert.
ALMOST too rich to finish.
Then, the dessert cart.
I went with a trio of all white desserts, because I could. One of my favourite things was the lime marshmallow. Last time they had several kinds of mini macarons available. This visit, many kinds of mini marshmallows. On Mike’s recommendation I tried a macadamia sable, but even one tiny bite was too much for me, and I had to tap out. I was fuller than full. I had to rest in the lobby for some time before being able to get into a taxi.
I got some intensely red tea, an herbal blend. Because who the hell wants to stay up all night in Vegas?
(Seriously, why didn’t I get a latte? I bet they’re incredible.)
Mike poses with a friend in the Bubble Bar of Guy Savoy. He was made up of tiny little … styrofoam bubbles? Ball bearings? I don’t even know. He was pretty cool though.
So: three amuse bouches, four courses, five dessert courses and a dessert cart visit – it capped off a wonderful week. And more than made up for a week of not eating.
Read about the first visit to Guy Savoy here.
