*Nahoko Morimoto is a Tokyo-based photographer. Her work has been featured in Brutus and Vogue Japan.

Spaghetti with asari (clams), shirauo (little white fish) and arugula at Pizzeria Matsuhisa in Denenchofu, Tokyo. Someday, I will open a wafu (Japanese-style) pasta shop in Oakland.

The other day at my local Asian market — which is usually not very well equipped since importing food from Asia to an unsignificant little island kingdom like Denmark is incredibly pricey — I found these bags of grains. And I remembered the many crazy versions of rice I often came across when living in Tokyo. Blue, green, dotted in all colours, with grains, with beans, with nuts, anything you’d be sane enough to drop in a rice cooker.

Japanese consumers are obsessed with the terms “fresh” and “new”. In supermarkets and konbinis in Japan products are constantly being introduced, killed-off or moved around in the store to create the impression of variation and new experiences every time you enter the shop = more consumption, more shopping.

Shibuya: A normal day of skanky shopping.

As fellow Umamimart writer Yoko has mentioned several times in her Japanify coloum, new flavours of a well known product are introduced constantly, and quite often those flavours are more a gimmick than a real addition to its brand. Like Green Tea Coca Cola, Vanilla Licorice Beer or Mango Pudding Kit Kat. They may not taste super good, but they invoke a sensation in the consumer’s brain and a quick 10 second reminder of its brand in the surrounding cacophony of other brands across the globe. It’s all about staying afloat in people’s minds, no matter the cost.

Caramel Corn candy bags – why just one corn flavour when we can have six? Strawberry Corn, Tomato Corn, Peanut Corn, Green Tea Corn, Almond Corn and Vanilla Corn.

Japan makes you buy stuff — and that’s exactly what many urban Japanese do: work/eat/shop/sleep (wait hold on, they barely sleep since their work schedule is so intense. And also there’s very little sex involved — the Japanese are so over relationship fornication according to many recent studies. Many young, urban Japanese past their 20′s prefer to stay living at home with their parents and then spend their salary on fun with friends, foreign travels, izakaya dinners and shopping. And the shops know that.
Which means whenever you find yourself on a first class seat to Tokyo, make sure you brought lots of empty suitcases to bring back your new junk.

Tokyo, 2008: Psyched out Anders high on a mixture of sugary green tea ice cream overdose and Tokyu Hands toy department shopping frenzy:

“Look, Yoko — I’m shopppiiing! How about this bed? Should I buy it? Does it fold for the plane ride? What do you think, Yoko? Oh those sheets over there are lovely, I’ll take two of those! Wow, check out those Muji designer bunny slippers! Do you think they come in white male sizes?”

Yoko: “Get me out of here”.


Chopped baby bunny meat burger. Kidding. Sort of, I think.

But sometimes this crazed up variation shopping machine isn’t so bad. It’s actually quite exciting now and then. And I really really miss this energy and creativity among the brands in Danish supermarkets. Every five years there MIGHT be introduced a new flavour of a classic chocolate bar here, but it  will probably be “Almond” or “Soft Toffee” or something generic, really thought-over and well-tested with consumers. Yawn, you say? I agree. Then again, Red-Bean-Paste-Whole-Grain-Spearmint Kit Kat probably wouldn’t sell truckloads here. However, a little craziness now and then would be fun here in Denmark.

Back to the rice mix:

Super cute package.

It says げんきなこくもつ which best can be translated as “happy, vigouris richness”. Which is exactly what it brings to your plain, white boring rice.

Danish ingredient list stuck on the back by the import company lists the ingredients:

This is 15 kinds of rice/grain mix: Gluten rice, black rice, corn, red beans,, barley, buckwheat, pearl barley, black soy beans, black seseame, white sesame, brown rice, white sorghum, gluten foxtail millet, gluten millet and amarand grains.

WOW! That’s a whole lotta grainz.

Sounds like something the organic crazies here in Copenhagen would happily sprinkle on their tofu ice cream.

It says this bag goes with 500g rice which is exactly 4 cups.

Many Western people claim that rice doesn’t really taste of anything and it’s all the same. Well, not quite.

The world of Japanese rice is an abundant cornicopia of brands that offer thousands of different textures, subtle flavours and qualities.

My latest disappointment in my fellow Danes was last week when I went to the Kung Fu Izakaya Bar in Copenhagen. A Japanese izakaya-inspired place with wooden interiors and cozy lighting. All was good until we sat down and the starter miso soup with a bowl of Indian basmati rice was placed in front of me. SHOCK HORROR! You can NOT serve Indian rice in a Japanese izakaya, it’s like serving expensive salmon nigiri sushi with ketchup on the side (something that will send you straight to hell). Needless to say the rest of the dishes were also an abomination and we left hardly having touched the food.

This is my preferred rice at the moment. Hitomebore rice, a middle grain sort which is developed in Japan but grown in the US. I used to buy cheaper brands at the Asian market, but this is so much better. It’s about $23 for a bag of 2.5 kg which is probably a little pricey for American or Japanese standards.

The owner of my local Asian market told me yesterday that their container from Japan was finally delivered after being held back for two months in customs since there are only 3 freight companies in Denmark that scan for radiation contamination (supposedly everything from Japan is scanned before crossing the border to the EU. Hmm I didn’t know that, but I guess it makes sense).

So again, back to the rice:

I put 4 cups of rice in my rice cooker bowl. Wash gently 4-5 times until the water is somewhat clear.

Pour out all water, add approx 4 cups of new fresh water and let it soak for 10 minutes.

Put in the bag of happy, vigorious richness and mix around.

Place the cooking bowl in the rice cooker and start cooking.

While we wait for the vigorious rice, I want to show you the best Christmas present I got this year: A “Famous Views of Edo” week calendar from Taschen, painted by one of the most famous uki-e painters Hiroshige (1797 – 1858).

Edo was the old name for present day Tokyo and the paintings in the calendar show the nature around the old capital, the life of its inhabitants and the many incredibly scenes from a world long gone.

What must a foreigner have thought when coming to Japan the first time back in this age? Everything must have been so aesthetic, so beautiful — and yet so raw. A hard-knock life.

Ok, so this is the amount of Mondays we have to endure throughout 2012. Doesn’t look like a lot actually:

And speaking again of shopping:  If you’ve fallen in love with this too, you can purchase it online here at Taschen for cheap since the year’s begun now.

Yay, the rice is done. What a difference such a little grain filled bag can make. The rice has a nutty smell and a creamy brown/white colour, and is full of exciting new flavours among is grains.

It tastes great. It’s not a super intrusive attack on the traditional rice, more like a fun variation and a nutty boost.

Happy winter rice time from Skankynavia.

Photo by Kelly Ishikawa, a San Francisco-based photographer and the co-owner of The Perish Trust. 

Happy New Year!  I can’t believe the holiday season passed so quickly, and now we are in 2012.  Soon we will be bitching about the hot summer.

I was in Japan for the holidays, and had quite a few good food moments. I am really thankful to iPhone since I can now take pictures anywhere (and pretty decent quality ones).

Wine in a can.

Top part becomes a glass for your drink — a brilliant idea. But it tasted pretty crappy. I bought this before my flight to Melbourne, after enduring a 13-hour flight from New York to Tokyo, and I went right to sleep after drinking it, so thank you crappy canned wine.

Very pink shabu-shabu beef from Nagano. I think I had four shabu shabu meals during my stay, and every time the beef was extremely pink. I am not young any more, and my doctor warned me that my cholesterol is too high and to avoid beef, but when I am in Japan, it’s just impossible not to eat fatty beef.

People say you don’t need teeth to eat these babies, and it’s very true. They literally melt in your mouth.

MOS burger. The best hamburger chain EVER.

Despite so many selections like pork tonkatsu with cabbage, or teriyaki chicken with crispy lettuce, which are two of my favorites, I ordered the original MOS burger, which has a huge slice of tomato, minced onion, and meat sauce. Heavenly.

For the first time in my life, I went to the Tsukiji fish market. I was not interested in seeing bunch of fish, but I was very much excited about going to a sushi restaurant there. Since they are directly connected to the market, the quality of fish is superb, and prices are very reasonable.

Neighboring restaurants Sushi Yamato and Sushi Dai, are the most famous ones in the area, hence the lines are very very long. I hate waiting in lines, and I asked one of the shop persons in the area for another recommendation and he suggested Iwasa Sushi. We still waited about 30 minutes, but it was SO worth every minute of the wait.

I am still salivating from looking at this picture.

From left: very sweet squid, aji (horse mackerel), kohada (gizzard shad), fatty tuna, and my favorite of the day, katsuo (bonito).
The katsuo was so sweet, and almost creamy, as was the tai (snapper). So good.

This place  features a lot of different kai (clams), and my friend ordered kai galore. I can’t remember what they were, but they were apparently awesome.

Uni, say no more. When I was in San Francisco, I had very good Santa Barbara uni, but it doesn’t compare to this one.

Shirako, aka raw fish jizz. It literally bursted in my mouth…

It was like dessert.

This is the original Yoshinoya.  I had no idea they started in Tsukiji.

After Tsukiji, I went to Kappa-bashi, which is sort of similar to Bowery Street here in New York. Store after store of restaurant supply and kitchen gadgets. I was in heaven. Look at these food items made out of wax!

The reason I went to Kappa-bashi was because I was picking up my press. I ordered MOTO logo press. How cool is this?

How cute are these coffee cup balconies??

I was done with busy Tokyo, and went back to my hometown. On my way back to rural Japan, I stopped by at a home supply store (I needed to buy scissors to cut nose hair since they were getting way too long), and found bags of fermented cow poop as fertilizer.  I mean we all know animal poop is used to fertilize soil, but I’ve never seen them packaged and sold in bags. Look how happy both farmers and a cow are.

Japan is obsessed with crab meat during holiday season. Holiday season is all about spending money, and Japan is no exception. In the US, the holiday meal is usually turkey, ham, steak, etc., but in Japan, it’s crab or beef. This was a newspaper ad filled with crab meat.

My brother went fishing in the middle of the night one day, and came home early in the morning with super fresh horse mackerels.

He served this fresh sashimi for breakfast.

Unfortunately there was no rice to eat with, so I had a bagel. Bagel and horse mackerel sashimi for breakfast. I usually don’t care too much for small fish, but these were super fresh.

By the way, WTF does “Orange & Lemons said the bells of saint clements” mean on the plate?  Is this a total Japangrish? What an odd mixture of dishes, too. Anders wouldn’t approve of this. Soy sauce on a fake Pooh-print dish? My home is equipped with very odd mixtures of dishes, in sets of 3, since mom, brother and sister-in-law are the only regular residents of the house.

A couple days before New Year, I tagged along with a friend of mine to a fish market nearby. Extremely busy, since everything there was quite reasonably priced. Snappers are also big during the holiday season, and there were bunch of them. Did you know there are various types of squid? Mongo, aori, yari, to name a few, and each has different shapes and texture.

Here are the items I brought back from Japan.

This is one of the fine purchases from the trip. Silicon cooking chopsticks. I wanted dishwasher safe chopsticks since my wooden ones got pretty bent from high heat, yet I refuse to hand wash them.

These are far better than wooden kind since the tip grips extremely precisely. Unlike the wooden kinds, they don’t slip at all.

Do you know what this is?

Slide in a piece of seaweed.

And it punches out smile face. How cute?  There were a couple of different faces. I bought them at a dollar store. I may have to start character bento spree.

These are very convenient — you can now make conbini (convenient store) style rice balls. Seaweed can be stored separately and so whenever you eat it, it’s always crispy.

Japan is filled with cool food stuff.

I don’t miss Japan much as a whole, but I do miss Japan’s high quality food. I went to Mitsuwa market in New Jersey to feel good, and surely I found a lot of good stuff, but Mitsuwa is always very dangerous. $32o, for I don’t even remember what I bought….

Danran, a little sushi spot in the Sakurajosui station in Tokyo, is no stranger to Umamimart. Yoko introduced us to the place in 2008, and Tmonkey reported on it again later that year. Yoko took me to Danran for the first time several years ago, and I very much looked forward to visiting again on my last trip in October.

The place had not changed a bit — the master, his wife, and her brother, all greeted us with warm smiles as we happily retreated from the autumn rain. The small space was brightly-lit, and the wood interior gave off a cozy glow.

Naoko, Yoko and I sat at the counter of Danran, laughing, chatting and catching up, over wonderful food and drinks made to order by our hosts. We never looked at the time, and when it was time for us to say farewell, there was no one left in the restaurant. It was midnight. We had been there for something like six hours.

The photo above was one of the first dishes presented to us by the Master. It is stewed fish eggs, probably tai (snapper) or hirame (fluke). The lightness of flavor, with the bounciness of each fish egg, is just delightful.

This was one of my most memorable meals of 2011. Please take a look at the rest of our meal.

A cat cafe is not a place that serves cat sandwiches. It is a cafe… with cats.

Cat Cafes in Japan were very popular in the early-mid 2000s and still remain peppered throughout Tokyo. Building on the otaku culture of manga, maid and mimikaki (ear cleaning) cafes, cat cafes provide solace for people who love cats but can’t have cats in their apartments. Unlike the maid and butler cafes, cat cafes entice both sexes and are much cleaner and innocent than some of the more gender specific cafes in Akihabara (i.e. imoto or “little sister” cafes).

Cateriam is a cat cafe located near the west exit of Shimokitazawa station. Kayoko and I were walking to Second House for coffee and cake, when we stumbled upon Cateriam’s curiosity-inducing signage “3rd Anniversary: 300 yen for 15 minutes.”

After laughing and pointing at the sign for a few minutes, I suggested that as Umamimart (a media machine that brings you pressing issues in Japan), it was our duty to patronize a cat cafe.

Upon entry we were given a short, concise run-down of the rules.

Take your shoes off…

Wash your hands in the sink provided…

It is the customer’s responsibility to keep track of the clock.

Scan the menu…

Don’t mistreat or startle the cats.

Photos are OK.

Kayoko and I intended to stay there for only 15 minutes so we wanted to explore as much as we could, quickly. The general scene include about 15 cats draped all over cubbies, nabe (clay pots), book shelves and shoeboxes. Kayoko and I quickly found our favorites and admired their clean coats and pink paws.

Kayoko’s fave:

My fave:

Meanwhile, the server took our order and came back with a tray of our beverage and a little snack sized Aero chocolate.

I would say the most bizarre aspect of the cat cafe was how sedated these cats looked. Garfield would have been proud of these cats — pampered day and night by strangers whispering sweet nothings in their little, furry ears, eating Japanese canned cat food and having an array of toys to choose from. They were so out-of-it that I couldn’t tell if they were even looking at me. Their food must be really special…

Zzzzzzz…

Zzzzzzz…

“Why are you bothering me?”

Going to the cat cafe made me realize how cynical I can be. The staff and patrons seemed so genuine, not finding any part of this to be silly. Erecting shrines for cats that have gone “bye-bye” and setting up twitter accounts for some of the cats, there was something perfectly innocent about this whole operation.

Shrine for deceased Caterium cat…

Birthday illustration from fans…

Follow your favorite cat on Twitter…

Or friend them on Mixi (Japan’s Facebook):

Pink paws…

Some cats have their own DVDs.

We asked the staff person how the cats reacted to the earthquake back in March. She said that all of them piled into the corner of the room and refused to come out for a few days. These cats have recovered nicely, sleeping out in the open and providing therapy for their human admirers.

Teishoku is a pre-set meal — a main dish, always with miso soup and a bowl of rice, and it builds from there according the chef’s seasonal fancies (pickles, tofu, salad, etc). These meals are very popular during lunch, when salarymen and women can quickly run into a restaurant and get a warm, complete meal for as low as $10.

Teishoku often arrive to your table on gorgeous laquered obon (tray), or sometimes simply on a janky, run-of-the-mill cafeteria tray. But no matter — most important is what’s ON the tray. The plates and bowls each vary from tray to tray, and there are usually no “matching” tableware on any of them. During our three weeks in Japan, my OPENharvest colleagues and I had many teishoku sets. Here are some highlights.

Sanma (pacific saury) teishoku. Uokatsu Restaurant (1-6-5 Azabu Juban, Minato-ku, Tokyo. Tel: 03-3401-7959). By Yoko Kumano.

Hayashi raisu with kaki fry (fried oysters) teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Kelly Ishikawa.

Breakfast at Hakkaisan Brewery. By Sasha Wizansky.

Maguro teishoku. Tsukiji, Tokyo. By Yoko Kumano.

Okayu (porridge) teishoku. Higashiya Restaurant (Pola Ginza bldg. 2F 1-7-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Tel: 03 5720 1310). By Aya Brackett.

Shirasu-don (white fish rice bowl) teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Kayoko Akabori.

Tempura-chazuke. Kondo Restaurant (Sakaguchi Building 9F, 5-5-13 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Tel: 03.5568.0923). By Aya Brackett.

Sanma teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Sasha Wizansky. 

Onsen (hot springs) breakfast. Hakone. By Yoko Kumano.

Chirashi teishoku. Tsukiji, Tokyo. By Kayoko Akabori.

Oden (fish cake stew) teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Sasha Wizansky.

Hayashi raisu teishoku. Azabu-juban. By Yoko Kumano.

I personally did not get to eat sanma at all while in Japan, and am gravely regretting it. However, I did have hayashi rice meals TWICE, however. Both Kelly’s and Yoko’s photos came from the same little grubby hole-in-the-wall in Azabu-juban, Tokyo. It had had a very 60s, Tokyo Drifter vibe. During lunch, the place was packed with salarymen, all whom were indecisive of what to order from their long menu. Cigarette-smoking and manga-reading optional.

Don’t forget the tissue. By Kelly Ishikawa.

That place was definitely one of the more memorable spots during my trip. I am craving hayashi rice now that I am back, and will make some, per Yamahomo’s recipe.

*Top photo of the buta no shyoga yaki (ginger pork) teishoku by Aya Brackett. In Odaicho, Mie prefecture.

**Aya Brackett worked as a photo editor at Dwell Magazine. Based in San Francisco, she now freelances for magazines, book publishers and companies worldwide.

***Kelly Ishikawa is a San Francisco-based photographer and the co-owner of The Perish Trust.

****Sasha Wizansky is the Editor-in-Chief and Art Director of Meatpaper magazine, a print journal of art and ideas about meat and meat culture.

Washio is one of my favorite nomiyas (watering hole) in western Tokyo. I spent an afternoon with fisherman, enka singer, bar owner extraordinairre Taro Washio and captured it all on video.

For more enka pleasure, please watch this amazing music video by superstar Jero.

Danran, a sushi spot in the Sakura-jyosui neighborhood of Tokyo, is no stranger to Umamimart. It was frequented often when Yoko and Washi lived in Japan (on one of their very first dates!), and has been the subject of many a fine blog posts, here and here.

Yoko and I visited Danran tonight, to say hello to the “Master” (the owner/chef), and of course to have ourselves a fine feast. I’ll report on the meal, in its entirety, at a later hour, but let me first present to you the creme de la creme of the evening: the dobinmushi.

Washi told Yoko that we must visit Danran as soon as we possibly could, once landing in Tokyo, so we could enjoy the dobinmushi before the season ends. You see, the dobinmushi‘s belle of the ball is the matsutake mushroom, whose season is highly limited edition.

We were warned to be careful of the teapot, as it was piping hot.

The little tea cup is taken from the lid of the teapot.

Dobinmushi directly translates to, “That which is steamed in earthenware”. Mainly, it is simply a liquid that is flavored with matsutake mushrooms and dashi.

Pour the liquid into the tea cup. It is a clear broth, slightly tinted in color. The elixir is indeed piping hot, and it coats your mouth, then pierces your soul.  The deep flavors of mushroom cuts through you like a knife. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the essence of autumn. Add a drop of the sudachi (a Japanese citrus), for an added kick.

You may think I am nuts, and just talking about mushroom water. But here at Danran, they add kuruma shrimp, ginnan (gingko nut) and mitsuba (a sort of Japanese parsley) for added complexity and dimensions of flavor.

And of course, the matsutake. So regal.

It just started raining tonight in Tokyo, and the weather is starting to turn. I hope to return to Danran one last time before we leave for another dobinmushi, to celebrate the season.