Saturday 11 October 2014

A foodie in Japan... a photographic view of a week in the orient...

I just spent a  really delightful week in Japan, my first trip there ever.

The food was occasionally confronting, oddly named, but pretty much both cheap and delicious.  I am not going to give you restaurant reviews, but just a bit of a visual tour of what you might find in Japan...

 My first lunch.. gorgeous tempura
 and such a pretty soup - the autumn leaf is made of layers of beancurd skin apparently
Matcha and a sweet at the golden temple
 A home cooked meal - okonomiyaki (a sort of Japanese pancake with cabbage in it and topped with salted pork)
Japan's equivalent of lutfisk or balut - something that most other countries occupants find completely inedible.  Fermented soy beans, they smell outrageous and taste, sort of like vegemite gone off.. I was grateful for my hayfever blocked nose when I tried it!
 A sort of corn fritter on a stick... yummmmm
 cheap and cheerful bento box, still beautifully presented
 the "autumn feast" in a rather fancy restaurant... so much food!
Plastic food for sale in the plastic food shop!
 More plastic food
 Looks remarkably real some of it
 Some rather less so
and some uncannily real looking
Real food, a nice simple dinner
A speciality of Sendai - beef tongue. 
and at the coast, how can you go past fish and chips?  Well... .tempura fish and vegetables anyway.