This is Kitsune Udon. There was this udon restaurant around the corner from the first hotel that we stayed at and every time we walked by it smelled SO good. So we decided to go in. It was the best udon i had the whole trip. The place was ALWAYS open --- they seemed to stay open all night because we saw them open at 11...and 8 am! What??? Who knows? In Japanese "Kitsune" means Fox. I am not sure why it is called Fox udon, but the broth is mildly sweet and doesn't taste like any particular kind of meat. There were greens in the bowl (that I ate before I took the photo) and the part that makes it particularly Kitsune udon is the square of sweetened fried tofu. Udon itself is a thicker noodle made to be slurped up. The bowl was bigger than my face.
This is called Kushi Katsu and it essentially means (and is) "Fried things on a stick" This is one of my favorite Japanese bar foods. Fried ANYTHING... We had mushroom stuffed crab, onion, pumpkin, shrimp, chicken, pork, quail egg, sweet potato...Almost anything you can imagine on a stick, deep fried with sauce. The Japanese do it right.
While this probably LOOKS disgusting, it's actually AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. This is called "Omraisu" (Omelet Rice). Mine was the top and it was cheese and eggplant. Aj's was chicken katsu (Fried chicken cutlet). This is essentially buttered rice, wrapped in an omelet, with a topping and then covered in Japanese curry sauce. I don't know how to explain that this is in fact delicious unless you try it. Aj and I are HUGE fans of Japanese curry. We tried a ridiculous number of things deep fried and drenched in curry sauce while we were there. It was a great fallback food. We knew we loved it, and it ALWAYS hit the spot. And it's abundant. It's sweet, mildly spicy, and alarmingly flavorful. If any of you ever gets the chance to try Japanese curry, I'd highly recommend it. It's very different from any Indian curries.
This is Japanese somen. I had never had Somen before and especially not prepared like this, but this was one of the most memorable and delicious foods I had while I was there. The broth was rich and sweet and chicken-y. There is something resembling general tso's chicken in there, a soft-boiled duck egg, and some greens. And then of course Somen noodles which are thin and made of wheat flour. They're delicious and I've decided to try to recreate something like this in the near future. I think the greens were Mizuna, "Japanese Mustard" - it's a tasty green we don't have readily available here in America. But delicious.
The last photo I have for you is of all of the delicious FOOD we brought back from Japan. We took 2 suitcases, one packed inside the other. The small one held our clothes and some souvenirs, and the big one held just souvenirs and food. Yum. We've eaten a lot of this stuff already but we do have plenty left. The Japanese kitkats were something we searched EVERYWHERE for to get the most flavors. We could only find five flavors ...they are seasonal and February is not a popular season for unique flavors. That's OK though...we got plenty else!We also ate a lot more food than this, but forgot to take photos. We had sushi, tempura, okonomiyaki, and lots of other traditional Japanese foods. We did not once eat an American restaurant or fast food place (Though I was tempted to have Aj try to Tamago Big Mac from McDonalds)... We really went for Japanese comfort foods and day to day things with some traditional foods thrown in. We had real green tea and Japanese sweets. We had more bread and pastry items than you could ever imagine (Oh the Japanese are HUGE on pastry and take a lot from France. Their pastry and breads are amazing). Overall, we had a huge variety of delicious foods and to top it off, we probably spent over $100 on tiny cups of coffee, vending machine drinks, and a couple of beers. (Japanese vending machines do hot AND cold) --- perfect!
For those of you more interested in the Japanese sites, we did take tons of photos. You can check a selection of them out in this album.
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