Cooking With Richard

Thanks N-sama & Natsumi (for the noodles and everything else)!

Perfect junk food, in a can:

Update

This is OKONOMIAKI that I made!

Thanks Natsumi for the huge box of food and these TOKIKI. Next time you come I will make Jamie’s steak and ale pie for you. It’s very english and I’m sure you’ll like it.

In the meantime, here is a picture from the Piccadilly Line. カラスがちかてつにのっています！

The highlight of going out to Akari on Essex Road last night was drinking Tantakatan, shochu made from shiso leaves. (Tantakatan’s terrible website here). It also turns out this is quite cheap in Japan. We bought a bottle online for my brother-in-law for six quid including delivery. Highly recommended, drink cold with a little ice.

I cooked it for more than 2 hours.

Photo by N-sama, who called the photo “Pastar”. Intentional?

We went to Lady E’s house today, and she gave us 山椒 (sanshou) a.k.a. Zanthoxylum leaves. Here it is, with tofu:

With Atari-ya’s sashimi:

Lady E also gave us a new desk. Haven’t tried it yet. Got to wait for the cowboys to finish.

Rather excellent “Mii-like” tool for making people who look like Legos.

Can you guess who these people are?

“Text” should say something else ??

Looks a bit like a junky:

Baked butternut squash with sage leaves (from the garden), pine nuts, blue cheese, garlic, parmesan cheese. Photo by N-sama:

Rachel is growing 30 shiso plants in her house, and very kindly she gave three of them to us. We’re going to give some to my brother, who has probably never tasted this delicious herb before.

What is the spider plant doing?

Update

One has ESCAPED!!

. . .

I captured two of them in the garden tonight. Hopefully I can get a few more after it rains. This one was wrapped around one of N-sama’s green beans, and eating it! But he seems to like celery as well, so …

Wow … & her blog

(Thanks M-kun for finding the bento porn pool on flickr)

Top Gear race across Japan [this link will only work if you’re in the UK] in a fast car versus a shinkansen (and other types of train).

Note: The interesting part starts at around 15 minutes in.

Click for programme

Boston beer:

A giant steak. Very nice:

I totally enjoyed the Japanese film Paprika on the plane, and then bought it for N-sama as an anniversary present on DVD:

This is an old From Our Own Correspondent article about the sounds of hot summers in Japan. I wish I could find the original broadcast programme.

• Shuru shuru shuru doon patchi patchi
• Hyuu doro doro
• Goku goku
• Goro goro pika
• Kara koro kara koro

I was a bit confused by this one, he keeps on saying “shika shika“?

And for the main finale:

Ummaii!

I so want this game …

Oriental City has been under threat for so long, but it is finally to close at the end of May, to make way for soulless flats and a DIY superstore. (There aren’t enough DIY superstores in London apparently, so a one-of-its-kind shopping centre has to be leveled to make way for one).

I’ve been going there regularly for at least ten years, but today was the last time.

There aren’t really any alternatives. Chinese Wing Yip, down the road, is expanding, but they don’t have the other shops or non-Chinese food. Japanese TK Trading is miles away.

More discussion of the closure …

Thanks to ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone for valiantly defending the store — oh no, in fact he approved the planning application. Well, he’s been thrown out of office now, but his stupid planning decisions like this and others will linger on.

This is what I got from Utsuwa no Yakata Japanese pottery shop:

I was in the middle of making this recipe described as “Bubble and Squeak” when I came to the sudden realization that it is really コロッケ, so I quickly covered it in honey panko and shallow fried it. Success!

But in Japan, mere potato isn’t enough carbohydrate on its own, so they wrap it in bread (can you believe?) to make a kind of potato sandwich. Mmm carbs!