Cooking With Richard

Hawaiian macadamia nuts covered in chocolate from our friend Kimiko-chan … delicious:

Delicious mini-nabe that N-sama made for me:

and steak tartare:

(The restaurant is called “Sam Chon Po” but I don’t seem to be able to find anything about it on the web).

Fried oysters from Hiyashi HAYASHI in Miyajima — おいしかった！

Lunchtime kaiseki from a really excellent restaurant in Hiroshima called An. The first dish was a western-style chilli-prawn:

N-sama had this seafood dish with rich sauce:

Icecream:

In Miyajima:

Edible crysanthemum flowers. We picked the petals and threw away the bitter centres:

but the resulting dish (petals boiled with daikon and various enoki) was rather bitter:

Home-grown sweetcorn, really sweet:

Basashi:

Usaji:

Special OKONOMIYAKI from Hiroshima, with soba noodles:

“Please do not feed pigeons, crows, &c.”
The crow is saying plaintively “If you feed me, I can’t live without your help.”

I asked N-sama to make my favourite food for my birthday[1].

[1] My 30th if you were wondering.

and more time-lapse Tokyo photography.

If you’re on mixi, please join my community.

Update: Apparently that link doesn’t work. Try this one instead. (Thanks Lady E)

Can you tell which ones I made? I don’t have “the knack”.

Damn …

Recipe …

Apparently the Pacific saury from yesterday should point to the left, like this:

http://oshiete.eibi.co.jp/kotaeru.php3?q=117502

This NSFW bodypiercing site explains the phrase “dress to the left” (or right):

The Prince Albert piercing is named after Prince Albert, who was the husband of Queen Victoria of England. He was reputed to have had this piercing done prior to his marriage to the queen around 1825, at that time Beau Brummel started the craze for ultra tight men’s trousers. Because the pants were so tight, the penis needed to be held to one side or the other so as not to create an unsightly bulge. To accomplish this some men had their penis pierced to allow it to be held by a hook on the inside of the trousers. This piercing was called a Dressing Ring at the time because tailors would ask if a gentleman dressed to the left or the right and tailor the trousers accordingly.

７月７日：

７月８日：

The fish is Pacific saury (in Japanese, sanma).

This video is actually about my level in Japanese, in that I can watch it and understand almost all of what the narrator is trying to say. I understand the sentences, but just what is going on?

(From JWZ)

Update

Apparently this is a sketch from バミリオン・プレジャー・ナイト (Vermillion Pleasure Night), a risque Japanese late-night variety show. For more of this see Oh Mikey which is somewhat reminiscent of the brilliant Leisure Town.