solarbird: (sb-worldcon-cascadia)
[personal profile] solarbird
One of the things I'm still missing pretty severely is the food - really everywhere, not just Yokohama and Tokyo. I expected all the Japanese food to be better, of course, and it was - for example, the cluster of restaurants at the train station had a sushi-train restaurant which served sushi of quality much better than that of cheap-but-good sushi here. It wasn't I ♥, but it was within range given the limited palette, and, of course, that was cheap sushi. Meanwhile, the cooked fish lacked some taste that I really dislike in cooked fish throughout North America, and while it still wasn't my favourite thing in the world, it was something I was perfectly happy to eat.

I didn't really expect the western food also to be better, as a rule. The sandwich and fries I had at Anna Miller? Really good. Good cold cuts, good bread, an unexpected but very good mayonnaise relish that I've no idea how to duplicate that was tasty without being heavy like I usually find mayonnaise to be. It came with french fries. They were solid but light and tasty, despite being deep-fried.

That became a recurring theme, really; a lot of American foods, particularly cheaper American foods, are heavy with fats and grease. While actual meats served in Japan tended to be very fatty cuts - particularly the night I tried 牛どて鍋, which is, hum, a country beef single-pot pie-like dish - you never found much of anything heavy with oil or grease (or, I suppose butter), like all fast foods, most sandwiches, french fries, and so on. I liked that a lot.

Actually, let me just me come out and say it: food was all but uniformly better than here. In a lot of cases, dramatically. Quality of ingredients showed. Everywhere but the first stop when we joined up with the Thundering Hoarde tour already in progress was at least really good. That first lunch with the group was a very western lunch aimed at reassuring a very western group of tourists, and it was mediocre, but even the tour food improved quickly. And more specifically, even the western-oriented tour food - which shrank in proportion as time went on - improved just as quickly.

I don't quite know how to drive this home with clarity. How about this: we stopped at a rest station - a combination rest stop and truck stop - on the highway between tour visits one day. I got a curry from the short-order counter, and it was good. Rest stop curry - actively good.

(Oh, there was another exception: one night we needed Food Now, and Paul and Anna dove in to an egg, italian sausage, rocket, and anchovy pizza, which I avoided for the spaghetti. I chose poorly. Amusingly, I was able to recreate what I think they were going for last night. It came out nice.)

Even things like candy-bar chocolates are better. Counter chocolates are generically of better quality than you get here without going to specialty shops. One of the reasons for the Pocky phenomenon, I rather suspect, is that the chocolate is simply much better than you get in, say, a Snickers bar, and people are reacting to that. Apparently some people think it's dark chocolate - it's not, at least, not in the standard box. But it's got a lot more flavour per volume than people expect, so they think it must be dark. iirc, "Men's Pocky" actually is dark chocolate, if you're curious.

Similarly, soft-serve ice cream - you know, the swirly kind you think of as fun in the summer but not really a good example of the art? It's just good ice cream in Japan. Very good, in fact. I particularly liked the sesame that Mariko introduced to me (so tasty!), but plain vanilla? Also very good. I was pleased to discover today that Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream bars are, in fact, of reasonably comparable quality to the soft serve vanilla - not quite as good, frankly, there's a bit of a hollowness to the taste that I can't figure out, and the chocolate shell isn't everything I'd like it to be, but it's still good. This means I'll have at least some ice creams that I can buy at a counter which aren't a big letdown. Of course, the selection is far less than I had in Japan in, say, in an ordinary ice cream vending machine, but what can you do? At least there's something.

I'm going to have to get serious about learning the art of bento. I can usually stomach airline food, but I seriously and honestly could not eat what United put in front of me on the flight home. It was appalling. But I don't think it was any worse than what I scarfed down on the way there.

Fundamentally, the way that American culture prefers "more" over "good" shows up exquisitely in food. Despite the fact that American food has improved dramatically over the last 50 years, it's still kinda crap. Fatty, sloppy, oversweetened crap, made as cheaply as possible and served by the bucketload, as though to pigs.

This quality emphasis doesn't mean limited choices, by the way. I ran into far more variety there than here. Some of it was scary variety, like HELLO JELLYFISH but! Variety.

Japan is already famous for its vending machines, of course. I don't need to go on about that too much. But in case you're not aware: they are, of course, AWESOME. (Sorry, return of t3h c4pz.) Even in a single smallish drink machine in an alley, you're looking at 20 options - soda, teas, lemon drinks, waters, coffee, vitamin waters, juices, electrolyte waters (like the well-known Pocari Sweat, which I was drinking already before I went over on vacation - it's like Gatorade, sweet, but not sickly sweet, I really like it) - often in two sizes, and the cans have lids you can put back on so you can save some for later. Also, the machines generally seem to come in clusters of three or so, without a lot of repeats.

This is as opposed to a US soda machine, with its four slots filled with Coke or Pepsi, and four other options. Maybe.

Pleasantly, I've found I can get C.C. Lemon at Uwajimaya. I got hooked on that stuff in Yokohama, and it's everywhere. Also, mmmm, tasty. This is particularly good because I tried a lemon drink at QFC a couple of days ago - an all-organic "alternative" kind of drink - and like all kinds of other things now, it mostly tasted like sugar water. I could taste lemon in it, but it was kind of drowned out by the sugar rush. So I poured it out. (They didn't have any Limonata or I'd have tried that. I still plan to try it again. Hopefully that's still good.)

So anyway. Food in Japan: overwhelmingly better. Not universally, but overwhelmingly; Japanese food, western foods, whatever. Better.

But then, on the other hand, they do also have things like this:


Admiral Cheesehead's Orange Fleet Opens Namjatown
([livejournal.com profile] spazzkat's picture)


Nobody's perfect. -_^

Date: 2007-09-15 08:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] grian-ruadh.livejournal.com
O_o

It's like... Horatio Hornblower after being stampeded over by Packers fans near a dim sum counter.

I repeat, O_o.

Date: 2007-09-15 04:59 pm (UTC)

wtf cheesehead meets gyozacat

Date: 2007-09-15 09:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] blues-kun.livejournal.com
Did you go to any bakeries at any point? Holy SHIT. They'll put ANYTHING inside or on top of bread and it's incredible.

At the building I stayed in there, they had vending machine that sold 1 liter bottles of all kinds of stuff, like Qoo. I lived on Qoo when I was there, I wish they would sell it here someplace. And, uh, chocolate buns with cream inside. And tuna-cheese buns.

Like you said, variety is so huge there. I am jealous.

Date: 2007-09-15 10:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] alittlesoldier.livejournal.com
I love C.C. Lemon. I found it five years ago at an anime convention and bought a whole stack, and haven't been able to find it since. My fiance, to his credit, always TRIES to find it by purchasing whatever entirely random Lemon-flavored Asian pop he comes across, but C.C. Lemon has henceforth eluded me.

Glad someone else likes it too. :3

Date: 2007-09-15 02:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stickmaker.livejournal.com


*Sigh...*

I remember when the US had good fast food; in fact, good restaurant food *period* at all but the really bad places. And lunchmeats. I'm told the reason ham has so little flavor today is that hogs are no longer allowed to range free and root around, but are kept in pens and fed processed feed.

When I was a kid we called softserve ice cream "custard." It even looked like custard, the vanilla having a distinct yellow tinge. It probably had eggs in it. The taste was wonderful, as good as dipped but different. You're not allowed to put raw eggs in ice cream these days... My homemade milkshakes would probably be illegal if I attempted to sell them.

We have bland food for a bland culture. (No, pouring pure capsaicin on bland food does not make it flavorful. Only painful.)

Date: 2007-09-15 02:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
I'm told the reason ham has so little flavor today is that hogs are no longer allowed to range free and root around, but are kept in pens and fed processed feed.

Absolutely. Free-range meat tastes so much better. Even more so if it's humanely slaughtered. (Yeah, I know how it sounds, but it's the technical term last I checked.) I have a friend whose grandfather raises cattle, so he's always got free-range, grass fed, humanely slaughtered beef around. The only time I've had a hamburger rare was over at his place, and it was beyond delicious.

I really need to make an Icon for food-related posts ;-)

Date: 2007-09-15 07:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stickmaker.livejournal.com


One grandfather raised beef cattle; the other had a small dairy.

It's a wonder I don't mass 150 kg. :-)

Date: 2007-09-15 07:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Oh, man. Good meat and dairy? That musta been heaven on the dinner table.

I'm a baker at a small bakery that makes pretty much everything from scratch with fairly high quality ingredients. I think I've gained about 20 pounds over the past year since I started here ;-)

Date: 2007-09-15 08:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Over on Bainbridge Island. I'm currently at Bainbridge Bakers, but I'm hoping to move over to the other local bakery, Blackbird, sometime in the next couple of months.

Blackbird is even better about that sort of thing, actually, because it's run by bakers, while my boss is a cook, which requires a very different approach, so the bakery side of things has been kind of suffering since our old Head Baker moved to Portland in the spring.

Date: 2007-09-16 01:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stickmaker.livejournal.com


Heh. My sister went through the Agriculture program at the University of Kentucky. She once told me about the class where they made ice cream from milk which had been grass the day before. :-)

Date: 2007-09-15 03:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] agrimony.livejournal.com
Actually, more to the point, any pork item today is less flavorful than in the past because we have bred our pigs to be far more lean than they used to be. Of course, we've also bred them to be far less running around with the trichinosis.

Some places have not modified their curing process to allow for the more lean (therefore less indigenously flavorful) meat. Those that have still produce quite tasty ham.

Date: 2007-09-15 02:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] janne.livejournal.com
Wow. That picture is beyond belief.

And now I've got a craving for sushi, even if it's the mediocre kind...

Date: 2007-09-15 02:37 pm (UTC)
maellenkleth: (Default)
From: [personal profile] maellenkleth
Only place Stateside I've ever seen C.C. Lemon was in a Korean grocery store on East 32nd Street in Manhattan. Like that stuff. They also serve pretty damnfine bento there.

As to Asian food, on my rotations into China I eat vastly better (although at some risk from foodborne illness: hygiene is spotty in those kitchens) than I do in North America. I wonder whether it really is the quantity-over-quality choice being made on this side of the ocean?

Perhaps seeing a Sysco truck pull in behind a restaurant is a bad sign?

For Seattle food, since I am down there often enough, I prefer Kalia (an Indian restaurant) on Greenwood north of 85th, on the east side of the street. Give it a try sometime, if you can.

Where's a decent Japanese grocery in Seattle? I already know and enjoy Pal-Do World for Korean shopping up on 99 north of Lynwood.

Maellenkleth the maritime
from the foggy Isla de Quadra y Vancouver

Date: 2007-09-15 02:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
The place I work buys mostly from Sysco, and I've generally found it to be fairly good quality. IF it's an item that's currently in season. The produce tends to be really hit and miss as you move through the year.

Really, the time from field to plate is about the same for pretty much any delivery channel short of going to farmers' markets or making direct deals with the growers.

Date: 2007-09-15 05:13 pm (UTC)
ext_3294: Tux (Default)
From: [identity profile] technoshaman.livejournal.com
Uwajimaya, either 5th and Weller (the whole block, actually, 5th/6th/Weller/Dearborn) or NE 24th St and Bel-Red in Bellevue. The I-district one is HYOOGE (well, not by Japanese standards, but)... they have the variety, they have the meats, they have the produce, they have the fish all cut up and ready for rolling... and if you don't want to make it yourself, they have a deli counter of sorts (i.e. sushi and teriyaki and stuff, not sliced meats and cheeses), backed by a food court serving everything from Hawaiian to Filipino and even cheeseburgers at the far end if you really must. :)

H-T Market on Aurora (99) and 100th isn't as good, but it's easier to get to and the parking is free. They also have a "world" section on the left side between the Asian aisles and the produce that has about every country you could think of represented... Russian stood out as the most memorable.

Date: 2007-09-15 02:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
This doesn't actually really surprise me. I've never been there myself, but one of the very strong impressions I've had of Japanese culture is that by and large, they do not do things by halves.

I was going to go on a big rant about why American food is so crappy, but you cook enough that you probably know all those reasons anyhow.

I've noticed the same phenomenon with Irish food: If you get Irish food somewhere where they can actually afford good ingredients, it can be amazingly delicious.

Date: 2007-09-15 08:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Sorry, forgot that Geeky + Cooks + Politically Active Does not necessarily imply Knows About Factory Farming/Food Processing. It does for most of my close friends, but that's always a dangerous sample to work from. For me, in particular, most of this stuff is on the common knowledge level, because my Mom is a gardening and food writer, and one of the big promoters of organic gardening and organic and whole foods. Anyhow:

American food starts with factory farmed ingredients. These meats, produce, grains, etc. have been bred for disease and pest resistance, shelf life, transportability, pretty much anything except the flavour and texture that actually affect the eating experience. Nutritional value takes a hit, too.

These low quality ingredients are then typically processed in various ways to further increase transportability and shelf life, generally stripping out even more of the flavour and nutritional value.

What we have left is pretty much some 50s SF author's generic nutrition substance: a bland and joyless chunk of calories. So various artificial flavours are added, along with flavour enhancers like MSG and various other forms of sodium. The manufacturers are also required by law to replace some of the vitamins and minerals that were stripped out in the processing, and encouraged to add a few more.

Fats are cheap and provide an approximation of the satisfying fullness feeling of more expensive proteins. In addition, they hold and transfer flavours well, so it's easier to use flavouring additives to mask the fact that the heavy processing took out most of what little flavour there was in the first place. Finally, many of the vitamins and minerals that were added are easier to digest if they come in a fat-rich medium.

I believe that sugar, mostly in the form of corn syrup, was originally added partly as a preservative, but I'm not sure on that. In any case, most factory farmed produce has lost much of its natural sugars as part of the breeding for hardiness, and just doesn't taste right without that, so it started getting replaced with corn syrup. Over the years, the quantities used have gradually increased to pretty much ridiculous levels, and Americans have largely become conditioned to liking their food extremely sweet by pretty much anyone else's standards. In small amounts, sugar is also a flavour enhancer, so it sneaks into a lot of stuff there as well.

A couple of specific points:

If you're starting with good meat, the fatty cuts are much more tender and flavourful, but added fat from other sources does little to help a low quality starting point.

On that same note, fried foods are very tricky. If the fat that you're using is within a very narrow window, it comes out great. Outside of that window, you either get something overdone on the outside and raw in the middle (too hot), or the grease has time to soak into the food before it cooks properly (too cool). The kicker: each time food is lowered into the fat, it sucks up some of the heat, and cools the fryer down a little. If you don't wait for the fat to come back up to temp before dropping in the next batch, it's not hot enough and you get greasy food. Most American places put too much emphasis on quick turnaround time on orders to be able to take that time for the oil to heat back up again, so it all gets really greasy. Most places probably don't bother to calibrate their thermometers properly either, which will screw up the whole thing as well.

American Breads almost always have lots of added gluten, which is an easy way to get a light fluffy bread without needing a long rise. Unfortunately, this also keeps the bread from developing much in the way of flavour, and, after eating, it collapses into a lump of starch that sits like a lead weight in your stomach.

That's what I can think of right now. It's a bit disjointed, because I've been up for way too long, but it should all be pretty accurate. If I can remember more later I'll add another comment or something. Also, I might be going out to my mom's place to visit for a while this weekend. If I do, I'll ask her to look it over and see what I forgot.

Date: 2007-09-16 08:40 am (UTC)
ext_48519: (Default)
From: [identity profile] alienor77310.livejournal.com
These meats, produce, grains, etc. have been bred for disease and pest resistance, shelf life, transportability, pretty much anything except the flavour and texture that actually affect the eating experience.

You forgot size. The first time I read an American recipe that said "quarter and core the strawberries, I was all WTF??? Core a strawberry?

I also have a friend who lived in the backwoods of Canada, and who always cooked avocado, since those she got to find in stores were always unripe and hard as rock.

Date: 2007-09-16 08:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Oh, yeah, forgot that one. Bigger is always better ;-)

Date: 2007-09-16 02:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stickmaker.livejournal.com


This explains why my homemade sourdough bread is so popular...

Date: 2007-09-16 02:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Yeah, sourdoughs are pretty much the exact opposite of typical American factory baked bread. The time spent growing the yeast and slow rises makes for amazing flavours if you have good wild yeasts in the area.

Date: 2007-09-16 04:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stickmaker.livejournal.com


Whee! Free-range yeasts! ;-)

Date: 2007-09-16 04:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Yep. There are naturally occurring yeasts in the air pretty much everywhere, and sourdough starters work by attracting those to join the yeast that you started it off with. The types of yeasts in the air will vary from place to place which is why sourdoughs taste different in different places.

Date: 2007-09-17 01:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Yes, you should. I love making bread. There are so many things you can do with it, and you can mess with your recipe until it's just how you like it. Plus, self made is always more satisfying.

Date: 2007-09-15 08:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] westrider.livejournal.com
Oh, yeah, the fish thing: The Japanese take their fish very seriously, and fish there is much fresher than anything you're going to get in pretty much any restaurant here. I don't think they use much farmed fish either, which would affect the taste as well.

Date: 2007-09-15 03:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] darthhellokitty.livejournal.com
I love iced tea, and I remember being blown away by the many, many choices of vending machine iced tea - and every one I tried was good! I may have to head down to Uwajimaya and root around (like a free-range hog!) for something...

Date: 2007-09-15 05:21 pm (UTC)
ext_3294: Tux (cooking)
From: [identity profile] technoshaman.livejournal.com
OK. Now I'm officially jealous. :) (Rest stop curry. Damn.)

Limonata can be had by the can at several places in Pike Place (the Italian grocery/deli on the SW corner of First and Pike and the chicken vendor in the arcade across from the bakery come to mind)... don't remember right off where to get it in bulk... I don't think you'll be disappointed, it's definitely lemon and not too sweet.

(And if the Murkworks crowd decides it doesn't want to be your Bento victims, I bet we could find a couple of willing guinea pigs over here... :)

(Again, well written. And the pic at the end? Priceless. :)

Re: A late dispatch from Limonataland

Date: 2007-09-21 09:21 pm (UTC)
ext_3294: Tux (Default)
From: [identity profile] technoshaman.livejournal.com
*LOL* love the icon. So apropos. And good to know the drink is as it was; so much isn't these days.

Hey, we gotta see about getting you and [livejournal.com profile] annathepiper over for a music jam sometime soon. This weekend is Project Weekend and I have a bunch of electrical stuff to do as well as painting on Sunday if the weather cooperates...

The following weekend is the Tony and Vixy show at Wayward on Saturday, but Sunday might be open...

Date: 2007-09-15 06:08 pm (UTC)
ext_84823: (Default)
From: [identity profile] flit.livejournal.com
This reminds me a lot of how I felt about food in France.

Random train station sandwiches bought while rushing to get on a train?

That were fantastic?

Yeahhhhh.

Date: 2007-09-15 07:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stickmaker.livejournal.com


Heh. In 1984 I made a trip to Europe. While staying in London I usually at at a place called Wolf's, near Hyde Park. They served US-style main dishes - but with top quality ingredients and preparation - and French-style deserts.

Now I'm craving _chocolate gateau_. :-)

Date: 2007-09-16 02:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stickmaker.livejournal.com


Argh. "Ate at..."

Date: 2007-09-15 06:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dogemperor.livejournal.com
Damnit, now you make me hungry and jealous :3

(And I am surprised and pleased to find Namjatown still exists. Yay Namco-owned theme parks (yes, Namjatown is actually owned by Namco, as was a now-defunct park called Wonder Eggs--the latter actually shows up in one of the Tekken games (Tekken 3 or Tekken 4) in Xiaoyu's stage, and the Namjatown kitties show up in Tales of Destiny. :3)

One day I will actually have to go to Japan--if I can ever afford it, that is :P (I am, unfortunately, in a Flyover State (tm) whose only access to actual international airports is via our so-called international (which is international only for UPS), then flying to a hub that is an actual passenger international airport, then hence to Japan. And I'd want to take hubby with me. Meaning that I *hate* to think how much the airfare would be >_<)

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