Please Use Chopsticks

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: What's for dinner? Panel hopes 1.2 billion pick Japanese food
About 1.2 billion people will be eating sushi, sashimi and other Japanese dishes in five years if a plan succeeds in making Japanese cuisine the third most popular in the world...The number of people around the world who eat Japanese food more than once a year is currently estimated at about 600 million. But if the project succeeds in doubling that figure, Japanese food would trail only Chinese and French cuisine in terms of global popularity...more...

[devicenull]

I don't see why... pretty much all Japanese food is crap and tastes horrible. I'll give them the various yaki-s, but it pretty much stops there.

[Greji]

I don't see why... pretty much all Japanese food is crap and tastes horrible. I'll give them the various yaki-s, but it pretty much stops there.

I don't know about the food, but Japanese are delicious!

[Big Booger]

I don't see why... pretty much all Japanese food is crap and tastes horrible. I'll give them the various yaki-s, but it pretty much stops there.

Someone has his head too far up Mao's ass again.

There are great foods in Japan... much of it healthy, though the yakis are probably not.

Chawanmushi, Miso soup, onigiri, tempura, udon, soba, matakegohan, etc....

I do think that tastes are personal, so you saying Japanese food tastes like crap is your own asshole, or opinion.

[Kurofune]

I know the Japanese can be anal about their food, but what's with the culinary world domination thing?

[Samurai_Jerk]

I don't see why... pretty much all Japanese food is crap and tastes horrible. I'll give them the various yaki-s, but it pretty much stops there.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

[cstaylor]

No, devicenull has a point, especially if you're forced to eat on a budget in Japan.

[Greji]

I know the Japanese can be anal about their food, but what's with the culinary world domination thing?

Good point. Since only J people have special ability to identify and climax on Umami, what good is world domination of miso?

[sirwanksalot]

matakegohan

Did you mean Matsutake or is Matake something I missed out on?

[devicenull]

I don't see why... pretty much all Japanese food is crap and tastes horrible. I'll give them the various yaki-s, but it pretty much stops there.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

I didn't say that all the food IN japan is bad, but japanese food, for the most part is. Lot's of the good stuff is just from korea, china, portugal anyways. A lot of the other good stuff is more or less "borrowed" and fucked up to various degrees. If you can afford to blow a good 2000+ on a regular basis, I'm sure you will have no complaints. My hatred is for the "traditional" meals that I get myself into from time to time. Ise ebi was good, sashimi/sushi is fine for a side-dish from time to time, not as the entire meal though. Most of the stuff will range from horrible, bland, to over-poweringly sour. Oden is vile, udon absorbs no flavor, the japanese tofu tastes like a dishtowel. I will give them their yaki-s though. Cooked well, with some good seasonings and sauces, it's fairly good.

It would be nice if there were 100yen street foods or something that consisted of enough to make a small meal of.

[Big Booger]

matakegohan

Did you mean Matsutake or is Matake something I missed out on?

I meant maitake gohan:

http://www.e-kinoko.com/syouhin/reshipi/photo/maitake_gohan.jpg

Sorry there is no edit button.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I didn't say that all the food IN japan is bad, but japanese food, for the most part is. Lot's of the good stuff is just from korea, china, portugal anyways.

You can't say a food is not Japanese just because it has origins or influence from another country or area. Chili peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes all came from the Americas. By your logic I could say that a lot of Korean, Thai, and Italian food are really Native American.

sashimi/sushi is fine for a side-dish from time to time, not as the entire meal though ... Oden is vile, udon absorbs no flavor, the japanese tofu tastes like a dishtowel.

We can't really argue about taste but I have to disagree with you there. There are few things that can match very good sashimi. And I love oden and Japanese tofu (especially agedashi tofu)

I will give them their yaki-s though.

Something we can agree on. One thing I miss most about Japan is yakitori. Restaurants in the US just don't do it right.

[American Oyaji]

Something we can agree on. One thing I miss most about Japan is yakitori. Restaurants in the US just don't do it right.

[nodding sagely and grunting in approval] MMM, MMM.

You are SO right. They just CAN'T do it right.


And if you think Japanese food is bad, you've never been married to a Japanese woman or had REALLY close friends that have cooked for you on a regular basis to give you a variety of tastes.

And if you ARE married to a J-bird, her cooking skills must be vile.

I was fortunate. My ex-wife's parents had owned a restaurant at one point. So SHE learned to cook from them and they cooked their asses off.

And the only thing that is vile in Japan is chawanmushi (sp).
But that is just because I hate boiled chicken products (including eggs)

[Samurai_Jerk]

And the only thing that is vile in Japan is chawanmushi (sp).
But that is just because I hate boiled chicken products (including eggs)

Do you prefer fried?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[Mulboyne]

I know the Japanese can be anal about their food, but what's with the culinary world domination thing?

Money

[Mulboyne]

Evening Standard: "Nozomi" Restaurant Review - Failing to conquer Japanese
Do we really like Japanese food or is it just perceived as unfattening and therefore fashionable? I only ask because Jacobi Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, a descendant of William the Conqueror, and Max Della Torre e Tasso, a prince - just two of the people involved in the launch of Nozomi in Beauchamp Place - don't sound as if they are, how shall we say, innately handy around the old chopsticks. The Japanese Nozomi, which has replaced the Italian restaurant Floriana, boasts two chefs who have crossed the road from Zuma and an owner, Marios George, whose accomplishments include an erstwhile involvement in the club Attica.

As soon as we arrived for our 9pm booking, I realised we had committed the appalling solecism of being over 25 and weighing more than seven stone apiece. The towering black-clad deskbat, quite rightly, directed us to the worst table in the room next to the service station. Then Angelo, who used to work at Le Caprice and is now a manager at Nozomi, recognised us and immediately offered a better spot, but stoically I decided that we should stay put. Where we belonged.

The relatively short menu is divided into sections entitled Hatusara, Omo Sara and Kozuke and Salad. Extrapolating from the prices and also, of course, relying on my many years of experience in restaurants, I decided that these meant first course, main course and side dishes. Pork belly and vegetable namasu (I don't know either) with watercress, one of our chosen starters, proved unavailable, so lamb tataki with creamed avocado, thyme and "home-made soy sauce" was ordered instead.

I didn't realise that you could make soy sauce at home, but the kitchen seemed to have come up with a pretty feeble end-product. Thin, credit-cardsized slices of meat lay in weak salty liquid with some small cubes of avocado scattered around. Langoustine shabu-shabu with Navi's (he is one of the chefs) dressing at 18 pounds featured four utterly tasteless, cotton wool-textured shellfish arranged around that famously Japanese garnish, tomato concasse. I have had better crab shu mai in many dim-sum restaurants and for considerably less than 650p. A main course of salmon Saikyo and bekko tamago (don't ask, it's beside the point) was a sliver of fish which tasted as if marinated in room-freshener.

Seabream with match vegetables and happo (forget it) broth was a similarly modest portion and the slices of duck breast served in a sweet sauce with chopped baby leeks were the same size as the first-course lamb. But that's how you stay thin. That and the side-order of cigarettes which the girls - a sort of job lot of Paris Hiltons - at the table across the way chain-smoked. Putting our foot in it again, we asked about desserts. There is no dessert menu. We were offered exotic fruit or chilli, lime and coconut-flavoured icecreams. Coconut, Cantaloupe and watermelon ice creams were brought instead, but they were good.

A pot of Japanese green tea made from one teabag was poured into white china cups and saucers with spoons, like those you might find in an English caff, and charged at 9 pounds for the three of us. One floor up from the incredibly noisy dining room, away from throbbing music, the yelps of It Girls and their swains bouncing off hard surfaces and the car-crash manoeuvres of frantic staff, there is a quite promising-looking sushi bar.

[Buraku]

Crappy versions of French cheese, Aussie wine and fu-ransu-Panu






Japanese dream of becoming a binge eating hot-dog champ while Africans die of starvation

[Mulboyne]

Crappy versions of French cheese, Aussie wine and fu-ransu-Panu

Japanese dream of becoming a binge eating hot-dog champ while Africans die of starvation

No, you've lost me completely there.

[Buraku]

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/homesweethome2/20040419193551302_11.jpg




Ever see a Japan guy dressed in cowboy gear making ultra-loud slurping noises while trying to eat spaghetti
??

[Somerandomgaijin]

Buraku-

Very nice use of a spork within you collage of randomness.



Subsequently, Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole.