Our 2018 trip to Japan was full of interesting food experiences. I thought it would be fun to collect them together in one post along with the places we visited, in the hope that it will inspire more home cooking in the future.
Osaka
my failsafe, easy okonomiyaki recipe
Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) or ‘fried/grilled-as-you-like-it’ is such an iconic dish that it is sometimes referred to as a ‘Japanese pizza’ or ‘Japanese pancake’. These nicknames disguise the fact that okonomiyaki is packed with vegetables and therefore, I think, relatively healthy. After playing around a lot with the ratios, I’ve settled on an easy okonomiyaki recipe, adapted for what I usually find in my fridge. Read on to find out more!
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omiyage review: regional Pretz
For a while, I’ve been meaning to post some reviews of Japanese food products. If you’re reading this in the snack aisle at the airport duty free on your way home from Japan, stop! Put down those salad-flavoured sticks! In this, my very first review, I’m going to guide you through some exciting Pretz varieties you could have instead.
First, a little background. One great thing about souvenir shopping in Japan is the huge domestic market not only for regional specialties – think Kobe beef or Nagasaki ‘castella’ (カステラ) cake – but also for ‘regional’ incarnations of national or even international products. Could you imagine a brand of crisps that came in Manchester, Glasgow, London and Cornwall flavours? Probably not. In Japan, this sort of thing is commercially viable thanks to the insatiable Japanese appetite for omiyage. This word encapsulates the charming but often stress-inducing practice of buying souvenir gifts for everyone who knew you were going away – even if it was just to another city.