Casa Vino

I was walking along Route 17 with my fiance looking for a secondhand shop near our place in Toda a few weeks ago when we came across this gem:

Photo courtesy of Colin Barey

As the sign says, it's a karaoke and billiards place and despite my love for singing badly with a group of friends and playing pool, what really drew my attention to Casa Vino was the other text on the sign. Here is how this establishment describes itself:

Casual

Attractive

Stylish

America (What?! That's not an adjective!)

Vivacious

Interactive

Natural

Orange

Yes, ORANGE. I guess if you're looking for an "orange" karaoke experience, this is the place to be. Do they mean the colour orange, or the fruit? Better yet, am I the only one who pondered that question after seeing the sign? Somebody,  please help me decipher this.

Acquisitionitis

Sometimes you hear about people's obsessive collection of things likened to a disease. My mother used to collect glass bottles she thought to be interesting looking. She also used to collect jars. Any attempt on my part to dispose of these containers would result in her screeching something to the effect of: "NO!! What are you doing? I could use that for...something." I'd reply, "What? What, mother, are you going to use this for?" She never knew exactly how each empty container would turn out to be useful, just that they all would, somehow.

My boyfriend's affliction is collecting cameras. This ailment started out as a minor bug in the form of curiosity about stereo photography (e.g. View-Master) and then developed into a full-blown virus which has manifested itself into a crazy collection of camera equipment (ten film cameras and about twelve lenses).

Of course, while many people collect things that are similar (some people even collect people of a certain type, but I'll save that for another post), other people collect a wide array of junk. There's a house near my train station which is beyond words. I first walked past it one night last year and I had thought it was some kind of theme restaurant. The first time I saw it in the daytime, I was awestruck. I present to you the Crazy Artsy Weird Cool House Near Todakoen Station.

The yard from the gate.

One of the many masks on the fence.

Another mask, especially creepy in black and white.

More of the fence.

Audrey Hepburn is always wishing everyone a Merry Christmas here...

...and it's always 7:59.

Here we are reminded not to forget our safety goggles.

Another mask on an oar, which was undoubtedly fished out of a junk yard near the Todakoen Boat Course.

Another mask on a structure that actually looked like a person at first glance.

Maybe I won't continue trying to dissuade my mother from keeping her pretty glass bottles. Well, considering my poor co-ordination and propensity for tripping and falling, maybe I should.

Feeding Frenzy

Food. My first priority shortly after arriving in Japan was finding places to buy ingredients to recreate the dishes I love from home. Soon, I came to rely on Kaldi and Seijo Ishii  for allspice , Yamaya for Jamaican rum (even though it's just Myers's Rum) and my local Summit Supermarket for everything else in between. 　


Three years into my life here, I've gotten somewhat used to food shopping in Japan, but there are still some things that baffle me when I walk into the store, like:


Bread


The first time I ventured out into a Japanese supermarket in search of bread, I was extremely surprised to find this:

Bread in packets of six and eight slices. I still find myself longing for hard dough bread like what I could buy at National Bakery. However, I'm left to choose between the six-slice pack or the eight-slice pack (or even a three-slice pack at some supermarkets) each of the three times per two weeks I buy bread. I've gotten somewhat used to the available choices, but I still keep wondering whenever I see the three-slice packs, what IS one supposed to do with an odd number of slices?


Bacon


It seems to me that in Japanese supermarkets, with the exception of international supermarkets like National Azabu  and meat wholesalers like Niku No Hanamasa, bacon equals sliced ham. Don't get me wrong - I love ham but I like it in my sandwiches. I'm not a fan of frying it up. Why can't I find anything that fries like real bacon near where I live. A woman on Yahoo! Answers responds to (basically) the same question posted by another ex-pat three years ago:

Do you know how Japanese people cook bacon? I don't think you do. But before I answer how we cook bacon, I want to say that I really don't know how British people cook bacon because I've never visited and lived there. But I do know how Americans cook bacon because I've lived in the states for more than 10 years, and I do cook real bacon here in the states.

Well, many Japanese people who know how Americans cook bacon would say they cook bacon until it's really burnt. So we call the kind of bacon " burnt bacon." 

But for Americans, how we cook bacon is too rare. Well, my husbands's brother ( American) goes to Japan for business and he told me that the way Japanese people cook bacon is too rare. So he didn't want to eat bacon because he thought that he would get sick by eating " raw" bacon. Well, in America, cooking bacon like how the Japanese do is not safe to eat because Americans use " real" bacon. In order to eat real bacon, people need to cook it really well.

But in Japan, we don't really like to cook bacon that way. So we have our bacon that is safe to eat. Our bacon is smoked and heated through because we want to eat rare or medium-rare bacon. So the kind of bacon has been sold in Japan.

Well, actually selling " real" bacon (the bacon that is dangerous to eat as raw ) was prohibited by law. That's why, you couldn't see " real" bacon at any grocery stores in Japan. Well, we are very careful when it comes to food that when we want to eat something that is not safe to eat as raw, we need to do something. So stuff like eggs, bacon are pasteurized usually.

But these days, Japan has introduced unheated bacon which is very very close to " real" bacon. Since we are getting to know more western style food, we've changed the law a bit that some stores started selling unheated bacon. Even though many Japanese people still don't like to cook bacon like how Americans do, some people who like international food want to try to cook...well, " burnt bacon." But still we like to eat raw stuff so the bacon is not probably the exactly same as the bacon sold in the states if raw bacon is made through bacon companies in Japan:

 Chicken


I mentioned before on this blog how big a deal chicken is in Japan during the Christmas season. People pre-order buckets of fried chicken from KFC weeks in advance and whole chickens can be found in supermarkets everywhere. The week after Christmas, though, there are no whole chickens to be found except at a few international supermarkets and meat wholesalers such as the above-mentioned.

Also, there is the fact the boneless chicken as all most Japanese supermarkets seem to be interested in selling, with the exception of chicken wings. You can get wings, livers, hearts, breasts, boneless thighs and even chicken meatballs but no drumsticks! Where are the drumsticks?

Kit Kat


There are many flavours of this popular candy bar here that I'm sure people outside of Japan would have never dreamt of, for example, yuzukosho.  Yuzu is a citrus fruit that is found in East Asia. Yuzukosho is type of seasoning made from yuzu, peppers and salt. The first time I was offered  a Yuzukosho Kit Kat bar, I was a bit skeptical, but I ended up liking it a lot. Other flavours that can be found in Japan include candied sweet potato, apple vinegar (with white chocolate), sweet corn and green tea. You can get a look at more flavours on Nestle Japan's website here.

There are many other things that make me shake my head or raise an eyebrow whenever I go grocery shopping or receive gifts (such as the Yuzukosho Kit Kat bar I got from a student) but I will leave more for another post. Meanwhile, if you're an ex-pat in Japan and you've had any puzzling gastronomical experiences (apart from trying unusual traditional Japanese cuisine, obviously) please leave me a comment. Happy cooking and don't burn the ham, er, bacon.

Ringing In The New Year In Tokyo...Take 3

I mentioned in my last post that this is my third Christmas/New Year holiday season in Japan. This year, I decided to start New Year's Eve night differently than the past two years. Instead of starting out in the bars and clubs of Roppongi and then heading to a temple the next day, we decided to do it in reverse.

Our first stop was Zojoji Temple near Shiba Park and Tokyo Tower. I experimented with night time photography using my newly acquired film camera, but mainly, we were there to see the release of thousands of balloons with wish cards attached at the stroke of midnight.





We popped a bottle of champagne, toasted to the New Year and admired the balloons floating toward to the full moon that was out. Plans were made to meet up with some other friends in Roppongi. We trekked towards the main drag and met with our friends in front of Don Quijote .  "Where should we go?" someone asked. "Why don't we go to Wall Street?" I suggested. It was the first bar I could think of that wouldn't involve the fuss of cover charges and unnecessarily long lines, two things I was not in the mood to deal with on a crazy night such as New Year's.

We went to Wall Street Bar 2,  and I saw their most visible bouncer standing at the door. If you've ever walked along Gaien Higashi Dori at night, you know who I'm talking about. Probably the only black man working the strip who's not African: American,  light-skinned, LARGE and LOUD. You can't miss him.

Anyway, we got to the door, and I saw a guy sitting in the foyer with a money box and calculator.  Since this establishment doesn't usually collect a cover charge at the door (and their website says, big and bold, FREE ENTRANCE), I simply asked if there was a cover charge for the night. The bouncer responded saying yes, there was a charge of 3000 yen which included two drinks. I thought that was pretty steep for this place. Afterall, it's no Feria. Before I had a chance to say anything myself, my boyfriend asked me if I wanted to leave and I nodded and went back out the  door. Then, Lt. Asshole charged out behind us screaming a barrage of insults, which included some racially offensive statements like, "Don't be a fucking Jew! Don't be a Whoopi Goldberg! [huh?] Don't be a black Jew!" and also referring to my boyfriend as a n-----. At first, I was just stunned, because I've been to this bar and the older branch more times than I can recall and have spent quite a bit of money there, a fact that I got in his face to remind him of before telling him to fuck off and leaving the area.

I, fuming, and the others, astounded, headed away from the strip and walked towards Roppongi Hills. We went to Heartland Bar, a long-time favourite of many Roppongi night life patrons - they have Heartland beer for sale there for 500 yen a bottle, the bartenders are usually pretty nice and there's always some idiot there making a spectacle of himself in tune with the pounding (usually techno or house) music. Last night's specimen was a guy who apparently thought that the new trend in dancing as bending at a 90 degree angle, grasping the edge of the bar while tossing his head from side to side.

After a couple beers we went across the street to Saizeriya to grab some late night cheap eats. Getting seated in the family restaurant proved to be quite a task, since the one area that would have been sufficient to seat the seven of us was occupied by one man (with scarily rotten-looking teeth) who appeared to be singing to himself in his sleep. We eventually agreed to split our group and after we were seated, the guy went to the restroom, came out and essentially stood by our table, with nothing but a sheet of glass separating us, where he continued his slumberous performance for the duration of our meal.

Next stop for most of the crew - the strain station. At this point, we had just left the restaurant and it was about 4a.m. I wasn't ready to go home yet. I wanted to stay out and dance. We saw our friends off and headed back out into the streets in search of a place to hang out. A British tout handed us a flyer for a fairly new bar near Tokyo Midtown called Heroes. It was empty, save for about seven other patrons, the manager and the bartender. We sat at the bar and chatted about hats with a patron who was sporting  an amazing pinstripe fedora. I also managed to practice my Japanese a little; the bartender who is of Japanese and Korean parentage was very talkative and freely chatted with us (mostly in Japanese and a little in English) about her life in Japan since she moved here from Korea a few years ago.

That's what I love about this town. Now matter how seedy the nightlife can get sometimes, you're always guaranteed to meet someone with a story. We said goodbye to the bartender and the manager (who's also very friendly) and headed home. When we got to our station, the last bit of New Year's Eve moonlight was already long behind us and we squinted in 2010's first daylight as we made our way home.