Valentine’s day, prawns, and high-tech toilet
February 20, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: Japanese high-tech toilet, sushi
2 comments
I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s day and President day!
I realized I hadn’t blogged this week! O_O It feels like time flies even faster when you have a long weekend and a full-time job.
My boyfriend and I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s day. But it was Sunday so we decided to go to IKEA (romantic, isn’t it?). We failed to get the furniture we wanted, but succeeded to get Swedish meatballs and “prawn cheese spread.” We’ve been trying to get a certain piece of furniture from IKEA but it hasn’t been very successful… My boyfriend did a comic about it on his site, so check it out!
After we came home, we just played video games. He played Batman: Arkham Asylum and I played Okami for the Wii. At night, we made sushi and watched District 9 on Blu-ray. We had tuna, salmon and shrimp. How appropriate to watch District 9 while eating shrimp (prawn), right? =D
It’s so easy to prepare shrimp for sushi. Also, it’s easier and cheaper to get fresh shrimp in the U.S. than fresh salmon sashimi or tuna. So if you’re fan of shrimp sushi, you should try making it by yourself. I’ll do a quick how-to prepare shrimp for sushi soon. Probably this weekend.
I made two un-flattened shrimp to make a heart, so it was a very romantic Valentine's after all. =D
On Monday (President’s day), it was really nice out so we decided to go into the city to try out a Japanese restaurant called “Hasaki”. We picked the place because I’ve read that they have one of those super high-tech Japanese toilets. (Hasaki is located on 210 East 9th Street, between 2nd 3rd ave)
There’s a side story to this which is our quest to review restaurants with high-tech Japanese toilets. When we went to Curry-ya (a curry restaurant) in the East Village, they had a super high-tech Japanese toilet. (My boyfriend also did a review for Curry-ya, so check it out here.) I was so happy at this little surprise that I did research when I got home and made a list of restaurants in the city that have the high-tech Japanese toilet. Most locations are fancy up-scale Japanese restaurants, but Hasaki was affordable and had very good reviews for the food as well.
I ordered the Twilight Dinner, my boyfriend ordered grilled salmon. I was pleasantly surprised when they brought me my meal. It was a lot of food, and all for $20!
the Twilight Dinner - Salad
the Twilight Dinner - Main course, From top left (clockwise): Kinpira gobo with shiitake, vegetable & fish cake (real fish cake!) & shrimp tempura, grilled fish, Hijiki, Satoimo (Japanese sweet potato) O_O;
the Twilight Dinner - It also comes with either sashimi or sushi!
the Twilight Dinner - Dessert was assorted fresh fruit
It didn’t fit in the picture, but it comes with a bowl of rice and red miso soup. Did I mention all this is just for $20!!! Yes, salad, the whole plate, and desert. The only catch is that the Twilight Dinner is served only from 5:30 PM~6:30PM. Thus the name “Twilight.” Not a reference to the movie 
I’m not good at reviewing restaurants, but my boyfriend did it on his blog. So you can read his detailed review of Hasaki here!
If you want to try different kinds of authentic Japanese cuisine, this is well worth it. The portions of each dish is pretty small but everything was very carefully prepared and seasoned just right. I ordered sashimi, so it came with a bowl of rice. But if you order sushi, you don’t get rice separately. The rice bowl is pretty small, but don’t feel embarrassed to order another bowl of rice if you want. Oh another thing, the miso soup here is pretty unique. They use fresh red miso and it’s very robust, so don’t be alarmed by the distinctive aroma.
Of course, we both went to the bathroom to check out the toilet. The lid opens when you get closer, washes & dries your bottom and flushes automatically afterward. Oh and the seat is heated!! Many people think that it’s just another wacky Japanese invention, but this high tech toilet is a lot more ecologically friendly than using paper.
The black part on the seat is a motion sensor, so it opens when you get closer to the toilet, and flushes when you move away from the seat.
The control panel on the wall. "Front" and "Back" on the right of the display screen is to change the angle of water. The one on the left is to change the pressure.
A simpler version is on the top of the control panel. The three buttons on the right is to close the lid, open the lid, and lift the seat.
Only one stall for each men and women's bathroom, but it is very roomy, clean and calming.
My parents house and my brother’s place in Japan have it. It’s very common thing in Japan now. Unfortunately only the women’s room has a super high tech toilet, the men’s room isn’t quite as high tech. (The seat is still heated, and you can control the pressure, and it washes your butt!) My boyfriend looked very sad when I showed him the pictures of women’s bathroom though. He thought it wasn’t fair.
Anyway, the amazing deal on the Twilight Dinner and the super high-tech toilet aren’t the only reasons to visit Hasaki. The interior was tasteful, the service was also very attentive, and they also have a sushi bar as well. We will definitely go back there again!
You can check out the restaurant reviews and see more pictures on my boyfriend’s blog!
Curry-ya in East Village
Hasaki in East Village
setsubun & eho-maki
February 7, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else add a comment
Not a bento blog, but I wanted to do this quick post before I do another bento blog since it’s kind of a seasonal thing. (I should’ve done this a couple of days ago, but I’ve been busy playing a video game lately… )
Last week I made Setsubun Totoro bento for Setsubun to scare off evil spirits. On the night of February 3rd, we got roasted soybeans to throw and I made Eho-maki (a type of sushi roll) for dinner.
I got these roasted soybeans in a fake wooden box ("masu") for Setsubun.
It came with a small Oni mask. His hair was trees with "eco" (as in ecological) written on it, his beard was leaves, and he's got a recycling logo for his nose. Definitely not the scary oni I remember... Who would want to throw beans at such an environmentally friendly oni??
Click to continue reading "setsubun & eho-maki"
bento boxes
February 2, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else 2 comments
A couple of people have asked me in their comments about the bento box that I use, so I asked my boyfriend to snap some pictures of my bento boxes.
If you’ve seen my bento, you may have noticed that I use the same bento box all the time. It’s actually a takeout container from our favorite restaurant. When I made the first bento, I was at my boyfriend’s house, but we weren’t living together and I didn’t have my bento boxes at his house. We used to order takeout a little more often than we do now, and we had so many same containers. He’s been using the same type of container for his lunch even before we started going out.
My boyfriend's bento box on the left, My Totoro bento box (for a special occasion) on the right. *CD is for a size comparison.
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Mochi-tsuki
January 3, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: mochi-tsuki, rice cake
2 comments
My boyfriend has been taking a Japanese class for almost 4 years now. At the end of every year, his school has a “mochi-tsuki” (rice cake pounding) event. We went there at the end of last year, and had a lot of fun! So I decided to share it with you.
Rice cakes are made with mochi-rice (stickier than the regular sticky rice) made soft by soaking it in hot water for a while then mushed and pounded in a wooden or stone mortar with a wooden mallet.
When I was little, my grandmother used to make it every year, but she had a “mochi-tsuki machine” because it’s so much easier than pounding to make mochi, and it’s still a lot fresher than store bought mochi.
“How hard can it be to make rice cake?” you ask.
Probably harder than you think.
Click to continue reading "Mochi-tsuki"
Happy Happy New Year!
January 1, 2010
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else, bento blog (all) Tags: soba, studio ghibli, totoro
1 comment so far
We didn’t go out on New year’s eve. We stayed home and I cooked “toshikoshi soba,” and we just watched the ball drop on TV. “Toshikoshi-soba” means “the end of the year soba noodle.” In Japan, people eat soba at night before the year’s over. Any soba eaten on the night of December 31st is “toshikoshi-soba.” What kind of soba you’ll eat depends on your family tradition, where you’re from, etc… For us, I just cooked soba and ate it with a little bit of scallions, kamaboko (fish cake), carrot and enoki.
Our toshikoshi soba 2009!
And to start off 2010, I made this for my boyfriend’s brunch! It’s not very special, but since we make rice balls for brunch almost every weekend, I thought I’d play with it a little this morning. I’ll do a post about this later, but here’s a picture.
It’s “kagami-mochi” Totoro! Well, it’s not mochi (rice cake), but I decided to stack them on top of each other like “kagami-mochi.”
Just like my any other Totoro, they’re made with rice mixed with black sesame seed and seaweed powder, stuffed with tarako (cod roe), and the chibi-Totoro is made with a quail egg.
Kagami-mochi is a decoration for the New Year in Japan. It’s made with 2~3 round rice cakes stacked on top of each other. Traditionally, you break it and eat it on the second Saturday or Sunday of January. But my grandma wasn’t that strict about when we broke the kagami-mochi though. I remember her beating the crap out of a kagami-mochi with the back of a knife because mochi gets rock hard after being displayed for a couple of days. (A lot of time, people use a mallet or hammer to break it.) Most of kagami-mochi sold in a store is shrink-wrapped now so it will never get too hard or moldy. We stopped by at Sunrise mart (a local Japanese grocery store) the other day and got ourselves a “kagami-mochi.”
This year is the year of tiger, so it came with a cute little tiger figure.
Have a happy new year, everyone!
新年明けましておめでとうございます。
今年もどうぞよろしくお願いいたします。
アンナ
Happy Holidays!
December 26, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else, stuffed stuff Tags: Christmas tree, fox squirrel, laputa, studio ghibli
2 comments
Sorry about the lack of blogging lately. My boyfriend and I are on a pretty long holiday vacation (we’re off until the beginning of the next year!), so I don’t have to make bento. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop making them! As soon as we finish watching DVDs & blu-rays and playing games we got for Christmas (maybe get some inspiration from them for my bento, who knows ), I’m going to be making more bento!
We had a little early gift exchange party at our friend’s place. I got my boyfriend Beatles Rock Band for Xbox 360, Jet Li’s “Fearless” on blu-ray (we own the DVD, but blu-ray looks so pretty) and the 1st volume of Moyashimon in English. He got me an amazing statue of pure awesomeness.
He looks just like my bento!
Check out my Laputa robot bento HERE and HERE!
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katamari forever contest
December 11, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: katamari damacy, penny arcade
8 comments
Wow, I won!
Read the second article on the page at Penny Arcade. (*The site contains mature language!)
Click to continue reading "katamari forever contest"
tricked or treated!
November 1, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: BioShock, bird, bunny, Dee Snider, Halloween, Mad Hatter, mask, papercraft, Splicer
6 comments
Tricked or treated!
Me and my boyfriend
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PAX 2009!
September 9, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Alteil, Everything else Tags: castle crashers, conventions, pax, the behemoth
7 comments
…and I’m back from PAX!
I was working at Alteil (online card game I work for) at PAX, Penny Arcade Expo, in Seattle from 9/4-9/6. I was going to do a blog post about PAX from the hotel everyday, but I was pretty exhausted by the end of each day… So I’m gonna do a post about my three-day experience at PAX!
9/3 Thursday Pre-PAX
We got to Seattle around 3:00 pm on Thursday. After we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we headed to the convention center to set up our booth. When we were done, we went to the market, which was a couple of blocks away from the hotel. The market had fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, olive oil, etc… They all looked so shiny and yummy. I had grilled seafood for dinner and it was delicious. We went back to the hotel and decided to call it an early night for the long day on Friday.
The lanyard was by the Behemoth!
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the most tasteless bibimbap I've ever had – part2
August 30, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in Everything else Tags: bibimbap, omelet
3 comments
So I wrote about my experience with the blandest bibimbap I’ve ever had. (see the picture of the bibimbap by clicking here.) I’ve read the comments, and I’m sure gochujang/gojoojang would’ve probably given it a bit of flavor, BUT my friend and I agreed that even if we added gochujang/gojoojang, it would’ve probably been absorbed into the bowl of …”stuff.” It was that flavorless! (By the way, this was not my first bibimbap experience, and I’m Asian, so I don’t think they didn’t give it to me because they thought I couldn’t handle the spicy food.)
You can see the carrots, meat, other veggies in the picture, but they just had no texture OR taste! I realized that “no texture” was part of the bland taste. I remembered that once I started mixing it, the veggie & rice lost its shape, and the meat disappeared. I was talking to my friend and we came to the conclusion that it was as if they boiled all the ingredients in water for a very long time, got all the juice and flavor out, and used the water for some soup, and used the veggie for the bibimbap.
I’m not trying to say the all bibimbap is bland, but you really had to try this one to understand what I mean by “tasteless.” (But of course, I won’t give you the name for this place.)
Anyway, this is bibimbap make-over day 2. I decided to make an “omurice” with leftover bibimbap. Omurice is a very popular meal for kids in Japan, and it’s basically fried rice (usually seasoned with ketchup) inside an omelet.
Click to continue reading "the most tasteless bibimbap I've ever had – part2"
