What today ate we?: January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Barf-O-Rama

To the untrained eye, this may look like a bowl of puke, but our more discerning readers will no doubt recognize this Kyoto delight of roast chicken with egg sauce.

Time for Another Random Restaurant

We felt lazy, and just wanted to have some food whilst biking back to the hotel. This restaurant looked nice from the outside.

We enjoyed many small dishes: some salad with fish...

... some barbecued peppers and meatz...

...shiitake on a stick...

...almost raw chicken liver...

...eggplant two ways...

...chicken (I think)...

...and tsukune (according to a Flickr commenter).

Monday, January 30, 2012

After biking around Gion neighborhood in Kyoto, where we saw beautiful Japanese buildings and ugly love hotels with hotel rooms that could be rented for 30 minutes (I guess this is where the kimono really proves its functionality), we wanted to eat something. We saw this little okonomiyaki restaurant, stopped in front of it, and decided it was good judging by the smell.

It turned out to be a good choice --- this one guy was preparing and serving food, and did it really well.

Mmm, okonomiyaki.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Self-Portraits

Self-portrait with wife and castle.

Self-portrait with castle. I know, I know, I have a politician's head*, but there really is a castle in the background.

Colorful self-portrait with castle.

I overdid the photoshopping a bit, this is what the weather really was like that day:

But I am experimenting with extreme photoshopping.

*Having a large, fleshy head gives a politician a big advantage: every shot of him/her will be a close-up. How else could one explain that Newt Gingrich, for instance, has come as far as he has?

Korean Lunch

Fodor's recommended this beautiful Korean Tea House called Somushi. The vegetable curry and bibimbap were indeed quite tasty!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Birthday Boy

Even though F received a bonus 33% birthday yesterday, quantity does not equal quality. So we decided he should have a second birthday today, and this time we are not spending the day sitting in a small seat and eating disgusting foodz.

So today, F went to buy a new coat, since his old coat had already been with him since he was still in his twenties. And, since we decided it is still his birthday, he bought two.

Westin Miyako

For our first few days in Kyoto, we stayed in the ryokan that is part of, but in a separate building right behind the main building of the Westin Miyako hotel.

It was a beautiful Japanese room, with the obligatory flower arrangement nook.

And it even had a wooden bathtub!

No photo series of a Japan journey would be complete without a picture of a Japanese toilet seat, so there.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Home Style Japanese Food

While biking around, we saw many small, inviting looking restaurants. We decided to go into one of them, where we filled up the place by taking the second table. The cook and his wife did not speak much English, but the other two guests did, and we managed to order this plate of home style Japanese food. Japan is great.

Yay! Turtles!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Once You Go Bukkake

... you don't go backake.

Yum.

Best Dinner Redux

After a disappointing dinner of okonomiyaki, we went back to the best restaurant we found so far in Kyoto --- and had another great dinner.

Besides wonderfully fresh fish, we also had agedashi tofu:

But the fish really is the highlight of this restaurant (called Anji).

Highly recommended!

Okonomiyaki

Anke described Okonomiyaki as "... exactly what you would hope to make when you get home after partying all night. Not a great culinary delight, but definitely tasty." This time we did not go to the best okonomiyaki restaurant in Japan, and I would not be surprised if it actually is the worst one.