Food

Why, yes, I can!

At TY Harbor (previously mentioned here). Though more than 10 times the price of the equivalent item at Mickey D's, it did come with chips (North American: fries) and salad and all-you-can-drink cold tea which I couldn't quite identify, and all things considered (like taste) is better value for money (especially when Someone Else is footing the bill).

Kthxbye.

In Kabukicho of all places. Still, there was something to celebrate :).

"Heimweh" is German for "homesickness", and no - not suffering from that really - but the last couple of days I've been afflicted by what can only be described as a "bread crisis". Two weeks of a rice-based diet (supplemented by various sorts of noodles and Japanese junk food) has left my system crying out for some real bread, something you can really get your teeth into. The bakery products you find at convenience stores barely count as bread, and I've been going round Japanese bakeries in the vain hope they might have something which appeals to me - to no avail. Not quite sure where Japanese bakeries get their ideas from, but it sure isn't from Europe (except for maybe the baguette-like things).

And then earlier today I wandered randomly through the basement of the Tokyu department store in Shibuya and there to my delight was a stand run by a shop calling itself Bäckerei Linde. With actual German-style bread. My digestive system did a spontaneous leap of joy and - feeling flush due to an unexpected change of circumstances - I shelled out 150 yen (about 1 Euro) each for a single Käsebrötchen (white bread roll with a cheese topping) and a snail. Well, not a snail as such, but a popular German bakery product called "Schnecke" (snail) as it is a sort of spiral shape, vaguely resembling the shell of aforesaid mollusc.

Unfortunately I ate the Käsebrötchen before it occurred to me to make a photo, but as with the Rosinenschnecke (raisin snail, with two raisins) pictured here, it was a faithful reproduction of the original, except the information about the conventional size has obviously been lost in translation and both products were consumed in a couple of bites.

For just 1680 Yen, this Ise Shrimp and American Sauce Ringuine (?) of Scallop Sitting on a Nest of Spaghetti can be yours. Well, not this plate in particular because the restaurant is very attached to it as a way of visually presenting their culinary virtues to passers-by.

伊勢海老&帆立のアメリカンソースラングイネ

The most important question is of course: how do they stop the spaghetti sliding off the plate?

The omnipresent but slightly behind the times in a the-shops-probably-look-much-as-they-did-25-years-ago-kind-of-way coffee shop chain Doutor has latched on to the Seattle style with its relatively new "Excelsior Caffé" (sic) cafés. A stop-over at Gifu station provided an opportunity to sample Starbucks Japanese-style with this exquisite morning set (モーニングセット) consisting of a boiled egg, kafeore (カフェオレ, café au lait) and a croissant containing various animal and vegetable products. All for 450 Yen.

Well, it was OK. The hard-boiled egg was boiled and the croissant was crescent-shaped. The coffee had milky foam on top. The WLAN reception was zilch. All in all a representative Japanese breakfast experience.

Links: Excelsior Caffé, location.