Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Super Baozi vs Sushi man from sun haipeng on Vimeo.

Just add this to the list of food attacking each other videos.

I must have been missing decent sushi: I jumped into a sushi restaurant at Narita airport on my ARRIVAL not on my departure. It was a bit insane.

Couldn't even wait until I got into the city.



I like these takeaway sushi too.


And inari-zushi.



Sashimi at my friend's


Grilled yellowtail breakfast



Whitebate on grated daikon radish



Alfonsino and soft tofu dinner set with brown rice at a hippy diner.



Spring-y bento at the train station





Yakitori (char-grilled chicken) rice bowl (no they are NOT generic teriyaki's)


yummmmmyyyyyyyyyy

Only available at Shin-Chitose airport, Hokkaido.


And bento's from other airpots throughout Japan.

I saw them years ago in Tokyo, and alas, the Furaisu closed its doors in 2002.


What I remember is Ebi-furai (deep fried breaded shrimp) in a hand-roll, but seems like they also had Hire-katsu (deep fried breaded pork fillet) version as well.

Maybe it's better be called a mutant onigiri (rice balls) than hand-roll rushi... since it's probably rolling regular plain steamed rice, not sushi rice (with vinegar & sugar).
But surely the idea must have come from hand-roll sushi.

The name Furaisu comes from furai (deep fried stuff) and raisu (rice), of course.

Sorry for bad quality pictures... it was very dark and my camera sucked.

Brown rice & veggie nigiri:


Also, tofu quiche.


Both from Gaya-Aoyama, Tokyo.

I've been there in good old days when they were still a regular (i.e., not claiming "organic") izakaya.

It was a pleasant surprise when they turned into a healthy beige food capital.

They actually have both strictly macrobiotic veggie and non-veggie menus, so it's actually quite handy. A good variety of shochu and sake too.

You can also smile at the Japangrish introduction:

Since The GAYA restaurant originated in Yoyogi-uehara in Jun.28 1987,we've been struggling for our wishes that all guests get full of vitality and more healthy day and night．We've been branching out having hope to offer Delicious cuisine,Good drink, and Pleasant talk.

What is the TRUE TASTY?
What is real necessary for vitality of guests?

Since mad cow disease problem occured,we've thought of safety of food seriously and considered what our restaurant should be like.In truth,we had made an effort to purchase ingredients as low price as possible and hardly thought about the environment in which vegetables and meat grew.We started to concidered the importance of food deeply and we must change the stance of our restaurant.

We resolved to try opening up ORGANIC IZAKAYA!!

“All dishes the guests have build their bodies．”We'll always keep this in our mind and decided all ingredients and seasonings are natural. We call this “REAL FOOD".
Please have dishes,drink happily and laugh heartily．
Both a healthy mind and healthy body are true vitality．All of us try as hard as possible to help all guests with their vitality from now on.

My favorite line... What is the TRUE TASTY?

Brown rice sushi roll with tofu & veggie filling:


From a macrobiotic conference in Vermont a few years back.

I'm pretty much used to bitching about Japanese food in Europe. But today, for once, I am happy to have the shoe on the other foot, as I defend Munich's Nomiya from both a Süddeutsche newspaper reviewer (who titled her piece "A Lot of Fuss about a Little bit of Sushi") and grumpy bloggers, who whined about the lighting being too bright, which I do not agree with at all.

This outpost in the lefty, trendy area of Haidhausen and Au is a combo of old-fashioned Bavarian style, with scuffed wooden sideboards and solid plank tables, and a modern, cozy izakaya vibe. With the addition of some low-hanging lights around the sushi counter, and some cool artwork by a Japanese artist who's lived in Munich since the '80s, and actual Japanese chefs preparing the food, the overall experience is very pleasing indeed. Of course, don't come here if your idea of a Japanese restaurant needs to include giant sashimi platters. This is an izakaya, and it's very casual food served here. So sashimi-lovers will need to get over it.

By the way, it's not uncommon to be seated quite close to other customers in an izakaya, so this is also something that fussy reviewers will need to get over. On the night we went, we weren't squashed next to blustering beer-lovers: just quiet, intellectual-looking local residents.



Good things:
A selection of grilled kushi-skewers including crunchy pear cut into an almond shape and wrapped with bacon. The sushi was yummy: all the ingredients were very fresh. I rate this type of casually presented 'home-style sushi' far above the overpriced, sub-standard stuff served at many places in Germany.



The 'keller bier' (basement beer) on tap was Bürgerbräu Hell - it was the highlight, upon which I do agree with Süddeutsche - served in a beer stein mug.
The cha-shu salad, with a nicely arranged small portion of pork, curly lettuce, some spring onions, sesame dressing and a dollop of mayo, also rocked.



Finally, the horensoo-gomae, which can be a benchmark of quality in Japanese restaurants, kicked ass.



Warm sesame balls or German red groats for dessert. (sour-sweet confiture of red berries)




Nomiya
Wörthstrasse 7
81667 Munich,
Germany
+49 89 448 4095
+49 89 4895 2458
http://www.nomiya.de

We slipped in early to Momofuko with pal Ms Q in our whirlwind tour of NYC landmark eating. So no queue. We quickly decided what to eat and informed our extremely surly dragon lady waitress of our preferences

To start, hamachi with beet and apple, then some of the famous steamed buns, two pork, and one shitake for me which engendered funny looks from Hock and Ms Q. One bowl of the supposedly famous ramen and the skate to finish. A few "artisinal" beers which Hock chose.

Sashimi with beet and apple


This dish arrived as a painfully small portion of sashimi of a generally low grade. Words cannot fully describe the disappointment I felt over this fish. It could have, should have been lush thick pieces, with tart crisp apple playing off against a sweet beet flavour. Instead I felt like I was being fed left overs from a diners' meal at David Chang's more upscale Ko. Left over sashimi at a $16 US price point or there abouts.

Pork Buns


Shitake Buns


The buns arrived and offered a brief moment of reprieve. They were pretty good, but considering the price, (if memory serves they were around $9 for two) and the hyperbole, you'd hope for something decent. Especially given that it is still just a steamed bun - street food in most places in East Asia that can be had for a mere dollar or two - with much more succulent pork, speedier, sweeter service and less fuss. Such as this one, had in Japan for a quick bite (and created by someone who appears to be the Japanese "elvis" of pork buns)





But I digress....next arrived the ramen

Ramen


This was a major disappointment. With all the fuss that surrounds momofuku I half expected it to be the best bowl of ramen I have ever eaten. Alas it was at this point that Hock and I turned to each other in agreement and said "the emperor has no clothes". The broth lacked depth of flavour, the pork was like a dry Chinese char sui rather than a succulent fatty ramen pork. The noodles were definitely edible, but again at 16 USD for a bowl I felt as though David Chang had personally sucker punched me in the wallet.

With a single bite into the dry unmalleable pork, both Hock and I began to pine for "our" ramen guy on Thonglor, Bangkok. A simple ramen shop that serves the most unbelievably tender and delicious pork, with a dollop of homemade miso chili paste for the modest price of 80 baht. Or 2.50 USD. Now I know that labour costs and rents are higher in New York than Thailand, but you'd expect that labour perhaps to be more skilled or at least capable of preparing ramen of equal if not superior quality......but no the "labour" in question, standing behind the "noodle bar" seemed more concerned with the placement of his hispter head band and iphone communications than the succulence of our porky noodles. And certainly there was no appreciative yelling of "thank you very much for your custom" that cheers me to no end after eating at family style ramen joints.

Skate with brussel sprouts and kochujiang style sauce


The skate was fresh. And that about sums up all I have to say about this dish.

The beer was good, if not again a little over priced....aahh what a funky label and the words artisinal will do for prices these days




The total price of the meal USD$150 plus tips.....my Chinese grandmother would turn in her grave if she knew what we paid for a bowl of noodles and some pork buns.

Afterwards we headed to Chickalicious for a quick and reasonably price dessert

thumbs up...



it was good to see the original chef still working at her kitchen

Afterwards we landed at a bar in the lower east side that is reached by walking through a Japanese noodle bar. I walked in and half heartedly wished we had eaten here. We had a few whiskys chatted and Hock talked to the Japanese barmen. He told them we had just eaten at momofuko and how bad it was. They nodded in agreement and proclaimed it odd that "white people just love it there"




Which is exactly what momofuko is, it is gentrified "Asian" food cleaned up for a primarily white clientele who will unwittingly pay three times the price for an average bowl of noodles for the privilege and convenience of not having to navigate unfathomable menus and dirty toilets. "Eating the other, without meeting the other" is a term I recall being used once, which is odd, as I thought Japanese street foods like ramen and steamed buns had already been demystified to the general populous, and certainly a Japanese toilet is often far preferable to a western one...and here I was thinking that "Asian" is the new "White"....and that the time for repackaging a steamed bun and selling it for three times the price to scared white folks were over...how wrong I was.....David Chang may not be the greatest chef in the world but he certainly isn't the stupidest either.

So in the end we too had to come to the same general conclusion as David Chang himself conceded when interviewed about being given the James Beard award - confusion and general bewilderment that such praise is utterly undeserved.

A few years back, when I lived in North America, every once in a while I would get random cravings for Asian food.

I am usually not a big fan of fish roe, but once, I really wanted to eat ikura gunkan.

Gunkan is a style of sushi you'd wrap nori around sushi rice and spoon in the topping. Commonly done with roe's such as ikura (salmon roe), uni (sea urchin roe), etc.

I went to one of those upscale deli's and bought two overpriced pieces of ikura gunkan. That was only two mouthfuls.

Unsatisfied, a few days later, I went to an Asian grocery store and bought some ikura, prepared sushi rice with lovely genuine nori my forks sent from Japan, and made myself big six pieces of ikura gunkan.


It was lovely. I should have done that before giving the deli a chance.

Making sushi rice was in a snap, because there is such a thing as sushinoko (by the way the product description's Japangrish is worth a peep):