Matsuri!

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Summertime means matsuri (festivals) in Japan. The biggest one in Tokyo is the Azabu-Juban Matsuri, which is in a very upscale and international neighborhood. My mom was in town, so she and I took Mini Z and Son of Z out for a walk with the mob. Japanese festival food is its own thing--Japanese, but nothing like the refined flavors and presentations you would find on a Japanese menu in the US. Things are sweeter, saltier, greasier, and smokier. The SAT analogy might go, "matsuri food is to Nobu as a Brooklyn street fair sausage and pepper grinder is to Babbo."

Okonomiyaki--saucy little savory pancakes from Western Japan

Hot potatoes! They steam in that stack of boxes. Help yourself to toppings.

Swirly sausage lollipops! All my dreams are coming true!

The ladies and some gents roll out in their best yukata (cotton summer kimono), which is admirable given the heat and potential for irreversible food staining.

Commemorative fan--why did I not get one?

Fly yukata and shaved ice on the corner.

I am a huge sucker for a street fair and all the attending goodies, especially takoyaki, which is a sort of grilled ball of batter with octopus inside. Slather it with Kewpie mayo and dark, glossy, worcestershire-y sauce, sprinkle on some bonita flakes, and it's the most wonderfully satisfying thing you ever struggled to eat with two over-sized toothpicks. Beware: they retain heat in a crazy way and you end up kind of nodding with joy while you suck in air trying to eat this little ball of magma.

Takoyaki!

At long last--baby octopus takoyaki.

Watching them being made is nuts--the cast iron pan has these golf-ball sized indentations that they fill with batter. Then the octopus goes in, and once the ball starts to firm up, they rotate it with a toothpick so it forms a sphere. Years ago I had some with entire baby octopi in them, and I finally found them again. Victory!

Turning these out in perfect little spheres takes practice, speed, and confidence. The pros make it look like plucking a harp.

The kids went old school: chocolate dipped bananas, candied apples, tiny doughnuts, and the inevitable blood sugar crash and burn on the couch at home. Those little sugar gliders came down hard. And they weren't alone--there was a kaki-gori (shaved ice) stand doing a brisk business letting the kiddies apply their own syrup.  Wise? Perhaps not, but very popular.

Choco-banana is a compound word Mini Z is mastering.

Two grapes candy-welded to a tiny apple. Just the color makes my teeth hurt.

Hot soy doughnuts

Old-fashioned ice shaver

Self-serve syrup--dig her psychedelic snow cone.

My only regret is that I didn't have the guts/gut to try all of it. My mother is cursed with the Salieri-like desire to eat, but a tiny coin purse of a stomach. She managed a nice little okonomiyaki, but little else. We left with her looking wistfully over her shoulder at some potsticker-like stuffed pancakes hissing on a grill. There were lots of things on sticks calling to us (is it me, or do things just seem tastier on a stick?), as well as the festival standards, like yakisoba (fried noodles) and some heavenly-smelling seafood. Really, we didn't even make it down the whole street. It's the stands that we didn't see that will haunt my dreams.

The dumpling pancakes that got away...

Grilled fish and shellfish on sticks

Grilled mochi brushed with miso and soy sauce--on a stick!

Whole river fish cooked with salt over coals--eat them tip to tail!

Plump scallops (skirts and all) and clams

Tokyo Ramen Tower

Dreamy yolk of the aji-tsuke tamago.

     There are places in every city that look otherwise habitable but lack truly good food. The area around New York's Lincoln Center in the afternoon always struck me as a black hole--though maybe Bloomberg has fixed that quality of life issue. Or maybe it's only a quality of life issue if you need good food within arm's reach at all times. Here in Tokyo, I dread going to the city offices over by Hamamatsucho because there is just nothing interesting to eat. Sure, there's a gorgeous temple with a view of Tokyo Tower, but you can't eat scenery.

Tokyo Ramen Tower. I know. But that's the name.

     So I was thrilled when the Professor found a ramen joint, Tokyo Ramen Tower, just down a little side street. We were running errands there early on a truly hot day and ended up standing outside waiting for the shop to open at 11. Very hot. You skin feels like it's shrinking hot. And yet I ordered the hot ramen, which was actually lovely and weirdly refreshing, thanks to the fresh mitsuba on top. It has that fresh cut, bright herbiness that makes the cilantro on pho so perfect. A thick soup might have killed me after I roasted on the sidewalk, and thankfully the soup was not heavy at all, with a very smoky katsuo-bushi (dried bonito) flavor and some fried leeks in there. The pork was roasted, then char-grilled, which really brings out the flavor of the meat--and, let's be honest, the wonderful, melty fat.

Note the char-grilled stripe of fat trembling and threatening to fall away.

Look! They give you a little rice ball stuffed with pork while you wait! EVERY business should do this, including doctors' offices and the DMV.

Pick Up Sticks

     I hold my chopsticks wrong. There. I don't grip them in my fist like Early Man, or stab at my food with them, but I hold the lower chopstick against my middle finger, not my ring finger. This is how I did it throughout my childhood, and attempts to change to the more genteel fashion illustrated in the sign above ended, like all my forays into sports, in cramping and failure. The only option is to throw pretty at the problem, by which I mean distractingly pretty chopsticks.

Handmade glass chopsticks

    Ginza Natsuno stocks something around a zillion different chopsticks, from bamboo to glass. The shop, like the branch in the Marunouchi building near Tokyo, is tiny and packed to the brim. A quick stop turns easily into a long browse.

     Not only are they suitcase/post friendly, but the materials and the craft vary so wildly that you could pick up a souvenir, a set for daily use, or a wedding gift. And really, everything is a little better with real ohashi instead of the break apart kind that always splinter off into jagged little fence posts. Even when you're standing in front of the fridge in your jammies, picking at last night's kung pao, a nice pair of sticks could salvage that last little bit of dignity.

These screw together like a pool cue. Just because you're on the road doesn't mean you need to eat like an animal.

Trains and shinkansens for the kiddies. Son of Z has a set of these from Grandma and Grandpa.

Fancy inlay His and Hers sets for around $90 US.

     Of course, you're also going to need a place to set these lovelies down. If the chopstick selection didn't give you vertigo, the chopstick rests will. I know, it seems as superfluous as the napkin holder, but with so much more potential--they run elegant, witty, and seizure-inducingly cute. 

Bullet train/Tokyo Tower rests

Wooden lotus root slices! And dig the little silk potted clover.

Summer fun--beetle and watermelon rests. The kids love them, but living in New York turned me off to bugs on the table.

Sweets! The perfect reminder to save room for dessert. It's like they are in my brain.

Train Treats: Tamachi

This crazy space egg is actually a hot dog stand, solving at last the age old problem of hot dog stands not being at all cute. Or that clean. Two of these adorable little shops face each other right in the station once you are through the turnstile at Tamachi on the Yamanote train line. Which is perfect when you are running late for work. Hot dogs are a breakfast option in Japan--I know, it sounds nuts at first, like how Alyssa Milano had a record deal here in the 90s. But really, it's sausage, bread, sometimes cheese--breakfast! It doesn't hurt that the dogs here are hammy and snappy, which is nice in the morning.

 I love the surrealist pastoral display. Especially since some of the little pigs have ribbon collars. By far the best styled hot dog ever.

The other stand is staffed by an identically dressed and pony-tailed woman. I think at a certain time each day they rumble. But this one sells waffles! Breakfast again? Not so much. Mostly these are considered sweet treats here, and they are nearly always Belgian style (ie. not the ice cream and syrup smothered kind I used to pass out into in Brooklyn).

 So many flavors! Plain, maple, strawberry, cream cheese, honey-lemon, chocolate... there are even bite-sized ones, though they were sold out this time. The minis, or "puchi" as they are called in imitation of the French petit, are rice flour based, which makes them chewy and soft, kind of like a french twist doughnut, but less airy. Tossed in table sugar, they are a delight. This is why they sell out.

 Tai Puchi is the name on this little truck parked outside the station most weekday afternoons. They sell mini versions of an old fashioned Japanese sweet, tai yaki. They are only shaped like sea bream, or tai. Inside they are filled with sweet bean. Usually they are a little smaller than your hand, but this truck sells bite-sized ones with a bevy of fillings. The sign on the passenger window is for green apple cream.

I have a hard time resisting tai yaki anyway, but making them tiny leaves me entirely helpless before them. So light and pancakey! I went with the traditional bean, plus chocolate and vanilla cream. Carrying the paper bag of hot, fresh little fish reminded me of picking up zeppole--you have to pop at least one in your mouth right away, all warm and sweet. Then you listen to them moving lightly in the bag all the way home. If three or four make it to the rest of your family, well, that's a moral victory.

Lunch Lady

Lunch (below): udon noodles with fish cake, quail egg, wakame, and shitake; grilled salmon with burdock root and carrot; mixed vegetable salad; orange wedge. Snack (above left): corn. Late snack (above right): cucumber sandwich.

 Lunch (below): miso soup with daikon; grilled chicken hamburger patty with broccoli and carrot; konyakku and carrot; rice; kiwi. Snack (above left): damn right, that's a homemade doughnut steaming up the glass. Late snack (above right): grilled miso rice ball.

 Son of Z and Mini Z both go to the same government subsidized daycare, which is run more or less like a preschool/kindergarten. It's a little building with two floors and a tiny kitchen in which a fevered crew whips up everything from scratch, minus the bread, pasta, and crackers. Usually the drinks are either milk and/or hoji-cha, a mild tea with no caffeine. It's not Iron Chef, but it always looks and smells good, and it's always fresh. Every day when I come to get the kids, everything they ate is on display in a little case. The Professor and I often wish we could slip in and eat with them, but the chairs are very, very small.

Lunch (below): sauteed chicken; wakame soup; cucumber salad; banana; overgrown madeleine. Snack (above left): rice ball with edamame. Late snack (above right):cold noodles with cucumber, ham, and egg.

Lunch (below): fried salmon with tomato and bean sprouts; pasta salad; miso soup with tofu and green onion; orange wedge. Snack (above left): banana cake. Late snack (above right): missing! I showed up too early.

Like most Tokyo schools, there is no cafeteria, so the kids eat in their classrooms. The meals are set up and served with little trolleys and trays. Older kids eat buffet style, serving themselves, and everybody takes turns pitching in with set-up and clean-up. Once it's served, they do their little bow and "itadakimasu!" before digging in. Of course, you may wonder if they really eat this stuff. As in any school, there are dissenters, picky eaters, children who eat erasers. What? Sometimes they smell fruity. Really, though, it turns out that if you serve it, they will eat, and that includes okra, eggplant, and fish with skin. And somewhere, Jamie Oliver weeps manly tears into a non-stick wok.

Lunch (below): vegetable omelet; chicken rice; consomme with potato and carrot; wakame and cucumber salad; watermelon. Snack (above left): kinako (sweet soy powder) toast . Late snack (above right): yakisoba.

 They have cooking days once or twice a month, where the kids make something and then eat it for lunch or snack. Once it included a trip to the store, and once it was sweet potatoes they dug up on a field trip to a farm. Digging up sweet potatoes while wearing little matching hats. The agricultural cuteness is paralyzing. And they chop. With knives. At first, I worried, having seen Son of Z at his most spastic, jumping on the couch to Billy Idol. But they manage. They recently made butter, which I remember doing as a kid in school. Do they still do that? I really appreciate the fact that the kids are not only eating real food, but engaged and learning to eat well and properly. That way I can feel better about letting them eat Halloween candy on the couch for dinner.

Lunch (below): stir-fried eggplant and pork; rice; mitsuba salad; miso soup with daikon and tofu skin; pineapple and cheese. Snack (above left): cracker and yogurt with watermelon and cherry. Late snack (above right): missing! too early again.

Lunch (below): simmered fish; pumpkin salad with cut vegetables; miso soup with onion and mushroom; grapefruit wedge. Snack (above left): okara cookies. Late snack (above right): inari.

Once a month, there is a party for all the kids who have a birthday that month. There is a homemade cake--usually sponge with whipped cream and fresh fruit, which is kind of the Japanese go-to for birthdays--and they all sing. The whole thing puts my own school lunches in stark relief. Everybody was always so excited about that frozen pizza with the foamy white crust. Mostly I brown-bagged it until junior high, when the un-coolness began to chafe. Right. Because bag lunches were really why I wasn't popular.

Lunch (below): three-bean curry with sausage; tuna vegetable salad; consomme with onion and potato; watermelon. Snack (above left): french toast. Late snack (above right): okonomiyaki.

Lunch (below): udon noodles with cabbage, ham, egg, and cucumber; vegetable tempura with okra and pumpkin; yuba and vegetable salad; orange wedge. Snack (above left):fried rice. Late snack (above right): rusk toast.

Hokkaido Foodist

Chicken curry with shimeji mushrooms.

Hokkaido Foodist is actually the name of a regional specialty restaurant, but I think it may also be my new political affiliation. The cafeteria-like shop is near the Yaesu entrance of Tokyo Station. It's one of many regional eateries attached to a shop--you have lunch over on one side and shop for food and souvenirs on the other. There are shop/restaurants that sell and serve goodies from Okinawa, Akita, you name it. It's like slow food meets museum gift shop. Genius!

Hokkaido is kind of Japan's Alaska--snowy weather, wide-open spaces, and plenty of salmon and crab. And you can see Russia from there! The food is a major tourist draw, along with the scenery. Observe the big plate of Japanese comfort food above. Oddly, curry is the go-to choice for cold weather as well as a summertime staple. There is just no wrong time for the mild, slightly sweet stewiness of Japanese curry. The famous style of ramen up there is a hearty miso broth, sometimes with corn and a pat of butter. A pat of butter. Just melting there casually, like, "Hey, pork soup? Sure. Throw some butter on that." This time, however, I went with a plain pork broth, which was plenty rich on its own. The noodles had some whole wheat mixed in there, giving them little spots and a nutty flavor.

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They also have sweet milk soft serve ice cream, which would be pictured here if not for the impatience of my children. Soft serve gets its proper due here in Japan. Think about it: it's the perfect ice cream texture, cold enough to hold its shape, but warm enough for the milk fat to really spread on your tongue (think of how much better cheese or chocolate is when it's room temperature), and yet it's never made with top shelf ingredients. Sorry, Mr. Softee, but the truth hurts. Years ago, I read an article about someone who was driven to rent a machine and crank out their own homemade cones at home, and I admired the obsessive drive. The sweet milk cones here are made with Hokkaido milk, for which the region is famous. It's pure, creamy bliss, and it can bring you entire minutes of silence from your children.

Stewed squid stuffed with rice. If you can hang with the Italian pasta with black ink sauce, this may just be for you.

Fres Hokkaido ramen you can whip up at home! Say it with me: "I deserve better than Top Ramen."

All kinds of lamb--even offal!

Hokkaido is also famous for its lamb. Last time I was here, the Professor ordered the Ghengis Khan bowl, which is rice covered in a layer of grilled, thinly sliced lamb. There is a theory that Ghengis was actually Japanese. I know. Why would anyone want to claim him? Two words: Mongolian barbecue. Seriously, it's kind of worth all the pillaging.

Tokyo Farmer's Market

Compare and contrast! We happened upon a little farmer's market over by Yurakucho Station on the way to Ginza. It was about a tenth of the size of the one we went to in LA, which makes sense, given the space available and the way that produce is grown, prepared, and eaten in Japan.  At a US open air market, as on our tables, it's all about plenty: the overflowing cornucopia, the bushels of fruit, the great platters of food filling a table.  In Japan, it's about small acts of perfection: the fruits and vegetables come in little bundles, oddly free of dirt, and seemingly untouched by human hands. The offerings at the stalls and yaoyas (vegetable shops) are only slightly more rugged.

Perfect little cherries, grapes, and melons--swaddled like babies.

Not the famed $100 melons--these are only about $37 each.  The single bunch of grapes are a little over $25, and the single layer of cherries in a box are about $32. I still swoon a little, but you have to think about it like a bottle of wine you bring as a gift to some one's home. Everyday produce is far cheaper (apples are about a dollar/ 100 yen a piece), but this is special. When you peel one of those black grapes (yes, they peel here) and taste that clear, green globe of sweetness that is the Platonic ideal of grapeness, it' not crazy.

Fresh apple juice from Aomori Prefecture.

It was in this mindset that I bought this juice, which was fantastic. I know. How can apple juice be fantastic? And yet it was like actually eating a fresh Fuji apple. Outside. In the sun. Wearing nicer clothes than I own. It was like the cider we used to get at the orchard in upstate New York, but brighter. Indeed, it cost more than a glass of the house red, but it yielded what you want from wine, minus the buzz--to be surprised by a taste and its power to transport you, and pleased to recognize what you suddenly remember you love, like sitting on a porch and smelling a cold apple just before you bite it.