Friday Shootout- Food and Restaurants

Today I will only feature my 4 favorite restaurants here in Misawa. Most of my photos here were taken from my compact and my cellphone cam because I can't bring my big DSLR camera, I'm too shy to show off hahaha.

1. Viking Restaurant (All you can eat)

April 16 was our 16th wedding anniversary; my husband and I celebrated it with just a simple lunch in Viking restaurant, it's an "all you can eat buffet" for ¥ 1000 or $10 each, a total of only ¥2000 or $20 for our anniversary (remember we have global crisis, i don't want to spend too much hahaha). The first photo is the Viking Restaurant, it was crowded when we went here since it's lunch time. A lot of military servicemen go and lunch out here. We even had hard time finding a parking spot and so my shot wasn't that good enough too.



In front of Viking Restaurant


Yakiniku or grilled meat; we have to get our own meat and grill here; we also had miso soup and cold soba


Yakiniku beef and pork with onion and bell pepper on the side



Cooked grilled meat



My husband picked these- Fried oyster, chicken and gyoza


I picked these: Sushi- salmon, tuna and oyster with sweet corn :-)

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2. Sapporo Ramen

Our favorite ramen restaurant is "Sapporo" although it doesn't show its name on their board, I have to ask my daughter the name of this restaurant. Last Wednesday my husband and I had our lunch here, for ¥ 1700 or $17 (2 miso ramen and 1 gyoza) we were full already. Most of the ramen restaurants here do not serve sodas, you have to buy your soda from the vending machines. They just serve water.


Here's the front view of Sapporo Ramen



Miso Ramen for ¥ 650 or $6.50


Gyoza for ¥400 or $4- I like their gyoza; the inside meat has a lot of ingredients in it that makes this delicious (oishi!)


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3. Korakuen

This restaurant was newly built just last 2008; the name of the restaurant is in Japanese. My family had our lunch here today and my daughter even asked the name of this restaurant just for this shootout LOL; she can't understand kanji very well so she asked the cashier and we found out it's "Korakuen."

We ordered a set of miso ramen, gyoza and fried rice for ¥ 890 ~$9; 1 kid's meal and extra fried rice and pork w/ rice.

We spent ¥ 2141 today or ~$22 (4 people)

In front of Korakuen


Egg and pork with rice and seaweed or nori


fried rice



Kid's meal: shoyu (soy sauce) ramen, fried rice, orange juice and a token to get a free toy from their vending machine

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4. Kappa Sushi

Kappa sushi is my favorite sushi bar; I had my previous post about this restaurant and that time we call this as "100 yen sushi bar" since we didn't know its name. One plate costs 100 yen. Since my husband was off this week so we ate our lunch here last Tuesday. We spent ¥ 1500+ or $15+ for our lunch.

I have to hide my camera here since they prohibited cameras inside.

Click this if you want to check out my previous post about this sushi restaurant.


Kappa Sushi





Tokkyu lane- mini train that serves your order fresh from the chef's kitchen


Seafood yuke- this is my favorite

Tako yaki- my kids love this; tako means octopus but it tastes like squid ball

shrimp tempura




squid- I haven't tried this yet


natto- rotten soy beans (yuck, ewwww hahaha); I haven't tried it yet and I will never try it. My daughter said it's stinky and slimy


I don't know the name of this but I will never try it too hahaha


Tiramisu for ¥ 150 or ~$1.50



Mochi- sweet rice with beans inside


, ** Next time I will feature more of Japanese food here in my blog, it will take up a lot of space now and it's hard to read if you have a long post :-)

Thanks for taking the time.

Making Mochi

When we went to Salmon Festival in Oirase we stopped by one food stall that was selling mochi and we saw the old lady and the man were pounding the grinded sweet rice so I took pictures of them from pounding, kneading and cutting of mochi. I missed the mixing of sweet ricce and its ingredients. This is the traditional way of making mochi. I bought 3 bowls of mochi. One small bowl is 300 yen and it has only 3 pieces of mochi on it. The mochi is not sweet unlike the commercially made mochi which has sugar in it and sometimes it comes in different colors like pink, light green and light yellow. They have 3 different types of sauce for mochi. Sorry but I forgot to take pictures of them since I was so excited to taste the mochi. One was with sesame seed black in color (eewww I didn't try that one), one was powdery green and tastes like peanut butter and looks like wasabe and the last is mashed soy beans maroon in color. I'm not sure the name of that beans :-) maybe it's kidney beans but tiny

By the way, mochi is made of sweet rice, sugar and coconut milk. I know how to make mochi, I learned it from my co-worker when I used to work in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mochi is very popular in Hawaii, aside from local Hawaiians, Hawaii is mostly dominated by Japanese people second is Filipinos ( I think) :-)

Ohhh I love mochi!!!

By the way, I searched the meaning of mochi from wikipedia and this is their definition:

Mochi (Japanese: 餅; Chinese: 麻糬) is a Japanese and Chinese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time.

Mochi is similar to the Chinese rice cake nian gao; however, mochi is shaped from cooked glutinous rice right after it is pounded, whereas nian gao is steamed directly to its final form from a batter made of uncooked glutinous rice flour.

In the Philippines, it is called palitao in Tagalog and is coated with sesame seeds and grated coconut.

Chestnuts

Oohhh I like chestnuts!! But I don't know how to cook them. I always remember the "Christmas Song" lyrics about chestnuts....."chestnuts roasting on an open fire, jackfrosts nipping on your nose, la la la la :-) :-) I think it's better if you roast the chestnuts on an open fire hahaha. The chestnuts here in Misawa are so cheap!! It's only 300 yen so it's like $3. I bought one bag and ended up boiling them, the taste is not as good as when they're are roasted, oh well as long as they're chestnuts I won't hesitate to eat them all, hmmmm yummy!!