Saturday, October 30, 2004
Pie-Chou: Custard Puff
I took a risk and went on a date with Mr Maple-syrup flavored Pie-Chou today.
It`s like a custard puff only that it`s much bigger, around the size of a palm, with fresh cream pumped into it.
You can taste the fragrant maple-syrup lingering in the cream. The fragrance just wells up in your throat as soon as you swallow the cream.
I`m not a big fan of cream and mousse but I decided to forgive this dessert on the account that it was successful in wooing me with its subtle maple-syrup advances.
Unfortunately, I repeated the same mistake as I did with little Ms Green Japanese Okashi.
Ate it with its black companion, Mr Black Cocoa Pie-Chou. Overdose of sweet stuff. Needed to flush my stomach out.
It is not true. Too much of a good thing can kill.
At least the gastronomic appreciation of it.
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Thursday, October 28, 2004
Japanese Okashi (snacks)
Did I mention that I got a thing against sweet stuff?
Hate the way the sugar just sticks to my teeth and corrode my taste buds.
I do eat dessert, but only when I`m really stressed and need to vent my frustrations. As I torture myself with exceedingly sweet food, my mood just gets increasingly worse until I`m finally exhausted and have no energy to mantain my angry mood.
Another way to get me to eat sweet stuff is if the food belongs in my category of `strange food`. Then I might consider a masochistic consumption of the item.
I saw the adorable green rotund bun sitting serenely in a corner on the pastry shelf and decided to get acquainted with it.
Its speckled green outfit just sets it apart from the rest and I was highly interested in learning more about this unusual little thing.
So I grabbed it, cuddled it in my palms and joyfully escorted it out of the supermarket (I paid for it, in case you`re wondering).
It didn`t disappoint me.
Its appearance speaks of new things to come and I was overwhelmed by the strangeness of its taste.
Grass. The taste of grass just floods my mouth. (Believe me, I know how grass tastes coz I chewed on them before.) And it was bulging with sweetened red bean filling.
I nearly died.
I really am not doing justice to this snack here.
Truely, it is nice. It`s just that my prejudice against sweet stuff just numbed my senses to any other overtures of the pleasant green okashi. Not to mention its brown companion who followed us out of the supermarket.
I decided to end my ordeal after forcing down half of the 2nd bun. One and a half sweetened red-bean stuffed Japanese buns are enough to kill all my taste buds.
I needed to recuperate and decided to head back to my dorm for some good`ol instant noodles.
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Green Tea Cereals
People who know me well enough will know that I won`t be able to resist this. It just screams out "Strange food! Eat me!!" which, naturally, I did.
It tastes great! Like...cereals with green tea. Duh.
The green tea is actually mixed with the wheat and baked into cereal so the distinctive taste of green tea is blended with the sunny flavor of cereals.
Too bad I didn`t have milk with me. Would be interesting to find out how the taste will turn out. Imagine, green tea with milk and cereals. Like coffee with honey and almond bits, seems strange at first but the taste might just work out.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Konnyaku Slice in Thick Miso Sauce
Like chee cheong fun but much chunkier and more chewy. The thick miso sauce is almost exactly like chee cheong fun sauce.
Does this mean that human beings` taste buds have the same preference despite location and culture? Whatever.
For your info: konnyaku is a type of hard jelly made from yam.
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Tofu Soft Ice-cream
Imagine tofu mashed into an extremely fine paste, sweetened and frozen. There is none of the cloyingly sweet taste of vanilla ice-cream.
Instead, the wonderful fragrance of tofu just fills your mouth. (If you think tofu is tasteless, you`re very much mistaken. Tofu has a very gentle hint of soybeans in it.)
The fresh taste of tofu lingers on your taste buds. It`s so light that it doesn`t feel sinful at all to be eating this dessert.
I tend to avoid sweet stuff but this ice-cream just cries out to be nestled in my stomach. So I kindly obliged its pleas.
Because I seldom eat sweet stuff, much less ice-cream, the cold tofu dessert induced a short coughing fit in me.
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Instant ramen aka instant noodles
Instant noodles.
I have to profess that I kinda like them. They`re a wonderfully simple way to settle a meal.
Of course they`re MSG-loaded and really, really bad for your health but I`m really taken with the variety of flavors they offer.
From the way I consume them (I will try almost all the new flavors that come out in the market), I figured that my well-preserved, MSG-loaded body will be the last one standing in the event of an astronomical catastrophe.
Instant noodles are essentially very cheap fast food. Manufacturers usually put only the bare essentials inside an instant noodle cup. Noodles, soup base, oil flavoring, minute slivers of garnishes and ingredients. Simple and fuss free.
I have to come to regard instant noodles as merely a form of subsistence until the next meal comes along.
That is until I tried the Japanese instant noodles.
It`s cheerful, almost touching to see how every effort is taken to ensure that the humble instant noodle becomes an enjoyable meal to the cash-strapped and hurried.
There are little surprises hidden in the practical styrofoam bowl. Little touches to warm the belly and the soul.
Dried fish cakes molded into the shape of sakura flowers...
...or little piggy faces.
There`s even clear instructions and a little drain constructed in a corner of the utensil to allow hot water to be poured away.
All in the good grace of ensuring that a cheap meal is still a fulfilling meal. Gastronomically, aesthetically and emotionally-wise.
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Canned Horse Meat n Whale Meat
Canned horse meat: Tasted like soft beef jerky in sweet BBQ gravy.
Canned whale meat: Was the manufacturer trying to cheat me ?! coz it tasted almost exactly like the canned horse meat even though I bought a different brand. Did like the gristle parts in it though.
Can you tell the difference?
Clue: Left - you can ride it. Right - it can crush you.
2 Comments:
Are you serious?!! I would think it's illegal to eat a horse, much less a whale...but of cos, i could be wrong. But SERIOUSLY, are you absolutely sure they're what they say they are?? sounds suspicious to me...(0.o)"
Yep, that`s what they said. Whale (certain species) and horse meat are legal. :o>
Sour-plum flavoured Pretzel sticks n Seaweed
Tried a packet of plum salt-flavoured pretzel sticks which I bought from a 100yen shop.
It was actually quite appetizing.
You know those purplish-pink sliced pickles that you always get when you buy a Japanese bento? Imagine it dried and ground into fine powder, then sprinkled liberally over pretzel sticks and you get a wonderful crunchy snack that`s a bit salty with a tangy taste of sour plums. An interesting symphony that perks up your senses.
Another snack that I bought some time ago are thick slices of seaweed seasoned with plum juice. Sour but with a zesty feel to it. The seaweed has a chewy texture that creates a delicate balance with the sharp sourness of the plum juice. Interesting.
And no, people, I am not pregnant. I just happened to buy sour plum flavoured snacks.
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About Carolyn
Female
Dog year
Pisces
Now in:
X America
X Australia
X Japan
0 Singapore
X Taiwan
X other parts of the world
X bed
Fav:
Travel, photography, eat strange food, getting lost, jogging, staring at the sky,
reading, real-life ghost acounts, spacing out, zzZ!
Warning: Never disturb her just before and after sleep, NEVER.
About life... :
Live without any regrets.
My rules:
LIVE hard, appreciate little things and be contented with what you receive.
Food that I`ve tried so far:
abalone, ants, bird's nest, caterpillar, century egg, chicken, clam, crab, crocodile, duck, eel, emu, fermented tofu, frog, fugu (puffer fish), ginseng, goose, grass,
horse, jellyfish, kangeroo, limpets, lobster, mussel, natto, octopus, ostrich, ox tongue, oyster, pig, prawn,
salmon, salted duck egg, scorpion, sea cucumber, seaweed, shark, shrimp, snails, sparrow, squid, stingray, tuna, turtle, venison, whale
apple, aronia berry, artichoke, avocado, banana, blackberry, blueberry, cherry, coconut, cranberry, dates, dragonfruit, durian, fig, gooseberry, grape, grapefruit, guava, honeydew, jackfruit, kiwi, lemon, lime,
mango, mangosteen, nectarine, olive, orange, passionfruit, peach, pear, pineapple, plum, pomegranate, prune, rambutan, raspberry, sago, soursop, starfruit, strawberry, watermelon, wintermelon, wolfberry
almond, broadbean, caraway seed, cashew nut, chick peas, flax seed, green bean, lotus seed, macademia nuts, peanut, pecan, peppercorn, pine nuts, pistachio,
poppy seed, pumpkin seed, red bean, sesame seed, soyabean, sunflower seeds, walnut, watermelon seed
chamomile, cherry blossom, chrysanthemum, echinacea, elderberry flower, hibiscus, lavender, lily, lotus, rose
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