Flavor Japan: Summer eating in Tokyo
When I sawΒ GaijinPot published 2 pieces on summer food and summer festival food in Japan, I wanted to write a piece on the same topic, but I got skewered like a dango stick in work. Now that summer is on its way out, here’s an account of what we can (and should) eat in summer in Tokyo – for next year, that is π .
THE SAVORY:
Unaju at Oodawa (~ $20 per set)
1. Eel: this is THE summer food. We Asians believe that eels help cooling the body. Do I feel bad helping to decrease the dwindling number of eels? Yes. Do I get scarred for life by the horrific eel massacre scene in “Jiro: Dreams of Sushi”? Yes. I can proudly say that I had not eaten any eel this summer except this one unaju because my friend’s boss recommended my friend to recommend me of this Oodawa shop near Kashiwa station.
(Gotta say though, most Japanese dishes are naturally 548 times better in Japan than in the States, BUT unaju is not one of them.)
2. Grilled ayu on a stick: basically you should eat anything on a stick. This “sweet fish” is grilled on coal, coated with enough salt to pickle your stomach, and full of tiny bones. You eat it for the spirit of festivals, mostly.
Katsushika Iris Festival in Katsushika Park – a rainy Sunday in June
3. Cucumber on a stick: can’t get any more heat-combatant than this.
4. Cold noodles: soba, somen, cold pasta with boiled anchovies. They’re MUCH better than they sound to our hot-soup-acquainted ears.
5. Okonomiyaki: not the ones in okonomiyaki shops, but the ones highschoolers make at their school festivals. We chanced upon one of them right next to Kencho-ji when we were exhausted by heat and humans in Kamakura. It was cheap and delicious.
Standing in line with all those kids in uniforms, I felt as if I were in an anime.
One of many temple structures in Kencho-ji, the oldest Zen temple in Kamakura.
THE SWEET:
1. Mitsumame: I know some people would MUCH prefer kakigori, but thirst-quenching as it is, I have a morbid fear of eating shaved ice because in some distant past, my mom said kids who chew on ice would soon lose their teeth. So I seek shelter in ice cream. Mitsumame has ice cream, and mochi, and fruits, and syrup.
Two types of warabi mochi on the far left – at a mochi shop in the Sky Tree center.
2. Warabi mochi: of all types of mochi, dango, and daifuku, warabi mochi is the lightest, mildest, and coolest. It just soothes your throat. Green helps too, I felt like I was eating something healthy.
3. Fruits: eat fruits if you have no more windows to throw your money out of. Remove 2 zeros from the price tags and you get the price in USD. $14 for a pound of grapes and $35 for a few peaches?! This is one of those times when I don’t like Japan.
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Guest blogged by C. from Katsushika, Tokyo.
Cold udon and kakigΕri are what I remember from Tokyo in August too β that and ducking into a konbini for something cold every hour or so. Your sweets section brought it right back.
I was sorting papers for my own trip last week, a visa form plus a drawer’s worth of receipts. I flattened them on the kitchen table, photographed each one, and ran the photos through LensUp to get something printable. The receipt batch had a size cap on the upload portal, and compressing toward the number you pick can land a bit over it, so I redid that one once. What I liked was that this free in-browser document scanner does the work in the tab itself, so the passport page in that pile never left my laptop.
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