Last week, my sister gave me lots of beautiful asparagus she received from Hokkaido. White asparagus is still quite uncommon in Japan, I sometimes see them in a local supermarket but they are really skinny (and expensive). When I visited Germany many years ago, it was May and I remember seeing huge white asparagus everywhere: the symbol of early summer in Germany. I was so surprised at the size of asparagus! I was wondering how to cook our white asparagus, maybe pasta and soup? Then C told me that he usually eat it simply with cooked ham in Germany. So our dinner was lots of boiled white asparagus with cooked ham and some tasty bread from Le Boulanger Dominique SAIBRON. It was so good, C was very satisfied too!

Last Saturday we finally had a chance to visit a very popular burger shop Baker Bouce in Sangenjaya. It was difficult to choose one from so many choices, and I ordered 'Red Eye Bull' (extra lean meat patty, available only thirty patties a day) Cheese Burger. The chargrilled well done pate was very meaty and tasty, but probably because I've been eating like an old people these days, the melted cheddar cheese was too fatty to me. I should have ordered a simple hamburger. If this shop is around the corner (and I don't have to queue) I would love to pop in for take-out burgers. BTW I haven't came across to a Japanese burger shop which serves tasty Deep Fried Potato Wedges: less greasy, crispy outside and fluffy inside. Let me know if you know any shops.

Last month I had to cancel my visit to a famous Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa in Hokkaido. But I bought Shirokuma (polar bear) Sio Ramen (salt flavour ramen noodle) at Shin-Chitose airport instead. When I saw a guy carrying a few bags of this noodle at a cashier, I remember that I read the article saying 'it's a very tasty instant noodle', so I bought four bags. Unfortunately it was quite a normal instant noodle (maybe I expected too much?). The ramen noodle was Asahikawa style, middle thin (not super thin) and slightly curly. The packaging is unique, I guess it would be a nice Hokkaido souvenir.

I was walking around Touyoko Noren-gai (japanese only) at Tokyu Department Store in Shibuya, I came across an interesting sweet at Toraya, one of the oldest traditional confectionery in Japan. The sweet is called Golf Monaka (monaka is a traditional Japanese sweets), Hole in One. The size is exactly same as a real golf ball, and surprisingly it was created in 1926! When my sister saw it, she said that probably some golfers who achieved ‘a hole-in-one’ buy this as gift. It make sense! I think it will be a nice small present to anyone though. The inside of the golf ball is smooth strained red azuki paste, their bean paste is classic and always good.

I bought fresh mekabu (wakame root) the other day. I'm so happy that the mekabu season arrived! When I wrote about mekabu last year I didn't know that I should chop mekabu first, then soak in boiling water (not vice versa!) so I don't have to struggle with the sliminess, and also I can enjoy hot steaming mekabu with pleasant fresh sea smell! It's very tasty to eat it on rice with some soy sauce, my friend named this dish 'super golden special delicious bowl'. A piece of mekabu is just for one to two portions, not enough for me. I have to get more next time. The season continues until April, I'm going to enjoy it for a while.

It's been a while since I last updated, because I was away from Tokyo, I'm going to write about my trip in the next entry! Yesterday was Valentine's day. As I wrote last year, this "buying chocolate" event is really big in Japan. The basement floor of any department stores (Depa-Chika) turn to chaos, it seems bit too much to me, maybe I'm getting old... Buying luxury chocolate for herself is a new trend (it is called my choco) but I don't. I buy nice chocolate as a present for C, and I eat it together anyway! We had Mille feuille Carrément chocolat and Cheesecake Carrément Chocolat from Pierre Hermée. I also bought 75 Champs Éelyséees from Ladurée, I haven't tried this yet but I know it will be so tasty.

The first cooking I did this year was Spicy Apple and Walnut Chutney. In Japan people know Chutney as a very sweet topping for curry, but I learnt to eat it with meat or cheese, or just in a sandwich, when I lived in London. The main ingredients for this Chutney are not very sweet apples (we don't have cooking apples in Japan), onion and malt vinegar. I used 10% less sugar than the recipe, so it's not very sweet, rather sour. I didn't really know about the difference between Chutney and Relish but Crosse & Blackwell, the company that makes Branston Pickle, defines it: chutney is typically made with fruit, while relish is normally made with vegetables. I see!

In France people traditionally celebrate Epiphanie on 6 January by eating a 'galette des rois' king's cake. There is a fève, usually a small ceramic figure (used to be a dry broad bean) hidden in the galette, and whoever finds the fève in their serving becomes the King for the day. Two of us is not enough to enjoy this Galette Ispahan from Pierre Hermé, we invited our friends to join us. In Japan putting a ceramic fève to food is illegal under the Food Hygiene Act, so Hermé put one almond instead a figure, and our friend C got the almond. He became a king but actually he has to host the next party. I'm looking forward to the king's party!

There are only a few days left of this year, but I haven't prepared anything for the new year. My last week started with Bûche de Noël from Pierre Hermé, and nice dinner at La Bettola, then lots of drinks and amazing cake, and I also enjoyed very nice Christmas parties etc. What a crazy fun week! So now I have to work very hard to clean up our flat for welcoming the New Year's god. Putting up traditional new year's decorations on 29th and 31st December is a bad luck. Tomorrow is my last chance!

I'm not really into sea shells, and I never thought I would choose to eat clam chowder if there are other possibilities, until I watched a cooking program on TV (in Japanese) the other day. It was showing how to cook Clam Chowder with Oyster, I guess it was normal nothing special, but I couldn't resist. I run to the shop to get ingredients and I cooked Oyster and Clam Chowder. It was surprisingly tasty so I might say I'm good at cooking Clam Chowder from now on!

While I haven't been updating LDK, the air in Tokyo got crisper and colder every day. I think this weekend is the beginning of winter here, which means that the season for Yakiimo (baked sweet potato) has started! At a local supermarket, there are a few new kinds of sweet potatoes I've never seen before. The best one is called An-nou Imo from Kagoshima prefecture. It is very moist and sweet, the colour is orange. It's perfect for Yakiimo! It's nice to get stone baked sweet potatoes from a Yakiimo man in a truck, but I can make even better Yakiimo with this at home. I don't like gender stereotypes, but in Japan I often hear that 'women like sweet potatoes' and I guess it's true about our house...

Finally Comments work fine again! Thank you!

I was reading a blog called Ichinichi Ichizen, her mint ice cream photo looked very very good. So last weekend I decided to make my first handmade ice cream. There were two kinds of fresh mint at the supermarket: peppermint and spearmint. I wasn't sure about the difference between the two, so I tried to remember the chewing gum flavours and bought a pack of peppermint and two packs of spearmint. I thought that spearmint has a sweetish, less sharp flavour, but I'm still not sure what the difference is.

These days I've been borrowing many Thai recipe books from the library and I felt like completing my collection of basic Thai food condiments. I could buy most of them from an imported food store in my neighbourhood, but I couldn't find a light soy sauce called 'si iu khao'. So I ordered many ingredients at once from an online Thai food store. When I opened the box, there was a strong Thai restaurant smell. I was wondering where that smell came from, it turned out to be 'bai mak root' Thai Lime Leaf. Mmm I love it!

Yesterday the temperature reached 40.9 degrees Celsius in Saitama and Gifu cities, it broke the previous record set in 1933. Tokyo was also really hot, I guess it was about 36°C. People seem to eat more curry when it's hot outside, I see curry ads everywhere. At a local supermarket, I saw Curry Natto for the first time. The small sachet of sauce that comes with the natto has a curry flavour, but actually its black pepper taste is stronger than the curry taste, so it might not really be for curry lovers. Another very weird one I saw on TV was Curry Kakigori: a Japanese shaved ice dessert. The curry syrup (in Japanese) is sweet, but it also has a spicy curry flavour. I can't really imagine that and I'm not sure if I want to try...

I saw the big watermelon was selling for a reasonable price. The sign said there would be a crack inside the watermelon, but I bought it anyway, because it was so much cheaper than the 'cut watermelon' I usually buy. I carried home the heavy watermelon, it was 7.2kg, and I cut it, then I saw the inside was really broken. It tasted good, very sweet, but the texture was a little bit dry. So I cut in small pieces and put them in a freezer. On the weekends I'm going to enjoy lots of Summer drinks, probably Watermelon Margaritas to begin with.

The other day, we went to an Okinawa restaurant and they had Shima-gaff which I had never heard before. It is made with beer mixed with Okinawan sake awamori. C ordered it and surprisingly it was served with some ice cubes, and it was unexpectedly tasty! It had quite strong awamori flavour, but also it was still refreshing beer. The other drink I tried for the first time was a mixture of Shikuwasa 'Okinawan citrus fruit ' juice and Beer. It was very refreshing and I liked it! The only problem is I can't stop drinking!

It's hot and humid. I usually avoid using the air conditioning even when it's very hot, but I had to switch it on all day today. It seems like some people lose their appetite, but I don't. So I cooked tarako (salted cod roe) spaghetti for my lunch. My friend gave me 50 leaves of agricultural, chemical free shiso 'perilla' leaves, so I put lots of shiso and lemon juice on top. Recently I enjoy eating lots of lemon juice in the sauce for cold Somen noodles too. Very summery and tasty. I had about fifty shiso leaves, but only ten are left now. It would be nice to have a small shiso plant pot at home.

Today is the last day for the Mosaïc Mania at Pierre Hermé. I love the amazing combination of pistachio and griotte cherry. Cheese-cake Mosaic ¥735, Millefeuille Mosaic ¥735, Emotion Mosaic ¥735, Macaron Mosaic ¥210. I already can't wait till next year!

One afternoon last weekend, C and I went to a cool, traditional but modern, Japanese sweets cafe called HIGASHIYA SABO (in Japanese) in Nakameguro. It is not a very big space but there were no other customers, so we could relax. Usually C doesn't care about green tea at all, but he seemed very satisfied with his 'shin-cha' new season tea, which was prepared in front of us. I asked the guy working at the cafe about seasonal sweets. He brought about ten differnt kinds of sweets in two layered, thin wooden boxes and explained each one in Japanese and English. I chose 'Kuro-mitarashi' and C chose 'Matcha Blancmange'. They used expensive Koicha mathca for blancmange, it gave a very strong, good green tea flavour. The cafe opens until two in the morning, so I want to try some alcohol next time.

I wanted to order a dozen of large pretzels (brezels) from Peltier (in Japanese) Akasaka, but when I called the shop they told me that they don't make the larger size anymore. I was quite disappointed about it because the small one is kind of too crispy for me, but then they said I can order the large pretzel, double the size of the small one. Great! I took the pretzels to a German friend's birthday party and they were good! Pretzel is nice to eat like this, and put some butter or fresh sausage.

On the TV ads, the convenience store MINISTOP's new Apple Mango Parfait looked quite good. MINISTOP has a good reputation for their soft creams, but I never had a chance to try them. I checked their site to find the store closest to me. It was just behind our station - I had completely forgotten about it! Anyway, this mango parfait was good. It was simply made with soft cream, diced mango fruit and mango sauce, no whipping cream or shaved ice, I liked it (the mango sauce can be just a little bit less sweet for me).

I went to the Setagaya police station in Sangenjaya to renew my driving licence. I always get a 'gold driving licence card' because I am a good driver with a clean driving record. Well that's what they think, actually I just haven't driven for years and years! The new card has an IC chip inside, so it seems slightly thicker than the old one.

The 5th anniversary sale is held at Nakameguro Kaldi. All coffees are 50% off the price, and 10% more off at the cashiers. I usually drink their Moka Italian, but today I got lots of Toraja Mamasa beans too. It's very good coffee but quite pricey. The sale finishes at 11pm tonight, hurry!

On the last day of the golden week, I gained another year in age. C told me that I can do anything I want, so I decided to go to Pierre Hermé in Aoyama. The other day I tried Coupe St Honnoré at the fetish party and I wanted to try it again. Unfortunately it was a bad weather day, but it was worth going there. So tasty! (no photos inside the cafe) After that we moved to Brasserie IVROGNE in Ikejiri, I was always curious about this French style restaurant. It sounds like my life is all about food...

I finally went to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in Shinjuku. My plan was to have a cup of coffee and a doughnut, but when I got closer to the shop, I realised that it was impossible. There was a huge queue in front of the shop, even though it has been more than two months since the opening of the first Krispy Kreme in Japan. But the guard who was taking care of the queue told me that it didn't look too bad today, so I joined the queue.

These days I eat lots of seaweed; mekabu, hijiki, mozuku,iwa-nori, konbu etc. When I went to Otaru in Hokkaido the other day, I bought Bijin-Konbu ("beautiful woman Konbu") at Rishiriya Minoya (in Japanese), a shop specialized in konbu products. It is thin cut, soft konbu with a slightly vinegary soy saucy flavour. It's not exactly delicious, but it's a nice nibble. Seaweed is very good for health, so it's OK to eat a lot. This shop has a copyrighted slogan: "After eating [konbu] for seven days, look at yourself in the mirror!". I have four more days to turn myself into the beautiful woman with the kombu belt on the shopping bag. If you go to Otaru and are interested in konbu, visit the shop. They are very nice people and their other products were tasty (healthy) too.

Last week, I went parents home and I had lots of food which I don't usually eat myself, because my mother is a Kenkou Otaku (health geek). It was tough to eat Pickled Banana (apparently it is/was very popular in Japan) and Pickled Prune. But I learnt that mekabu (wakame root) is quite tasty. Actually I'm hooked now and I eat mekabu every day!

I bought a box of Serge Alexandre (in Japanese) chocolate. Serge Alexandre is Callebaut (chocolate?) Ambassador in Belgium and winner of the 2003 International Belgian Chocolate Award. At the moment, his only shop in Japan is at Daimaru department store in Fukuoka city. But because of Valentine's day, his chocolates were available at other Daimaru branches in Japan too. I bought this at Sapporo Daimaru and it was ¥1,260.

I've known this Hokkaido Gokatteya Yokan (pronounced 'yoh-kan') since I was a kid, but I've never had a chance to taste it. A few weeks ago, I was shopping at a department store in Hokkaido, and this nice old style package design caught my eye. Yokan can be too sweet to eat for me, but this one was kind of light and delicate (but still very sweet) and nice. I've just found out that I don't need to travel to Hokkaido to buy this, it is available from Shibuya Tokyu Food Show (in Japanese) too. The one I had was a small version. 8cm long and ¥160. If you want to see the bigger picture, go to my flickr.

Last month I wrote about Geisha from Finland. For Japanese it is weird to name something 'Geisha', but the other day C saw a new Geisha at our local supermarket. It is a tuna can, and surprisingly it is made by a Japanese company! So the woman looks very Japanese. I didn't know that this GEISHA brand started in the United States in 1911, and now it expanded the market to Europe, the Middle-East, Africa etc. This Geisha is old and doing good, well, I haven't tasted it though...

I heard that double fromage from LeTAO (in Japanese) is tasty, so I bought it at Shin-Chitose Airport in Hokkaido. This cheese cake was frozen, it thawed on the journey and was ready to eat when I arrived at home. The layers of baked cream cheese and mascarpone are a nice combination. It was tasty, but it could be a little bit cheaper (or bigger). When I saw the LeTAO shop at Mitsukoshi department store in Sapporo, there were lots of fresh cakes which are not available from their website. I was very tempted but I didn't buy any in the end. I'm looking forward to go to Sapporo again, it seems like LeTAO sometimes visits major department stores all over Japan, so check the schedule (in Japanese) and try some cakes if you want. BTW, LeTAO is short for 'Le Tour Amitie Otaru' (Otaru is the city name in Hokkaido where they are based). I thought it was the place name read backwards in Japanese.

Last weekend, C and I had hamburgers for lunch at Franklin Ave. in Gotanda. I can't believe that it has already been three years since the last time. I had a Beef Burger with Tomato Sauce and Mozzarella Cheese, it's called 'O sole mio'. It was very tasty, but I think the simple burger might be better to taste the meat flavour. On the way to Franklin Ave, C showed me the steak restaurant Casarowemo (in Japanese). Their Odawara Grilled Beef Steak (200g) costs from ¥31,500 to ¥157,500! What is going on?!

It's time to eat Nanakusa-gayu (rice porridge with seven different kinds of spring herbs) again. This year, January 7th is a Sunday, so I ate it with C. I used donabe to cook with, and I added Chinese chicken stock. We ate it with some topping: steamed chicken, shirasu fish, and umeboshi (pickled plum). It was quite nice.

I went to buy some rice at the rice shop near the station, and there was a prize draw to win a shopping voucher (there are many prize draw promotions in the end of the year in Japan). I was told to pick three tickets and I opened them one by one. The tickets said ¥100, ¥500 and ¥100. I spent ¥1000 for rice and I won ¥700! The owner was as surprised as I was, and she told me that I probably spent all my luck! I got a kilo of agricultural chemical free genmai brown rice with the vouchers, and I paid only ¥50 extra. I'm going to cook this rice with black soybeans.

Our friend brought us nice chocolate from Finland. It is called Geisha! What a name for chocolate! The big sweets brand Fazer make this chocolate (they also make Tyrkisi Peber) and it seems very popular in many countries. I wonder if everyone knows the meaning of Geisha. I was looking at their site and I noticed that the package design changed. Unfortunately the Japanese-looking lady disappeared from the new package. I'm glad that our friend brought us the one with an old design.

It was already a few years ago that our friend from Germany brought this Kamillentee (camomile tea). I don't really drink any herbal tea, so this was only for our guests. But I tried one the other day and I enjoyed it a lot. I don't know if my taste has changed, or if this camomile tea is different from others. I've been drinking a lot of it and now I have only two bags left.

From 8-13 November, there was a France fair at Isetan Shinjuku departmentstore. As part of the fair, there was a talk by Sébastien Bouillet from Lyon. I heard that only forty people could attend, so I was a little bit worried, but I managed to get a ticket. When I entered the seminar room, I was the first person to arrive. Was I too excited?!

For the last couple of years I have been dreaming about macaroons from Ladurée Paris (there is a branch in London too), and I finally had a chance to try them the other days. I don't know how to thank our friends! Unfortunately macaroons don't last very long, and it seemed like we ate them after the best before date. So I still don't know the real Ladurée, but I enjoyed especially Fruite rouges and Framboise. They didn't surprise me, like Pierre Hermé does with his amazing combination of flavours, but they had very simple and good confiture. I also love the packaging. I'm not into girly stuff at all, but I kept looking at the zebra, the butterfly and the other boxes. They are so cute!

My friends brought sun dried horse mackerels (aji no himono) from Ajiro, a fishing village in Atami in Shizuoka. Making good sun dried fish require good fish (of course), good salt, good water, beautiful sunlight, and a nice sea breeze. It seems like this fish had everything. The fish was soft and quite meaty, just opposite from the one we can get in a supermarket. I enjoyed this fish with miso soup and rice (and natto) for lunch. I used to think this is an old people's menu and I couldn't have any appetite, but these days I really enjoy this kind of very very Japanese dishes.

Last month a friend from Germany stayed with us and brought some Kuemmerling for us. It's a tiny 20ml size bottle, the design is classic and cool, and of course the bottle is made of glass (I don't like the miniature bottles that are made of plastic these days). As our friend suggested, I used the bottle as a vase after drinking it. He also told us about the numbers on the bottom of each bottle: when people drink Kuemmerling at a bar, whoever has the lowest number has to buy the next round. It means that everyone has to drink at least two of these 35% alcohol bottles.

In the previous entry about Kimchi, I mentioned that Tokyo was getting cold, but I was wrong. It's getting warm, no socks again. I was a little bit worried that it might be too warm to keep the Kimchi on our balcony and next day I saw that the plastic bag around the Kimchi bottle had lot of liquid in it, even though the lid was still closed. We shouldn't have used bottles from a ¥100 shop, they looked air-tight, but they weren't. I'm thinking to order a Korean stainless steel Kimchi container or a similar Japanese one. I don't know which is better, but I will probably choose the genuine Korean boxes. It feels right.

Last weekend, we made Kimuchi (spicy Korean fermented pickle) at our Korean friend's flat. She couldn't find the Japanese versions of jut-gal (kind of fish sauce) so there are no animal protein in this Kimuchi. It wonder if it tastes lighter and fresh than usual. Yesterday was the first day that I felt cold in Tokyo this season. I finally put my socks on at home. It means the good season for hot pot is around the corner. I can't wait for Kimuchi hot pot. If you don't know Kimuchi, check my flickr.

Turrón is very popular in Spain. It is almond based sweets, made of honey, sugar, egg white and almonds. There are soft and hard type, and I bought a hard type. It was actually super hard, impossible to break off a piece by hand, so I had to use my back teeth to chew on. Very noisy. Apparently it is a traditional Christmas treat in Spain, but I don't mind eating it in all seasons. This turrón was €7.65/300g at a department store in Barcelona.

Last night we had a dinner with friends from Spain who took a good care of us in Barcelona. I got a nice present which was in a cute and little, kind of Japanese-look paper bag. When I had it in my hand, I instantly recognized it. It was a chocolate bar!