BigHairyGeek: adventure

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Adventurefood: What's the Buzz?

My family loves to try new and unusual foods. Our must recent challenge was presented to me by a student and fellow-foodie in Tokyo, and just in time for Halloween:

BUGS

I've been wanting to try some of these edible insects that I've been reading about for ages, but they weren't showing up prominently in Tokyo. But Nong Inlay, a Myanmar restaurant in Takadanobaba (between Ikebukuro & Shinjuku) has added a special addition to their regular menu featuring three bug-dishes a frog dish.

Clockwise from top left: kaiko (silkworm), kaeru (frog), takemushi (bamboo worm), kourogi (cricket).

The proprietors are earnest, and request that you eat what you order -- don't order it, take selfies, then throw it away -- don't waste the food, whether or not you consider it to be "food." I mean, if you really don't like it, they won't force-feed you. They just expect folks to take this seriously, and rightly so. Edible insects have the potential to solve a large chunk of world hunger problems.

The frog wasn't anything new to us, and crickets and beetles seemed a bit of a gamble for a first time. So we played it "safe" and ordered a plate of fried silkworms (we felt confident we'd be able to finish them). We ordered several other conventional dishes along with that including a delicious green tea salad, sauteed furikake, garbanzo bean tofu, an some noodles in a chicken broth. We weren't sure how our son would deal with Myanmar food, but anyone can eat chicken noodle soup.

C'mon! Just get over the stigma and give it an honest try. Land bugs aren't so different from sea critters like shrimp, crab, lobster and octopus. If you saw any of those creeping around the garden, they'd probably go on your squish-it list also.

first bite

second bite

tasty and approachable noodles

How many teenagers would actively petition to go eat something this weird? The trick to raising adventurous eaters is to be adventurous yourself. I know plenty of parents who try to force unfamiliar foods on their kids, chanting, "how do you know you don't like it if you don't try it" but would never venture anything like this. Constantly pursue new culinary challenges yourself with gusto and passion, and your kids are bound to follow suit.

My wife and I'd tried a Myanmar place in Tokyo years ago, and it was so awful that we crossed if off our list until now. But because of the food we had here, Myanmar food is back on our long-list of alternative foods.

Between the three of us we finished off the dishes, and begged for more furikake to take home (it was that good). We discussed the silkworms. My wife and son found them palatable, but bland and overpowered by the oil and spices. I thought they had a nice, starchy quality; somewhere between popcorn and potatoes. I thought they'd make a much better salad topping. Either way, not good enough to eat again, at least not at 900 yen a plate, but definitely a fun family food fling. The story and pictures were worth every yen of it, and like with any challenge it had a great bonding effect. It's another weird afternoon we'll never forget.

Nong Inlay is in a old little cluster of restaurants and coffee shops across the street from Takadanobaba station. If you're driving, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding some coin parking around there. They're open for lunch and dinner and usually half-full of friendly Myanmarese families.

The staff don't speak much English that I could hear. The menus are in Japanese but well-illustrated with photographs so you can point and choose. If you're worried about spiciness, you can point and ask "karai?" meaning, "is this spicy?" Asking, "kodomo wa" means "what would you suggest for kids?" And after you're done, there are plenty of interesting shops nearby where you can walk-off those bug-calories.

Nong Inlay
03-5273-5774

Put that phone number into your GPS or Google map and you'll get good directions.

Monday, April 29, 2013

The Ongoing Adventures of my Tongue: Taco Rice

Japanese Mexican food.

It's called taco rice (タコライス takoraisu).

As weird as that might sound, it truly rocks! But if you ever visited Japan's distant island of Okinawa, especially in the armed forces, or spent more than a week anywhere in Japan, you're probably familiar with it and don't see it as weird at all.

The One-Minute Lunch

For such a tiny, remote island Okinawa offers some remarkably unusual, yet delicious food.

Approachable

That's the word I'm looking for. Alot of "unusual" food around the world, good or bad, can be very unfriendly to the less-adventurous diner. Okinawan food, maybe for it's simplicity, doesn't look all that different from Chinese. If the spartan marines are eating it, it can't be all that esoteric. But the MC of Okinawan food is the humble taco rice.

Legend has it that it was first whipped up in the '60's by a local chef trying to please the palates of US servicemen by making tacos, but substituting local rice for the tortilla shells - the only component which was difficult to obtain out there (if you think about it, everything else is pretty basic).

It's essentially taco-seasoned ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and whatever else served on a bed of steamed rice. It's as good as it sounds, and a notably healthy alternative.

It's so easy to make that you just read the recipe. But for the sake of bullet points, I'll elaborate with helpful Japanese shopping links:

Brown the ground beef, drain the fat, return it to the skillet, and cook for a few more minutes with water and taco seasoning
(chili pepper, onion, garlic, pepper, cayenne, and maybe cumin and paprika).
You can do your own seasonings, or just use a package of taco seasoning like I do.

Serve the beef over steamed rice.

Here, I like the traditional Japanese "sushi rice" (uruchimai). Maybe that's just because it's what I'm accustomed to but I think the starchy, stickiness of this rice works best with the spicy beef and cheese; supporting it without overpowering it. Sometimes I mix in a little brown rice for substance and healthiness. But just about any rice will do, I guess.

Here, I like shred the cheese directly on the hot taco meat (oh, grow up!) so it will melt better. Now we're almost talking NACHO rice, which mine usually ends up resembling if I have enough cheese...so much for the health benefits.
Chop up some lettuce or cabbage, tomatoes (cherry tomatoes, if you have them on hand)...add some guacamole, onions, olives...whatever turns you on.
Taco sauce or salsa on top. If you're in Japan, the best salsa by far is the Daniel's Fire Roasted line imported from the US. If you're in the States, you may know of better brands, but I doubt it. Daniel's Fire Roasted Salsas are so good, I've stopped making my own. The black bean and corn is my family's favorite. I used to get them at Sony Plaza when I was lucky enough to find them in stock until I found them online. Now I order them by the case and go through about a jar a week.
You can order them from Rakuten through this link (complete links at the bottom):

★6,000円以上ご購入で送料無料！4月30日9時59分まで★《ダニエルズファイヤーロースト》サルサ...
価格：698円（税込、送料別）

After That? Serve with beer and a kick-ass action movie. Might I suggest From Paris with Love?

OR if sounds like too much work, heat up a package of ready-made taco rice meat.

You can even speed up the process further by smashing a couple of plain onigiri/rice balls on a plate, adding the ready-made beef, and microwaving it (remove beef from foil bag first, genius).

Taco rice is equally popular with kids, at least in Japan. Try it with your kids and see what they think. Lemme know.

Either way, I'd like to hype Daniel's a little more. It's a small company, so I want to make sure they get all the business they deserve lest they stop selling in Japan and I lose my favorite condiment.
Try them all; they're all great.