Yes, breakfast. I love breakfast, probably the most favorite dish in the day. To have a good start, it cannot be unpleasant. So when my friend commented about horrible brekky in Madrid, I immediately thought about Japanese breakfast I ate most of the time at home.

“Toufu restaurant, Ukai (とうふ屋うかい)” is located right next to the symbol of Tokyo, Tokyo Tower and is a restaurant which wraps you with full of “WA (和/Japanese)” atmosphere especially with the traditional Japanese garden.

Umeboshi (梅干し) is one of the must have items for Japanese meal. It´s a type of pickle and made of plum and we use them for many things. There are many food products using umeboshi in Japan; as a spaghetti source, tea even for the sweets. After miso soup (misoshiru / みそ汁), this umeboshi may be the soul of Japan.

In Japanese, we use so many onomatopoeia. It almost works as adverb in our language and in my opinion, onomatopoeia is the key to make your Japanese more lively. Today I introduce some onomatopoeia using one of the greatest Japanese poets, Mado Michio.

Asakusa (浅草) is one of the most popular spot for foreigners in Tokyo. This is like a counterpart of Akihabara (秋葉原) which is the heaven for technology nerd, while Asakusa preserve traditional part of Japan. It´s always packed with people, not only foreign tourists but also many Japanese as there are many wholesale stores in this area. Asakusa is famous for knives, for example.

The importance of Japanese food is not only the taste but also the presentation. For Japanese people, enjoy food visually is as important as the taste.

As there is a table manner in western world, there is one in Japan. Especially the manner over chopsticks are numerous. This time I like to introduce the most major ones which actually I didn’t know the names. All the names end with “bashi” o “hashi” and these mean chopsticks.

Oden (おでん) is a one of Japanese typical winter dish consisting of several ingredients such as daikon radish (the creamish colour one at the front), processed fish cakes (the brown one at the back), kelp or boiled eggs cooked in a light soy based broth. 

In different regions, ingredients are often changed.

Today, I found this new Japanese soft drink, Shouyu Saidaa (soy source soda). In the west of Japan, in between Honshu (the biggest island) and Shikoku (the smallest of four main islands of Japan), there is a little island called Shodo Shima (小豆島). This island apparently produces good soy source (shouyu/ 醤油or正油) and now one of shouyu company has made soda with soy source.