Showing bread who’s boss

I’ve started to get a bit antsy regarding the — let’s face it — blandness of a lot of the food options here in Nippon.
I therefore decided to spice things up by getting medieval on the corner supermarket’s cheese demi- baguette, or チーズフランス (“Cheese France”) as the locals call it, by throwing some jalapeños on [...]

Jazz up your boring-ass white rice

Don’t get me wrong, I like rice. Rice with flavor, that is.
Jambalaya, Spanish rice, risotto … even a good Jasmine rice tastes pretty terrific on its own. But plain Japanese white rice — while placed at every meal as if no meal could be complete without it, while served to you by well-meaning hosts who [...]

Peperoncino-infused olive oil

I’m far from an expert cook, but I’ve banged around kitchens long enough — enjoying myself in the process, I might add — that I’ve learned how to whip up a tasty dish or two. I am also, as I have mentioned before, a cheap bastard.
It is the convergence of these two points [...]

The generic “I live in Japan!” post

This, dear Reader, was an entry I spent a fair bit of time working on before throwing my hands in the air and setting aside to finish later. Unfortunately, “later” ended up being a little more than two months from when I’d started writing it.
Whoops.
The pro bloggers, the really good ones, would consider something like [...]

Kourakuen ramen

I hardly ever eat out, but if I do, chances are good that it’s for ramen.
I friggin’ love the stuff.
But considering that a bowl of good noodles tends to run from 640 to 900+ yen, plus extra for the obligatory beer, what’s a body to do when counting down till payday but still [...]

John Turningpin’s Breakfast of Fear

Ingredients
1/2 can of tuna
1 raw egg
1 large scoop of rice
Wasabi-flavored ochazuke mix
Spices
Several twists of fresh-ground black pepper
Largish dash of white pepper
3-4 dashes of rayu (hot oil)
Makin’ it
-Insert all ingredients into chawan or similar compact bowl
-Add boiling hot water and spices
-Stir
-Ingest alone or with one’s closest enemies
Came up with this one morning when very hungry but [...]

They are delicious nachos, you must eat them

Sometimes I need a taste of the things I used to enjoy back in the Old Country. Being a cheap bugger, I prefer to make most of them myself — in this case, nachos.
Look at ‘em. Just look at those damn things!
OK, maybe they don’t look that good, but they elicited well-deserved moos of deliciousness.
Ingredients [...]