Food Fun Friday- how NOT to eat your curry rice...

See this dish folks?  This is curry rice- or karai raisu as said in Japanese.  Usually it comes with the curry sauce/gravy already on the plate (in this case it is in the gravy bowl.)  The breaded pork shown is tonkatsu.  It is all VERY delicious.  This is what I ate for dinner at the Royal Coffee Shop in the Narita airport on my way back from Singapore back in August.  Delicious food and great service (which is the norm in Japan- and there's no tipping!)

Today Jaime and I went to my favorite store in the world (yes WORLD)- Yuzawaya!  If you aren't sure what Yuzawaya is- see this post from last year...  Shopping five floors of awesomeness makes one hungry- so we found a noodle shop on the corner and upstairs.  We both picked a couple of pieces of tempura (I got shrimp, acorn squash, and sweet potato)- and we both ordered curry rice.  It was similar to the above picture- except ours came with big chunks of potatoes and carrots.  The food was mighty tasty and we were enjoying ourself immensely- our stomachs were no longer growling and our treasures from Yuzawaya were neatly stashed beside our chairs. 

Out of no where this older Japanese woman stops at our table and hands each of us a spoon.

A spoon?  I didn't need a spoon, neither did Jaime- we were rockin' the chopsticks man!

She insisted on the spoons.  While I know very little Japanese, I understand the words 'Japanese' or nihon-jin (as in a Japanese person) and 'curry rice'- karai raisu.  She was telling us that JAPANESE people DO NOT eat curry rice with chopsticks, they use SPOONS for goodness sake!  She repeated herself a few times- yes I know this for a fact.  She was obviously on her way out the door, so as she was backing away and heading to the exit- she continued to admonish us for eating our curry rice the WRONG WAY.  All the while her friend was covering her mouth as she stared at us and giggled.

I have never seen Jaime's face get that red.  My face was pretty hot as well.  EVERYONE in the restuarant had stopped eating/talking/picking their nose/whathaveyou- and were staring at us.  EVERYONE.  I had my back to them, so I didn't see them staring, but I could FEEL it man! 

So of course neither of us could pick up the damn spoons to finish our food.  Luckily we had some tempura left- chopsticks are ok there!  Damn if I was going to pick that spoon up right away so everyone could watch!  Eventually, after I felt everyone had lost interest- I picked up the darn spoon and finished off my curry rice.  That stuff is tha bomb- and the spoon was easier to use.  All the same- the chopsticks were doing their job too!

So people- learn from our mistakes!  Use that spoon for your curry rice!

Consider yourself warned...

I could KICK myself!!

Seriously, where did my brain go?  I could have had a very fun blog post for you today.  But nooooo, someone (me) didn't think to take any damn pictures!


The reason for the pictures?  I taught my first cooking class today.  I had three lovely Japanese ladies over and we cooked chicken piccatta and fettucine alfredo, made a salad and also strawberry shortcake for dessert.  I could have had some great pictures!! Darn darn darn.  Next time right?  Hopefully they will take me up on another lesson in the near future.


One of my regular students, a sweet lady who looks like she is in her late forties but I suspect she is probably 10 years older than that (Japanese women do not age at all)- Yoko, told her friends that I offer cooking classes.  So our last meeting she tells me she is bringing two friends for a cooking lesson.  Of course that stumped me.  I mean- I WANTED to teach cooking, and even put that on my business card, but I hadn't actually TAUGHT a class yet!  Of course I did not tell her that, though it would have been hard to make her understand anyway.


Easy enough, we decided on chicken- which she was going to provide as I can't find any good fresh chicken breasts around here.  Today she brought me fresh chicken she picked up this morning.  She asked the meat department to remove the skin since I told her skinless, boneless.  They wrapped it up with several ice packs.  I asked if that was the norm and the ladies told me yes.  Can you imagine the big chain groceries stores in the States doing that?


Oh wait!!  I can show you some pictures!  It won't be of the class, and the cute aprons they brought with them to wear, but the goodies they left behind...

Fruit!

Sweetio bananas.  It sounds like someone making a poor attempt at Spanish.

I love how the orange even gets his own little foamie jacket.

My favorite- pineapple- it's really good here.

What could be in the bag?

C'est le pan! (Did I say that right?  I only took one year of French...)

Le clean up.

What I learned:

a. I need to give myself more time for a thorough scrub down of the kitchen.  I was up until midnight last night giving everything a good shine.

b. I need to be SURE I have used that recipe before.  I have a binder with recipes that I have used before.  I must have accidentally put in a recipe from Food.com for chicken picatta.  I had not actually used THAT particular recipe.  As it turns out, it was a professional chef's recipe that had been scaled down for home cooking.  Hence the 2 cups of flour were NOT needed to coat the 4 chicken breasts.  The ladies gasped audibly when I threw out the left over flour (almost 2 cups worth).  But at that point I can't keep it as it had been in contact with RAW chicken.  Also I did not need all that olive oil- big waste there as well.  The chicken didn't even turn out that great.  The sauce was delicious, but the chicken was dry.  I may have overcooked it a bit though...

c. I need to go through my Japanese etiquette book again.  I think I should have served Yoko before her friends, but where she was seated I kept getting her last.  I am not sure?  I felt like a blundering idiot.

d. Itadekimas!  It is what you say before you eat.  It means- "it's a feast".

e. Teaching cooking is FUN!  Though it doesn't go like the shows because they don't show people sitting around waiting for noodles to boil.  Seriously, it was fun setting everything up.  They loved all my American gadgets (read- my KitchenAid and my Pampered Chef tools.)  And they were fasciniated by my big oven and the fact I have a dish washer.  Man- we Americans are spoiled for the most part eh?

f. I really really really need need need a DSLR.  Think of the beautiful pictures I could have taken (unlike the iPhone pics shown above.)

g. Be prepared for LOTS of dishes afterward.  Brother came home, saw the huge mess, and asked what had I been doing??

h. Left-overs!  It's what I live for.  No cooking tonight baby!

Cheers!