If you’re wondering, that’s a nickname that my arch-nemesis Swan gave me. She really loves to make fun of me.
If you’ve been to Japan or been exposed to Japanese culture, then you’ve probably heard of Yakisoba. When it comes to Yakisoba, it always reminds me of summer, and all the festivals. Because at just about every single festival I’ve been to in Japan, they’re always serving yakisoba. It’s definitely a dish I love to eat, and gives me plenty of great memories. Yakisoba, in case you didn’t know, is a fried type of noodle, very similar to (and derived from) chinese chow mein. It’s very tasty, and you can have all kinds of additions to it, like pork, cabbage, and so on. Very similar to ramen, except without the soup.
But the yakisoba that I’d like to talk about is an instant Yakisoba called UFO Yakisoba. It’s an instant type of Yakisoba, so it’s similar to cup ramen or cup noodle where you just add water and go. But of course, the question here is simple, why all the water if there’s no soup? Basically the water is to soften up the yakisoba noodles. After 3 minutes or so (just like cup ramen), you remove the water using a very ingenius contraption on the package. You can “tear off” one side of the package to reveal a sub layer with holes in it, just big enough to allow water to pass through, but not the noodles. Incredible you say? Hell, it’s genius if you ask me. Back in the old days you had to strain the water out and well, it sucked. But now UFO noodles makes it easy for you.
But I talk not about how good UFO Yakisoba is, but instead how the aroma of the yakisoba sauce totally brings me back to the old days of youth. It brings me back to Japan and the memories of hanging out with my friends. To me, UFO Yakisoba isn’t just about convenience and good eats. It’s about memories and friendship and mainly, it’s just about Japan. It’s probably a bad thing that an instant Yakisoba makes me think of Japan, but it’s so very true. If you ever get the chance to pick up some UFO brand Yakisoba, try it out. All you need is some hot water and 3 minutes later, you’ll be eating tasty Yakisoba just like me.
Perhaps you’ve seen that Pizza Hut is now offering pasta. You can get 2 different kinds of “Tuscani” pasta, alfredo or marinara. We tried out the alfredo sauce pasta since red sauce seems to be notorious for causing serious heartburn in this household. You know what, it wasn’t bad at all. Actually it was pretty good. If I had a complaint, I’d only complain that it was perhaps a bit too salty for my tastes. But that’s just about it. Each pasta order is enough to feed 4, and yes, it really is a lot of food. It comes with 5 breadsticks, which in itself are pretty good, but nothing earth shattering.
Overall, I’m pretty impressed with it. I think they might have made a pretty decent move. Now if only they’d come up with baked spaghetti, it would be just a bit better! The commercial is after the bump.
Apparently, Food Network has announced the new Dinner: Impossible chef to be Chef Michael Symon. You may remember Chef Symon as the chef who won the Next Iron Chef challenge and currently also stands as on of the American Iron Chefs.
It looks like they’re also changing the format of the show and making it an hour long. I don’t know about any of you people out there, but that pleases me! I love the show Dinner: Impossible and love that it’s going to be an hour long. It’s really too bad that Robert Irvine is no longer the host, since he’s definitely one of my favourites, but I like Chef Symon as well.
Here’s hoping Chef Symon didn’t exaggerate on his resume either!
So yesterday, I spent some time making some Gyoza. If the word “gyoza” is greek to you, and you’re not sure what it is, I’ll explain. It’s also known as Mandu or Chinese dumplings, or it’s most common name of “pot stickers”. I make mine less vegetarian and quite meaty. I use ground pork and green onions. That’s about it for the filling. Then I put them in Gyoza wrappers or round wonton wrappers and seal them in. Mmmm good. Gyoza makes an excellent side for Ramen. I don’t think there is just anything better to go with Ramen except perhaps beer. Beer, Gyoza and Ramen, quite the combination.
It’s been reported that “Downer" cows entered the food supply. The president of Westland/Hallmark Meat Company admitted that a couple of “downer” cows could have entered the food supply. Prior to this, he had said that no such cows have entered the food supply. So now, he’s admitting he’s wrong.
“Downer” cows is the term used for cows that cannot stand on their own or are sick. Downer cows are not allowed into the food supply because of the scare of mad cow disease.
He was quoted as saying, “the activities shown on the video are not ‘food safety issues.’ The cows shown in the video could not walk, were designated to be euthanized and were not put into commerce.” What I’d like to know is whether or not that it’s normal that cows that are to be euthanized are subjected to such treatment.
It’s quite obvious that the cows are being treated horribly. I for one cannot believe they would not at the very least be charged with cruelty to animals. Just because an animal is going to be euthanized, I don’t think that gives excuse for anyone to cause any kind of cruelty to them.
Because of the recall, they’ve lost millions of dollars and are possibly going to shut down operations. I say that’s fine, and they well deserved it.
It seems the phrase “Don’t drink the water” can now be applied to water in the USA. You might may recall cybrpunk being sick because he drank some water in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Well, what if you went to a restaurant in San Francisco and got sick too?
Apparently, prescription drugs are being distributed into the drinking water. How is this happening? Believe it or not, it’s coming from us. It may come from waste water treatment plants. Ask yourself how many medications you have that you flush down the toilet? A lot right? That’s right, guess what, a lot of waste water is purified, treated and then piped back into the drinking water. While the process gets rid of a lot of harmful bacteria and such that will make you sick, it doesn’t get rid of all the drugs that are in it.
You’re probably saying that you don’t drink the tap water, you drink bottled water. Guess what? Most of bottled water is still the same thing as tap water, except it’s filtered out numerous more times. And you guessed it, the drugs still aren’t filtered out.
What can we do? Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an easy solution in sight. Since we can’t get people to even take some measure to saving energy, I’m pretty sure we’re not going to get people to stop taking as much prescription medication. Honestly. People are addicted to drugs. But that’s and entirely different story.
I realize this is old news, but I thought I had to say something about it. If you haven’t heard, it appears that the star of Food Network’s Dinner Impossible, Robert Irvine, apparently lied about various work experiences on his website and books. It would appear he had an answer for all the questions they put towards him. Of course, he did admit to lying about being a Knight of the highest order. At least he came forward about that and admitted it was a big mistake.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the show or not, regardless of whether he was lying about his experiences (including working in the White House!), the man is a great chef and he knows what he’s doing. However, I do realize this is a great blow to his credibility. Since he lied about his work experience, what else has he lied about? I’m a big fan of Robert Irvine, and while I’m rather disappointed, it doesn’t change my opinion that he’s still a great chef.
So Food Network has decided to go ahead and drop him from Dinner Impossible, and have yet to announce who the new chef will be. (that i know of)
So the USDA is taking action and suspended 2 federal meat inspectors after this last recall of 143 million pounds of beef. This is interesting because it makes me think of a couple of things.
First, it looks like the USDA is doing something about the corruption in the process of inspection. Obviously someone is getting relaxed and it’s good to see that something is happening. This is a good thing.
Second, the conspiracy theorist in me says, “yeah, but it’s only suspension, and what will happen in a few months when people have forgotten? It’ll go back to the usual thing.” And I almost have to agree with myself on that. It’s scary, but it’s probably true.
What do you think? Will we all forget all about this in a few months?
Ok, so have you heard of this? Kimchi in Space. It apparently took them a while to formulate a type of kimchi that wouldn’t be harmful. I mean first of all the smell. Wow, they have to get rid of that. Then aside from that because there’s bacteria in Kimchi (i mean it’s fermented right?), they have to be sure that it won’t be harmed or mutated by the cosmic rays. Whoa, sounds like something out of science fiction or Fantastic Four, right? But it’s apparently true.
I wonder if they’ll ever market the “space kimchi” for general use. I’d like to try a taste.
Since Easter is coming up, I thought I’d throw out a poll for everyone to take! If it’s not listed in the poll, please comment on what you think is your favourite!
In California, a McDonald’s tries something different, and designs it’s interior with Feng Shui way in mind. What would you think if you walked into a McDonalds, only to find all the plastic seating and tables, replaced with leather seating, earth tones, and water fixtures throughout the restaurant? It would probably give to a very calm and pleasing eating experience.
This is apparently one of many theme styled McDonald’s placed throughout the world. It goes to show that McDonalds is a company that is willing to try new things, just to make customer’s experiences better.
Many didn’t even realize the interior was set with feng shui in mind. They just thought it was part of a modern theme. More people are noticing and more people are coming in to visit.
This could be a good move for McDonalds. How will they improve other such McDonalds? Will this be an ongoing theme for them? Will they cater all McDonalds restaurants to the local theme? We can only wait and see.
If you read my hello! food website, you might recall that I wrote a post about the USDA inspection process being shoddy. Well, now we start the process of making up for it. The USDA orders recall of 143 million pounds of beef. From the article, ”But Dick Raymond, the undersecretary of agriculture for food safety, said there was a “remote probability” that the meat from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino, California, could cause illness in humans.”
You know, I agree with that. There may or may not be any issues with humans eating this meat. But for me, I tend to see it as a little bit of karma. What goes around comes around. I understand that the slaughterhouse has fired a couple employees, and while is is a great start, I think they need more to make up for the abuse.
I’m not exactly against the slaughterhouse in question closing down completely, but honestly, it’s not realistic. But something had to be done. And more has to be done. Perhaps frequent and perhaps even publicized inspections may be one method. For a while at least.
This entire story just about makes me want to become a vegetarian, but I don’t think that’s going to help the cows. Really I don’t.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the video that was released by the Humane Society from a Chino slaughterhouse. Watching this video makes me truly sad. Now, the USDA is under criticism. No, not for the treatment of the cows (which should be under investigation already) but for allowing mistreated cattle to go through the meat inspection process. Because this video has surfaced, they were forced to shut down that Chino-based slaughterhouse. Now people are wondering just how effective the USDA inspection process is.
This is aside from the fact that I am appalled at the amount of abuse that these cows have been given. But I digress.
From the LA Times article: “Cattle that are unable to walk are banned from use as human food because they show a higher occurrence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.”
There also was a statement from an undercover activist from the Humane Society who said, “It would take two or three of us to get the cow to stand in front of the inspector, on wobbly legs, and he would say ‘That’s fine.’”
I’m of firm belief that any type of inspection process can easily be corrupted, in the form of bribes or even laziness. It just sounds like the inspector in question in the quote above by the activist did not care about it. If we are going to allow these inspectors to determine if something is safe for us to consume, they must be ever vigilant. Seriously! They cannot be corrupted or they cannot allow certain things to happen.
I too believe in the inspection process, and it’s not necessarily the fault of the USDA as much as it is the fault of the inspectors themselves who become lazy or corrupted. But the USDA seriously needs to get down on these people. They need to make a change and tighten things up.
Have you seen the Burger King Commercials where they say they stopped selling the whopper, and that it was discontinued from the menu? You know, where they say they don’t sell it for one day and people freak out? First of all, is it that important? I realize that’s BK’s tagline, “Home of the Whopper” but is it really the best thing on the menu? I really do like the chicken fries and the Classic Chicken Sandwich. (Notice I say classic)
Is that commercial really actual customers? I don’t believe it. But here’s the commercial, you judge for yourself. Would you freak out like the the voice of the guy at the end of the commercial? He was pissed.
Osechi Ryori is traditionally a meal that is served during New Years in Japan. I’m a big lover of New Years “Japanese Style” as it’s a very important holiday, and there are so many things that happen during this holiday. Osechi Ryori is perhaps one of my most favourite things about New Years. Incredibly artistic foods are put together and (normally) put into bento-like containers. They are normally stacked two or three high, and are packed with tasty food. One of my favourite Osechi foods is the Datemaki. It’s basically a type of egg omelet that is rolled. It’s very good. Please check out the picture to get a better idea of what it looks like.
If you’d like to know more about Osechi Ryori, you can visit the article on wikipedia about it. It also gives a brief history. Next year, my mother is planning on making it since I’ll be there this New Years, so I’ll have pictures and possibly video!
I love the Sonic Drive In. There’s no question that some days, a gooey cheese-topped order of tater tots and a yummy cheeseburger really hits the spot. But that’s not what I’m having a problem with that might require intervention.
It’s the Real Fruit Pineapple Slush. It’s more than just a great drink on a hot day, it’s a snack too. There are so many chunks of fresh pineapple in it! You literally can suck a frozen piece of pineapple-ly goodness in every sip. Who am I kidding? I don’t sip this drink, I devour it. It’s soooooo tasty. There really aren’t even words that I could use that would adequately describe my love for this drink.
As summer draws to a close, many states across the country are celebrating their State Fairs. With that, comes competitions for the best pickles, the best cows, the best sheep, well you get the idea. The masses swell for concerts by favorite artists, to ride the rides, get creeped out by the fair game carnies and to view the spectacle that is the Butter Cow, if you’re at the Iowa State Fair. But let’s face the facts, you and I both know the real reason that anyone vists the State Fair is the food.
Ok, you may or may not have seen the recent commercials by Dominos Pizza where they argue whether or not to choose for the Brooklyn Style Pizza, or the Philly Cheese Steak Pizza. As much as I love having cheesesteaks, and believe me, I’ve eaten enough of those in my life time (being from Jersey and all), I don’t think I would go anywhere near a Cheese Steak pizza. I totally prefer the Brooklyn Style Pizza.
So, I’d thought I’d go ahead and present a poll! What do YOU prefer?
Now, I’m not one that will argue that fast food, ie. McD’s, Burger King, and all of that ilk, are good for you. I’m simply not that dumb. However, I find crap like this to be annoying. Why? Because you have a choice.
You can choose not to order the Triple Yummy Heartstopping Burger of Death with Ginormous-size fries and the Big Bubba Pop (Yes, I said pop, because soda is what you put in your fridge to keep it smelling nice!). Or you can choose to order the Heartstoppers Super Duper Non-Value Meal and stick your foot one inch further into the grave.
One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve been shopping for food in the supermarkets: the “Organic” section gets bigger and bigger everytime I go. Now, when I shop for food, I know the typical rules of how to buy food, all learned from my mother. I generally go for “does it look fresh?” then do the typical checks of squeezing (if needed), feeling, and possibly thumping. (no, I don’t thump melons! I watch Alton Brown too!) What I’ve really been wanting to know about organic food however, is simple:
What makes organic food better?
My knowledge of organic foods is very little, and very weak. For those of you who have just about the same knowledge, please keep up. For those of you who have more knowledge of organic foods, please correct me where I am wrong.
This is yet another installment of my “how to eat...” series. Today, I’ll be showing you how to prepare and actually eat ramen. Now, I’m not talking about the cheap-o Top Ramen or Maruchan Ramen noodles.
I’m not even talking about the “instant” ramen that comes in dehydrated blocks of noodles. I’m talking about “real” ramen. I give you exhibit A. What you’re seeing here is a bag of “real” ramen, and what I mean by that is that the ramen noodles are “fresh” and not dehydrated.
Inside you’ll find 3 packets of ramen noodles, with 3 packets of soy sauce based soup base. None of this is powder folks.
Now, first you want to put the soup base in your bowl, as show in exhibit C and D. Once you have that set up, you can start boiling your water and getting ready to put the noodles in the water.
Once you get your water to a rolling boil, insert your ramen noodles. Because the ramens are not dehydrated blocks (yay!), it won’t take very long to cook them. You’re talking maybe 3 minutes. you want to be able to cook them well for 3 minutes because they are very starchy and it’s a good thing to get rid of that. Here’s a short video on what the boiling ramen should look like:
After your 3 minutes are up, you want to drain your noodles well, and make sure most of the water is out of them. You don’t want to rinse them at all. There’s no need to do so. Then make sure you put hot water into the ramen bowl with the soup base, and now you’ll have a bowl of soup.
Carefully drop the noodles into the soup. Then you’re done making ramen! It’s rather very simple. Once you are done, feel free to add any toppings you’d like, I’m particularly fond of sliced boiled eggs, bamboo shoots, nori (seaweed), and naruto, which is a swirly type of Kamaboko. You can see it in the end result below:
What follows from this time is an educational video, brought to you by yours truly. Please keep an open mind when viewing this. The slurping is perfectly normal.
When you’re seriously broke, what do you eat the most of? You know what I’m talking about. When you’ve got that extra step day where you can only spend 10 bucks for the week, what kind of foods do you eat?
Here’s what I lived on when I was totally broke and poor:
- Instant Ramen. Seriously. You can buy this at the supermarket for like 10 for 1 buck. I’m not talking about fancy shmancy ramen. I’m talking about Top Ramen. It’s dirt cheap. Actually, I still eat it!
- Spaghetti. Believe it or not, I thought of many many different types of sauces for spaghetti, and the actual spaghetti is cheap! If you buy the generic no brand spaghetti, I’ve seen 5 lb bags for about a buck or two. Seriously. You can live on spaghetti for a long time. Add a little butter and garlic to the spaghetti and voila, dinner!
- Mac and cheese. You can get these relatively cheap. And if you are able to get hot dogs, you can combine them together. Holy cow, how can anyone not eat this! It’s good stuff.
So tell me, what do you eat when you’re broke?
(A plug for Pandora who gave me the idea for this post)
I’m not exactly sure what I ate today, but it sure was good. Actually there are a lot of days when I can say that exact same phrase. I walked with a few people from work through the wet markets today to get to a little Vietnamese restaurant in Central. Central is the name of the district I work in.
Hmm… I suppose I should explain what a “wet market” is. Wet markets are like other outdoor markets in Hong Kong with open air stores and vendors setting up stalls along the street . The biggest difference is that in a wet market you find live or recently living things, generally to eat. You can find everything from groceries, fresh fruit & vegetables, live chickens and seafood, pork and chicken meat hanging from hooks, disembodied giant fish heads, flowers, live chickens and spices. They are pretty cool, but the ground is always wet from live wells at the fish vendors, people spraying off butcher blocks and watering flowers. Therefore: wet market.
OK, back to the story. So we get to the Vietnamese restaurant and two of us put in our orders for what we call “greasy noodles.” Then we all walked to the Corner Noodle (that’s what it translates to) and the others put in their order for local Chinese food. I wander around a little and look at a store selling commercial refrigerated displays and some cool plants at a flower shop. The Chinese food comes up and we head back the Vietnamese place to pick up our food. It still wasn’t ready. Slow….
Anyway, after one of our co-workers complains in Cantonese to them, they get the order out and we all walk back through the wet market to the office. They threw in some free desserts to make up for the wait. Local desserts are icky. More on that later. So what are greasy noodles? Well, I’m not exactly sure but I will try and explain.
Greasy noodles are kinda like spaghetti noodles in size, shape and color but maybe a bit smaller in diameter. They are cooked and then maybe lightly stir-fried in oil but that’s just a guess. There is meat which I believe was pork and/or chicken as well as large strips of brown-ish stuff which didn’t taste like much so I assumed it was tofu of some sort. Then there’s diced white and green onions, slivers of red pepper and carrots and something that looked a little like corn flakes but not quite. And maybe a bit of oil or grease.
I know that is a splendid description but it’s the best I can do. Seriously though it’s really good. It’s relatively dry so it can be eaten completely with chopsticks and no need for a spoon.
For my very first post on this hello! Food site, I’ll share with you some fun information. Starting with the fact that if you dig far enough you actually will make it to China.
I have lived the first 30+ years of my life in or around St. Louis, MO. For those of you unsure of the location of St. Louis, or maybe even Missouri, it’s dead center of the Midwest portion of the United States of America. Does that seem odd to say that? Then you have no idea how many times people ask “Where is that? Near (Colorado, Texas, France, etc.)?” I kid you not. So food-wise, I come from the city that is nearly famous for being the birthplace of ice cream cones, toasted ravioli, hot dogs in buns, and other things that I can’t recall right now. As about as American as you get, we have every conceivable variation on steak, bar-b-que, Italian, Mexican and so on and so forth. You know… American food.
So we went to Arby’s the other day, and while looking at the drive-thru menu on what to get, the drive-thru attendant told us “Oh, by the way, we just ran out of roast beef.” We were speechless. How does this happen at Arby’s? Aren’t they all about roast beef? I was considering a Market Fresh sandwich, like the Ultimate BLT (yum!) but, honestly, I wanted Arby’s because I wanted roast beef. So we said no thanks and left.
For as long as I can remember, rice has always been a part of my life. Rice is the staple in Japan, and everyone eats it. You eat it for breakfast, you eat it for lunch, and you eat it for dinner. And everyone says to me, “but Yoshi, rice is so bland. How can you eat rice by itself without something like butter or sugar on it?” Ah, and that’s where I can teach you. You don’t really eat rice “plain” per se. Gather around, and I’ll show you how to eat rice.
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If you’ve been to Japan or been exposed to Japanese culture, then you’ve probably heard of Yakisoba. When it comes to Yakisoba, it always reminds me of summer, and all the festivals. Because at just about every single festival I’ve been to in Japan, they’re always serving yakisoba. It’s definitely a dish I love to eat, and gives me plenty of great memories. Yakisoba, in case you didn’t know, is a fried type of noodle, very similar to (and derived from) chinese chow mein. It’s very tasty, and you can have all kinds of additions to it, like pork, cabbage, and so on. Very similar to ramen, except without the soup.
But the yakisoba that I’d like to talk about is an instant Yakisoba called UFO Yakisoba. It’s an instant type of Yakisoba, so it’s similar to cup ramen or cup noodle where you just add water and go. But of course, the question here is simple, why all the water if there’s no soup? Basically the water is to soften up the yakisoba noodles. After 3 minutes or so (just like cup ramen), you remove the water using a very ingenius contraption on the package. You can “tear off” one side of the package to reveal a sub layer with holes in it, just big enough to allow water to pass through, but not the noodles. Incredible you say? Hell, it’s genius if you ask me. Back in the old days you had to strain the water out and well, it sucked. But now UFO noodles makes it easy for you.
Perhaps you’ve seen that 
Apparently, Food Network has announced the new Dinner: Impossible chef to be Chef Michael Symon. You may remember Chef Symon as the chef who won the Next Iron Chef challenge and currently also stands as on of the American Iron Chefs.
So yesterday, I spent some time making some Gyoza. If the word “gyoza” is greek to you, and you’re not sure what it is, I’ll explain. It’s also known as Mandu or Chinese dumplings, or it’s most common name of “pot stickers”. I make mine less vegetarian and quite meaty. I use ground pork and green onions. That’s about it for the filling. Then I put them in Gyoza wrappers or round wonton wrappers and seal them in. Mmmm good. Gyoza makes an excellent side for Ramen. I don’t think there is just anything better to go with Ramen except perhaps beer. Beer, Gyoza and Ramen, quite the combination.
It seems the phrase “Don’t drink the water” can now be applied to water in the USA. You might may recall 
I realize this is old news, but I thought I had to say something about it. If you haven’t heard, it appears that the star of Food Network’s Dinner Impossible, Robert Irvine, 
This is a crosspost from 
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