The day immediately after Halloween, jack o’lanterns and witches’ hats and brooms were taken off to give way to Christmas trees and decors. It may not be as early as Christmas in Philippines and you may not hear Christmas carols as often, still, this year’s Christmas decors are up early compared to how I remember my previous Christmases here in Japan. Indeed, they are such a joy to behold! đ
Merry Christmas everyone!
Love these special KitKat editions. Perfect for pasalubong / omiyage / presents.
Yokohama edition, Strawberry Cheesecake flavor.
Yokohama edition, Annin dofu or almond jelly flavor.
Tokyo-Nihonbashi edition, Kuromitsu or Japanese sugar syrup flavor. Kuromitsu literally means “black honey”; kuro (é», ăă) for black and mitsu (ăżă€) for honey.
Buy now, for your loved ones!
Learned of this pudding’s existence through Okasan. As It’ll be a good omiyage/pasalubong idea, I headed out to the ground floor of Sogo in Yokohama which is actually a haven for pastries and other pasalubong/omiyage ideas.
The place was practically teeming with stalls selling different kinds of cakes, jams, puddings, sweets, bentos, preserved side dishes, und so weiter. But it was only Marlowe’s pudding that has a long queue. The almost empty glass display attests to it’s popularity I think.
When it was my turn, there was only one maccha left. Bought the maccha for us to taste and had the vanilla flavor in hello kitty mug as omiyage.
The pudding comes in a Pyrex glass which probably contributes to why it is sold at a costly „750 per glass. It reminds me of glass beakers though back in University laboratory. Good memories!
But oohhhhh I just absolutely love the front design! It features Mt Fuji, a torii, and a light tower which Hubs and I surmise must be the one in Kannonzaki (I’m yet to post our visit there this summer!).
And of course it comes with an instruction manual. You don’t have to know Nihon-go to be able to follow it. Tee-hee.
We were good in following instructions i think. đ
It’s made out of fresh milk from Hokkaido, eggs rich in Vitamin E, sugar, naturally made vanilla beans), with no additives and no gelatin. It came out as the number one pudding choice on a survey by Nikkei back in April 2010.
Sure enough, the taste lives up to its popularity. YUM!!!
Do visit – Marlowe Japan
I thought I had mapped out already all the restaurants in Landmark Tower. But when hubs suggested we eat at the curry udon shop for dinner after office, I totally had no idea as to its location. Situated just right the corner, just before Soup Stock Tokyo, this restaurant’s facade really looks quite unassuming.
But I was mighty impressed with it’s interior.
Traditionally, udon is dipped in soy sauce or é€æČč (shĆyu). However, this shop offers a different kind of alternative.
I’m not big on curry; if I can avoid eating it, I’m happy. But for Konaya’s curry sauce, I wouldn’t mind having it with udon several times a week.
Oh, see that shrimp above? They have several set menus that offer this angel shrimp (yep, that’s how it was called). Now, I really love shrimps but this one is just sooooo good.
Surprisingly, it comes really affordable at only 1050yen for some set meals, including the ones we ordered.
Do try it out! đ
A year ago, I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of eating, much less LOVE eating ikura or salmon roe (fully ripe ovaries or egg mass of salmon).
(Yes, it-is-expensive besides!)
Nor did I foresee myself having mentaiko (roe of pollock or pollack)Â as a favorite!
If truth be told, they look GROSS. Hubby said though that for Japanese, the site of roe is appetizing. And I could understand why – probably because they already knew how good it tastes and remembering how good the roe tastes makes your mouth water at the mere site of it.
One friday last March, after picking up hubby in the office for a date, he hauled me off to Komeraku in Landmark Tower. The poster up in the store front features a mentaiko meal set and for me, it wasn’t appetizing at all . I was scared of trying it, to be honest! But hubby encouraged me to try it because it’s one of them traditional Japanese food and I should give it a shot at least once. And boy was I so thankful hubby insisted.
I chose the mentaiko set because it had pork in it. Figured that if I can’t stomach the fish eggs, there’s always the pork to eat. 
The pork (the one at the far right) was re~~ally good. Tasteful and so tender, so yasashii! Yet, although the pork was good, it was a far cry from how the mentaiko (pink one on the left of the pork) tasted. It-was-just-so-good I repeatedly told hubby how good it was the whole time we were eating. Pardon the blurred photos though.
The teapot nearest me in above photo contains flavored hot water which you can use to make Ochazuke. I wanted to taste the mentaiko as much as possible hence I poured too little water on my ochazuke. Yep, that’s how good the mentaiko is.
Last Wednesday, hubby and I were craving for the mentaiko again hence off we went to Komeraku. Once seated though, the lady staff told us that the mentaiko set is already sold out for the day (it was already 8pm). Feeling adventurous, I chose the Ikura/salmon roe set.
It turned out I made a great choice. The meal was truly an explosion of flavors.
Ikura on top of flavored rice, peppered with salmon bits, herbs and arare (small rice crackers). Besides being truly flavorful, the meal is very interesting what with the salty-flavorful little eggs exploding inside your mouth as you chew, and the arare giving a bit of crunch.
The meal comes with a special sauce. Pardon though in that I don’t know how to describe it further other than that it made my meal even more flavorful.
This time, the ingredients on my ochazuke had the right proportions.
Nori and arare are available on each table to add more taste to your ochazuke . Nori addicts as we are, hubby and I emptied out the container, I think, after our meal.
Ahhh..so good. What made Komeraku even better is that aside from all the good food (and additional helping of rice besides), your meal comes at an affordable price of ~1200~1000yen only.
If you’re in the area, do check the place out; be adventurous and you’ll be rewarded with good food. đ Komeraku is just right in front of Tonkatsu Wako in Landmark Tower Ground floor.
Taking a break with my baby steps to learning Nihon-go. Here’s some of our pictures from our prenup last spring by our friend Gali Montalbo.
And oh, do watch out when you drop by Lonely Planet and National Geographic’s stock photos. You just might come across Gali’s name on one of the photos đ