Oishii ... Japan Hour memories

There is this food programme on the telly that gets me & some friends all excited. Name of programme is: JAPAN HOUR.

I must confess:

I've never been a fan of raw fish. Raw veggies, now that's a totally different story. I love my salads!! Could eat salads without the dressing anytime, man!!!

Raw fish is OUT. Why, I don't even eat the "yee sang" that is so ommi-present during every Chinese New Year. Well, I do "lo hei" but that's about it. I don't eat the raw fish slices in them.

On Japan Hour (JH), that is the feeling that one gets from the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan. Moulds after moulds of raw fish dishes. Mind you, the FISH is VERY FRESH ... so fresh that after catching the fish alive, usually the chef will take it straight into the kitchen to slice up the fish & prepare whatever dish he (the chef) is making at that moment. Yeah man, THAT FRESH!!

Which leads me to think of this next point: what makes a dish? If it is just raw fish without any cooking, is it still considered as one? I'm not insulting the chef doing the raw fish but all along, the chefs that I see on TV are all furiously cooking away on the stove/oven, tasting here & there.

I admire the Japanese people somewhat when it comes to this. They can really swallow down raw fish, which by the way, is also known as "sashimi"; or if there is rice covering the raw fish, then it is known as "sushi".

My geography isn't that bad until I don't know that for the different regions of Japan, they have their special cuisine. But dish AFTER dish, consisting only of sashimi? Sometimes on the JH programme, they do that.

Have you also noticed that there seems only to be ONE WORD used by the JH food tasters to describe whatever dish that they are eating? That word is: OISHII, which I gather to mean "delicious" in the Japanese language. It is always OISHII this, OISHII that. Come on, please. We the TV viewers can probably see for ourselves that the food is good & that the food is presented in a very appetising manner. What we would like to know:

1. is the food meant to be salty?
2. what does the soup broth for the noodles taste of?
3. Is the sauce gravy too gooey-thick or thin?

My next tale can be considered related to JH, which often features the various shops selling it. On JH, they the Japanese people do love their noodles. I must say, I also love their noodles. You should eat them to know what those JH tasters mean.

Point to note: in Japan, I learnt that there are about 3 different types of noodles. They are: soba, udon & ramen. Many noodle shops hand-make their noodles; according to the owners, this makes the food more yummy. I couldn't disagree more.

Once, I went on a family vacation to Japan. When my plane touched down in Tokyo, I was green in the face from vomitting too much. AND I WAS STILL PUKING away ... poor me.

Anyway, whilst our tour group was up in the mountains, we chanced upon this small noodle shop. In that little noodle shop, they sold soba (sounds like sofa). The owner was Japanese & I, a Singaporean. With no common language, it was like a chicken talking to a duck. I pointed to a picture of what seems to be a bowl of noodles (at that point, didn't know it was soba).

The soba noodles arrived, steaming hot, which is good, as my tummy was still making me churn. Perhaps the Japanese are used to salty noodles/broth but when I bit into my first authentic Japanese food, the soup was way too salty for me! Mind you, I was still vormitting. So, the Japanese tour guide helped me out by asking for a glass of hot water, which was then used to dilute the salty noodle soup broth. Only then, was I able to swallow & keep it in, some food.

Now then, can anyone guess how much was that bowl of soba that I had? The size of the noodle bowl was about medium, the sort used at Yoshinoya Singapore; not too big, not too small. The noodles came plain, topped with a tiny amount of shredded seaweed. It cost me a bloody $5.

The Japanese must be earning loads of money. Else, why would they consider paying 5 pop a bowl, peanuts?

Apparently, 1000 Japanese Yen to pay for some food is considered cheap in Japan. 1000 Japanese Yen is about (more or less) $15 in Singapore. Why, I could eat like a KING in Singapore for the $5 I paid in that Tokyo shop.

You get to see this happening quite often in the various JH shows. The JH show often display the price of a meal after the last course, in Japanese money of course. I am lucky to have access to the latest exchange rates, which has led to me furiously calculating mentally the cost of that kaiseki set dinner that was just featured on Japan Hour. Or it could be that 200-Yen noodle shop that the JH food taster popped into.

I will cook but I don't like to wash up. Really, who likes washing up? Which is why, unless those food shops featured on Japan Hour have an automated dishwasher, I pity the human ones. This is because most of the times, the food featured comes in many, many plates & bowls. One teeny weeny piece of chicken appetizer, ONE plate. 2 sticks of yakitori (Japanese bbq meat-on-skewers) on an oblong dish. Chawanmushi (Japanese steamed egg) comes with its own specialised container. Here we all go now, counting the number of bowls & plates to wash up: ONE, two, THREE, four, FIVE ... It is not uncommon to be counting up to 15.