Chocolate shops

Luxury chocolate shops are popular in Tokyo now. Chocolate is popular as an item for good health because it contains much polyphenol and it is said to be good for blood and effective in preventing cancer. Plus, it is popular as a magical item for making people feel relax and happy.

Have a nice weekend!!

Bonus

This smaller device than the one in a previous post, shot at Nihonbashi, is for slicing niboshi, small fish for flavoring Japanese cusine. This is the first time I have ever seen it. The price is rather expensive.

A traditional device at home

This wooden device is for shaving thin strips of dried bonito, Katsuo bushi, and used to be every home in Japan. Sliced dried bonito is used to make miso soup, soba noodle of Tokyo style and other Japanese cusine. The sliced one is about 0.1 to 0.7 mm thick and the the taste differs up to thickness.

Related articles:
http://artofjpn3.blogspot.com/2006/11/steam.html
http://artofjpn3.blogspot.com/2006/08/katsuo-bushi-boiled-and-dried-bonito.html

a vinegar standing bar in a station

This is a standing bar in a station, selling a variety of soft drinks with vinegar. They are, for example, apple-cider vinegar flavored with tomato, the apple vinegar flavored with carrot, black vinegar with soy milk...

Now vinegar is also known as an item for maintaining one's health and soft drinks with vinegar are sold at 24/7 convenience stores.

By the way, vinegar, su in Japanese, is one of the five fundamental elements in Japanese cusine. They are called sa-shi-su-se-so.

Sa means satoh, sugar,
Shi means shio, salt,
Su means su, vinegar,
Se means seuyu(syoyu), say sauce,
And so means miso, miso.

Chocolat in Japan

February in Japan is the season of chocolat since women in Japan give some chocolat to their husband or boy friend on 14 Feb, Saint Valentine's Day.(Don't ask me why chocolat. I guess it is just for commercial reason.) In turn, men give back to their wife or girl friend some presents on 14 March, called White Day in Japan.(I don't know what is "white" at all and the day is, I guess, just made for department stores to make money.)

Now chocolat is getting popular because some TV or magazine reports that cacao is healthy. So chocolat with less sugar and much cacao is in vogue.

Expensive chocolat are also selling well now, especially the Belgian and French ones. One piece of chocolat on a break makes us feel relaxed.

By the way, it is said that confectioners making chocolat have colder hands than usual and it is about 26 to 27 degrees C. It is lower than the degree that chocolat melts, about 29 degrees C. As they make chocolat over and over again, do their hands turn to be cold naturally? I think that their hands are cold because they give all their affection and passion to chocolat when they are making it. So chocolat contains a lot of love and good for Valentine Day in Japan, I guess.

Kon-bini: 24-hour convenience store

These are five popular 24/7 stores, called convenience store in Japan and now such stores is everywhere in Tokyo. One of the biggest chain stores, Seven Eleven come from US and the other, Lawson, Family Mart, am pm and Sunkus are Japanese. We can buy a variety of stuffs, from daily foods and beer to stationery and magazine. Plus, we can book some concert and hotel and can send stuffs via delivery service like Fedex and DHL. Most of stores let us use small washing room.

By the way, I prefer Seven Eleven and am pm.

Beans

Gyu-don, beef rice bowl

This is a beef rice bowl at Yoshinoya, a major chain restaurant in Japan. We eat the beef rice bowl only, but some people eat the bowl with a half-boiled egg and miso soup. The egg, along with a little soy sauce, is put on the beef.

The food is delicious and reasonable, less than USD4.00 , so popular especially with young people.

Ramen

Ramen is one of the most popular foods in Japan, as well as curry rice and beef rice bowl, especially with young people. There are many kinds of ramens and all of them, four kinds of tastes are popular, soy sauce, miso, salt and pork, tonkotsu in Japanese, taste. Recently the mixture of soy sauce with pork taste is becoming popular in Tokyo.

By the way, what kinds of foods for lunch are popular with young people in your country?