ABOUT

I started Foodies simply to share my impressions of food that I encounterd in Japan and other countries.
I hope to inspire people to savour and enjoy the time they spend preparing and eating food. I also hope to reveal the rich diversity and importance of food within the cultures of different countries. I believe that understanding food and culinary culture of different countries is one of the easiest and fastest ways to know and understand the people. Food is one of the most essential things in the human life and the culinary culture of a country embodies the country’s own history, spirit and joy.
I hope you too can discover and enjoy the different tastes of food from other countries and gain an insight into the people and places it's from.

2011/02/23

Japanese noodle "SOMEN" - The thinnest noodle in the world



You probably know Japanese cuisine SUSHI and TEMPURA, however, do you know SOMEN? SOMEN is a Japanese noodle made from wheat and is much skinnier than other Japanese noodles.

How skinny it is do you think?
Noodles are eaten all over the world, from the Italian pastas, Chinese noodles to the numerous other types of Asian noodles.

When I visit noodle restaurants in Thailand, I can choose the noodle from 4 different kind of noodles and eat with 4 traditional seasonings as own taste. I love Thai noodle very much.
The Japanese noodle SOMEN is from ancient times. Now in Japan, people eat SOMEN daily, especially in the summer. However, in olden days, due to the difficultly of importing precious wheat, only people of the court could eat SOMEN. SOMEN has been a court cuisine for long time.

The Italian pasta “angel hair” is a famous skinny noodle. However, the world's skinniest noodle is in Nara. One of the SOMEN of famous SOMEN brand YAMAMOTO developed a 0.3mm SOMEN. In every 10g, 300 sticks are produced!

[Photo] See how skinny it is. A normal SOMEN is 0.9~1.3mm. This is 1/3 the size. The name of this SOMEN is "SHIRAGA" which means White Hair. From left: Italian Pasta "TAGLIATELLE": 6mm, "SHIRAGA": 0.3mm


I recomend using "SHIRAGA" in Soup.


2011/02/20

Gaudí and Casa Calvet - Barcelona






Above, from top: Appetizer of the day
Seafood-stuffed squid, with baby squid sauce, vegetable couscous
Caramelized vanilla cream with pineapple and hazelnut tuile

Restaurant Casa Calvet - located in the building created by the Catalan Architectural genius Antoni Gaudí.

2011/02/06

espressamente illy Tokyo - marocchino


espressamente illy in Tokyo - taking a photo of "beautiful red & brown": marocchino