Tag - a-taste-of-home

 
 

A TASTE OF HOME

Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jul 10, 2015
Britain's food revolution hits Tokyo
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that, generally speaking, English meals are bad." So begins Nozomu Hayashi's best-selling 1991 treatise on British food, "Igirisu wa Oishi" ("England is Delicious").
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jun 5, 2015
The best places in Tokyo to taste Vietnam in a baguette
Remember that rumor about “Mama” Cass Elliot from the Mamas and Papas? The one about how she died in bed while munching on a sandwich? I heard that as a child and for years I took it as a cautionary tale about bedtime snacking, or else as evidence that fate has a rather whimsical sense of humor. It would serve a third purpose equally well: as a warning for those about to indulge in Vietnamese banh mi — the hulking behemoths of the sandwich world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
May 1, 2015
Diving into the potent flavors of Japan's Iberian Peninsula cuisine
The seaside town of San Sebastian, in Spain's Basque Country, is well known as a crucible of culinary experimentation. It's a town where bars offering pinchos (small snacks) groan under the weight of vast spreads of braised beef cheek, hake throats laced with shouty salsa verde and blood puddings spiked with apple and raisins. A place where dangling bellota hams perfume the air with acorns and where bills can be tallied up in shirt stains just as well as they can in euros.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Apr 3, 2015
Japan's French bistro dining keeps the focus on the food
Each year, approximately 20 Japanese tourists are struck down by a rare and mysterious disorder.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Mar 3, 2015
Swedish cuisine: so much more than meatballs
Some Swedish delicacies, such as lutefisk (dried cod treated with lye), attract comments that are less than flattering. And when I say less than flattering, I mean downright slanderous. "Reminiscent of the afterbirth of a dog, or the world's largest chunk of phlegm," is one immortal line delivered by none other than U.S. author Garrison Keillor.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Feb 10, 2015
Singapore food fling provides 'messy and satisfying' feast
It's Friday night and I'm staring death in the face. The face in question happens to belong to a red snapper, and it's peeking out from the dark depths of powerful tamarind broth shimmering with crimson chili oil.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jan 6, 2015
Embark on a Peruvian adventure without boarding a flight
Sitting in the wood-clad, dimly lit dining room of the Miraflores restaurant, I begin to feel like I'm planning a year volunteering abroad. A glance at the Peruvian flag on the wall, the figurines on the bar counter and the map plastered across the door, and I imagine gleefully imposing myself on whichever rural village most needs a new school or well. My mind soars. For a fleeting moment I'm perched atop Macchu Pichu, legs tucked up to my chest against the bracing wind, surveying the sun-soaked vistas.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Dec 2, 2014
Finding comfort in a Belgian bowl
The mercury has dropped and the nights are getting longer. As the temperature plummets so does the need for culinary sophistication. Filigree garnishes, amusingly carved vegetables and light bonito broths frankly no longer cut it. To put it another way: December is less about yuzu-infused shoyu, and more about meat-pie-infused face.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Nov 4, 2014
Pizza the way they make it in Naples — more or less
With pizza, as with many things in life, simple is often the best. And it doesn't get any more minimal than a true pizza Napoletana.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Sep 30, 2014
Searching out the subtle but scorching spices of India
Turbaned and bejeweled Kashmiri princes recline on soft nan pillows, sipping chai as servants scamper over rugs of a luxuriant weave and between silk curtains rippling and fluttering in the light breeze of a Srinagar palace pavilion.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Sep 2, 2014
Hankering for the grills and thrills of Greek cuisine
Few things in this world are more pleasurable than sinking your teeth into heavily herbed, charcoal-grilled paidakia, the fabled lamb chops adored and revered by the Greeks.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Aug 5, 2014
Bowing out with a San Diego favorite — fish tacos
As a native of southern California, I have long lamented the dearth of good Mexican food in Japan. It's too heavy to take off here, people say. To which I have to wonder, then why not fish tacos?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jul 1, 2014
Gunma's 'Brazil Town' offers a carnival of cuisine
This month A Taste of Home is taking a field trip to Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture. Oizumi, an otherwise ordinary town, is home to roughly 4,000 Brazilians — about one-tenth of the local population. Most of them work in nearby factories (Subaru is a big one). But some of them are working to make life a little more comfortable for their compatriots, by running restaurants and shops that sell Brazilian food. Alighting at Nishi-Koizumi Station, I was there for the food.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Jun 3, 2014
Tokyoites needn't be sheepish about New Zealand cuisine
New Zealand is famous for its lamb, pasture-fed on the country's rolling green hills. Lamb being hard to come by in Japan, a New Zealand restaurant is a good bet if you're craving lamb chops. There are two big ones in Tokyo: Wakanui (B1F, 2-23-14 Higashi-Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo; 03-3568-3466; www.wakanui.jp) and Arossa (8F Ginza Velvier Bldg., 2-4-6 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; 03-5524-1146; www.pjgroup.jp/arossa)
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Apr 1, 2014
Pining for the communal flavor of Israeli cuisine
I thought I missed hummus. By which I mean: I missed being able to pick up a tub at the supermarket. But to hear an Israeli acquaintance talk of it is to learn that there is so much more to miss.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Mar 4, 2014
Where German-sausage fans can find the best of the wurst
"After 11 years I finally found it," a German colleague told me over lunch the other day. He wasn't talking about the perfect job. He was talking about currywurst, sliced sausage smothered in ketchup and curry powder. It's a diner or street-food dish, most popular in Berlin. To understand the popularity of currywurst, you need to know that there is a currywurst museum in Berlin. You also need to know, said my colleague, that the sausage must be grilled, and must not contain boiled Vienna sausages.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Feb 4, 2014
Eating Hawaiian in Japan, with or without the pancakes
Something newsworthy has happened (well, newsworthy if you follow dining micro-trends): A new restaurant from Hawaii has opened in Tokyo and it doesnu2019t serve pancakes.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Dec 31, 2013
Juicy Chinese dumplings will Shanghai your taste buds
People have opinions about xiao long bao. And for good reason: xiao long bao (or XLB, or soup dumplings, or shoronpo as they're called in Japanese) are enchanting: semi-translucent satchels of dough encasing balls of minced pork suspended in, curiously, soup. In that magnificent way that the Chinese language has of mythologizing food they are literally "little dragon buns." Where to find the best ones is a constant subject of debate.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Dec 19, 2013
Where would Santa find Finnish flavors in Japan?
Dear readers, I have made a wonderful discovery: Finnish cinnamon rolls, korvapuusti, are not just cinnamon rolls. They are cinnamon and cardamom rolls and they are delicious. Also, korvapuusti translates to "slapped ear" — perhaps because the dough is rolled rather than coiled — which is adorable.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / A TASTE OF HOME
Nov 14, 2013
Dig into 400 years of local history with a roast beef dinner
A peculiar culinary milestone took place last month: the 400th anniversary of the first English roast beef dinner served in Japan. You're forgiven for missing the fanfare; there wasn't any, save for a commemorative meal at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo.

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A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world