Cutlets and noodles

Joyce asked me about Japanese food and what we were eating at Tetsu's favorite restaurant. This is as good a time as any because yesterday Tetsu was told by a doctor to go on a diet! So we probably won't be visiting his favorite restaurant for awhile!

The restaurant that Tetsu likes specializes in port cutlets. That right away tells you that this is not diet food! I don't think pork cutlets are very Japanese but Japan has a way of taking a dish and making it very Japanese and very delicious.

Pork cutlets are pork cutlets right? Right. But this is served with a simple salad of finely shredded cabbage and two slices of tomatos. The dressing is a vinegar dressing made with yuzu which is a small hard citrus fruit popular in Japan. My cutlet had been stuffed with umeboshi (salty-sour plums) shisou (perilla) leaves. Both ingredients give a very fresh taste and aroma. I ate this with a sweet miso sauce.

In Tetsu's case, he had a cutlet that had been simmered in a sort of teriyaki sauce and then topped with an egg. We also had miso soup. Mine was made with two whole shrimp bobbing around in it (I thought of taking a picture of that but decided that might gross you out. Shrimp heads and all and their antenea surfaced from the soup like periscopes!) Shrimp heads give the most broth so this is very tasty! Tetsu had pork vegetable miso soup. We were also served small plates of salted pickes. Cucumber, eggplant, turnip and chinese cabbage. And of course there was the ever present rice.

Another meal that we had recently is Chinese noodles. This is a pretty typical meal fro Japanese. Sort of like the fast food of America. Anywhere you go, practically on any street, there is a noodle shop! There are Chinese noodles, ramen, and Japanese noodles, udon and soba. We tend to go to Chinese noodle shops about once a week. Usually bowls of noodles are eaten hot with pork and vegetables and fish cakes. A lot of slurping and in fact, slurping is part of the good manners! If you don't slurp your noodles your mother is going to scold you!

"What do you think you're doing biting those noodles in half! That's disgusting! You slurp those noodles like you're supppose to, all in one slurp! I don't hear you~! You're not slurping strongly enough!"

It's true!

This week Tetsu and I went to have Chinese noodles and he chose green onion topping. There is some pork down there somewhere but as you can see, a lot of green onions!

It was a hot day so I chose cold noodles made with a sesame seed based cold soup, slightly spicy, and very refreshing.

Slurp, slurp!