Category: Foods & Drinks

One of the Japanese winter fruits is oranges. In English it is “satsuma” or “mandarin orange”.  But neither English can communicate in Japan. Japanese think of sweet potato from satsuma. There is no familiarity with the word mandarin orange.

Mikan is smaller than orange and sweeter. Even a child can easily peel off with their fingers, because its skin is thin. And most mandarins do not have seeds, so you can eat whole but the outer skin.

However, when you eat a lot of mikan, your hand gets yellow. It is the work of pigment called carotenoid contained in mikan.

Soba is also traditional Japanese noodle dish. It is made from buckwheat flour.

Soba has two main types of cooking methods. One is a hot type. It’s put Soba into hot soup, just like udon.

Another one is a cold type. We soak soba noodles in cold soup and eat it.

Soba is also a carbohydrate. However, because there are a lot of protein and dietary fiber which is considered a little healthy food than udon.

When we eat Japanese noodles such as udon, soba, ramen, champon and yakisoba, it is normal to make sound ‘Zzzzoo’ while eating. Some foreigners think that it is uncomfortable, but since they are Japanese traditional style, there is no choice but to get used to it. Or avoid there.

When we put the noodles in our mouth, we will have a sharp mouth and breathe in with the air. Then that sound comes out. Actually, this is not exaggerated to eat it. This is a high technique, to relieve the heat of soups and noodles with air to prevent burns in the mouth. Some people make sounds even when they eat cold noodles.

However, it is manners not to make a sound when eating foreign noodles such as spaghetti also in Japan.

In a udon restaurant called “Sanuki Udon”, the method of ordering is different from the other udon restaurants.

In an ordinary udon restaurant, we order udon which is set with favorite ingredients such as tempura udon, kitsune udon etc. However, at the Sanuki Udon restaurant we can choose the ingredients of the topping separately from udon as much as you like.

The Sanuki Udon restaurant has an order counter that also serves as a kitchen. And, corner of ingredients, ordering / receiving section of udon, checkout cash register are made in order.

The order flow is below.

First of all, we take the ingredients we want to eat at the corner of the topping by ourselves.

Next, we order a kind of udon. Variations of udon are warm or cold, put raw egg on, etc.

When we receive udon, we go to the cashier and pay the total price.

We carry it to the vacant seat by ourselves and eat it.

There is a dish called Tsukimi udon. This is the one that puts the egg on the udon. We assume the egg yolks as the moon, and white matter as cloud.

Tsukimi udon is a favorite of Japanese people. But white matter does not harden by the temperature of the soup. If you don not like raw eggs, you may order another kind of udon.

Udon is Japanese traditional noodle. Its characteristic is white noodles made from wheat. Its characteristic is white noodles made from wheat. When we eat udon, it is common to topping tempura and Abura-age (tasted fried tofu).  Tempura is burdock, eel, shrimp and so on.

By the way, I heard that there are many people with diabetes in Kagawa prefecture where consumption of udon is high. Because udon is a carbohydrate. Let ‘s eat udon with vegetables as much as possible.

Do Filipinos know also the Japanese food of “Tempura”?

Tempura is fried after soaking vegetables and shrimps with liquid prepared by stirring flour and egg. It is similar to how to make fried banana. But we never use sugar in tempura.

Famous cuisine using tempura are Tendon, Tempura udon and Tempura soba. Tendon is made by placing tempura on rice and put sweet soy sauce.