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.

2011/05/31

Royal Thai Cuisine Restaurant "Benjarong"

Thailand has a variety of colors in its towns and cuisine



We can find a variety of color from many different types of places in Thailand such asGreen (trees), Pink (taxis), Red (temple candles or Satellite TV antennas), Yellow (roofs, doors temple candles, and spices), Gold (Buddha icons and temple roofs), Orange ( the attire of a Buddhist priest) etc. Thai food also has vivid and energetic colors – Green (herbs), Red (chilies, curry paste, prawns, shrimp, watermelon shakes!), Yellow (curry paste) .



(See the photos: from the top : many kinds of curry pastes in the market.)



Thai cuisine uses variety of herbs and spices making it one of the reasons the Thai table is so colorful. Royal Thai Cuisine is wonderful. Thai porcelain, called 'Benjarong' is used as a part of the culinary experience.
The word 'Benjarong,' literally means 'five colors'. The painted decoration usually consists of 3 to 8 colors. So the Thai define their cuisine and heritage by serving the carved vegetables and the fruits together in the Benjarong.




When I talked with Mr. Surasak Kongsawat, the chief chef of the prestigious royal Thai cuisine restaurant (Frequented by the Royal family), " Benjarong" at Hotel Dusit Thani Bangkok, he said, "Thai cuisine is not only hot but also a delicate cuisine." The beautifully decorated cuisine with colorful carving vegetables and fruit - This is the Royal Thai Cuisine.

(photo: look at beautiful yellow roses made from carrots!)


Both Thai and Japanese people love noodles very much. I enjoy combining Thai and Japanese cuisine - Thai green curry and the Japanese thin noodle SOMEN. The SOMEN noodle is very versatile and can be just as good with curry as rice.



Ururu's Recipe

1. Boil SOMEN until cooked. (about 3 minutes) 2. Prepare Thai green curry using paste. 3. Serve the noodles in bowls with this curry and ENJOY!

for your reference: photos of Thailand photos of Thailand 2
Thailand has a variety of colors in its towns and cuisine (Japanese vergion)

2011/05/02

GOPAN - Rice Bread Cooker

Most Japanese use rice cookers called SUIHANKI. Most modern rice cookers have many features like a timer, pressure & steam settings, high heating efficiency iron pots etc. The price is quite wide, from ¥10,000 to over ¥100,000. Young Japanese woman use also rice cookers for soup, pilaf, boiled vegetables and so on.

Many Chinese tourists buy rice cookers in Akihabara, the famous “electronic town” where they often sell out. Companies that produce rice cookers’s stock have been on the rise, and product just can’t keep up with demand. The plants even continue production through the holidays.




Recently, rice bread cooker "GOPAN" has been developed by the famous electronic company, Sanyo. GOPAN is the first of its kind in the world, and has overwhelming popularity. Sanyo says it is unable to keep up with huge demand for its new cooker. The world’s first rice bread cooker GOPAN can deliver delicious fresh baked bread made from rice!


GOPAN offers a healthy and a happy rice lifestyle for the eater. GOPAN's good point is that you can easily bake rice bread from "rice grain" at home. Making bread from rice flour is not new, but few shops sell the expensive rice flour. Furthermore, the number of children developing allergies to flour are increacing, giving the GOPAN an additional benefit: "Rice Bread" without flour.


One of the reasons for developing this machine is to contend with the increasing the food self-sufficiency rate. Japanese self-sufficiency rate is about 40%. Most of flour is imported. We used to eat rice at every meal, but recently, the amount of consumerd rice has decreeced, especially among young people. They eat bread and noodles (pasta, Chinese noodles, and Japanese noodles such as SOBA and UDON etc.). Sanyo wishes to bring the rice back into young people’s diet. The GOPAN- putting rice back into the mouth of the young through bread.
Video of GOPAN