Dining Japanese Style

Wow, it has been quite some time since I posted.  Not that I need to make excuses or even that it matters what excuse I have for being away from my blog so long, but I did want to say I am sorry and fill everyone in one why I have been absent from the blogging world.  First, if you do not already know, I started working at the WIC office on base.  I absolutely LOVE my job!  But in the meantime we had 2 employees leave (one back to the US and one had a baby) so I have been picking up more hours than usual.  I went from a 20 hour work week to 31 hours most weeks.  It may not seem like a lot, but because I have other jobs it means work spills into my evening hours and into my weekends, which means less time to blog.  I am currently teaching 3 classes between 2 different online universities.  In total I have 60 students to interact with and grade the work for each week.  Needless, it's busy.  On top of that I am also taking 2 doctoral classes, both of which I am really enjoying.  

I wish I could say it stops there but I also continue writing monthly for 2 websites and I do some volunteering on base.  Just last week I spoke to the Daisy Scouts about healthy eating.  They are so cute!  My main volunteer role, which I enjoy so much and is a part of my everyday life so I forget it is volunteering, is as a Key Spouse.  Basically, this is an appointed position (appointed by my husbands squadron commander) and I serve as a liaison between spouses/families and the squadron.  The official role helps spouses out when the active duty member is deployed, but because we are so remote, our squadron spouses also work to stay in contact with spouses all the time and plan events to boost morale and keep families connected.  It has been great for the past year and a half and I am now ready to accept my new role as Lead Key Spouse for the squadron.  I am really excited and hope to do a lot of good keeping spouses in the loop about what is going on around base and provide a support network for them here, miles and miles away from their families.

Yes, I do get some free time to take a breather, head to the gym, and enjoy good Japanese food out with friends and Ryan.  Obviously some things, like blogging, get pushed to the back burner.  But I can't complain!  I love my life and all that I do.  Plus, I have some travel coming.  I haven't been to the US since Sept 2011, so I am happy to say that I will be in the States for all of April.

Now, on to the good stuff.  I have some fun food pictures to share.  The first is from a traditional Japanese restaurant that Ryan and I went to with our old next door neighbors.  This was a few days before they moved back to the states.  I am sad because I had become very close with Jasmine and it was great having a friend next door.  We were often over each others places and our dogs went back and forth playing with each other.  So when it was time for them to move back, we made sure to all go out to dinner.

You can see here that it is a traditional Japanese style of dining.  We had to take our shoes off and sit on the tatami mats.  At least here you can put your legs down under the table instead of sitting with your legs crossed.  Ryan is over 6 feet tall so this is a little easier for him, assuming the floor goes down far enough!

We started off with edamame.  Very Japanese!

Jasmine and Andre tried the yakitori, which is meat on a stick.  They made some faces with some off the odder meat choices.  Ryan wasn't even brave enough to try!

I loved the presentation of Ryan's meal.

Still not sure what it is, but it was some sort of meat and onion dish that was cooking in this pot.

Mine was served with a traditional presentation as well.

I had the lobster tempura.  Yes, it was as good as that sounds.  I actually think it was a giant prawn and not lobster, but I am not complaining.  It also came with some veggies.

Next up are some pictures from Coco's.  Now, this isn't the world famous Coco's curry place.  It is a different Coco's that is more like a Denny's or IHOP (minus the pancakes) sort of establishment.  Honestly, we heard mixed things about it, but I loved the atmosphere.  I think because we went in not expecting the curry house we were not disappointed like so many others have been.

One thing I thought was cool was that the menu had calories listed.  It is hard to see here, but it is listed just about the 880 yen.  At least you can see what the dish looks like.

Now you can see the calories a little better.  It is 661 calories, and I think it is 32.2 grams of carbohydrate, but I am not sure if one of these is supposed to be fat.  I need to look into this a little better and see what those other numbers really mean. 

I was excited to see that they offered half portions of some things.  In fact, this looked so good that I ordered it.  Not too bad for 155 calories.  Although now looking at this I wonder if it is 13.4 grams for the fat...or is it protein?  I give up!

Whatever it is, this was tasty!

For dinner I ordered something I don't usually get and wasn't even sure I would like it.  I went with the grilled mackerel.  I was surprised that I enjoyed it this much.  Now, the grated yam (white stuff in the bowl) is definitely not my thing.  Neither Ryan or I are a fan.

It also came with rice and a soup that had meat in it so I just didn't eat it.  I tried to order this not as a set but the server didn't understand me.  Oh well!

Since I didn't think I was ordering the set meal, I ordered bread.  In the end I wound up with too much food.  But that's ok!

Ryan tried out the onion soup.

Dinner for this was a steak.  He rarely gets the chance to eat meat, so he decided to go for it since they had so many steak options.

The best was dessert.  I knew everyone said this place is great for desserts.  There seems to be a strawberry festival going on (no idea why this time of year) and almost everything, everywhere is flavored with strawberry.  So I ordered the strawberry parfait.  Ryan and I shared.  It was really good.

Next up was a trip we made to a cafe for lunch one weekend.  This cafe is just outside the gate for the base.  I couldn't believe we had never been before.

They had a nice set for lunch.  We both ordered the egg salad sandwich and it came with the best corn soup I have had yet.  Corn soup is a very popular soup in Japan.  Just about everywhere that serves soup will have the corn soup.  This is by far the best I have tried yet.

Last up are some sweets.  First are some baked goods that I split with Jasmine and Andre on their second to last day at the base.  They had never been to this bakery and always wanted to try it so I took them there as a farewell.  We picked out a few things and then split them all up.

The items they are most known for is the banana cream filled French toast.  It is heavenly!  Definitely a treat. 

I thought this was a cute way to end this post.  I love the Japanese and this is one reason why.  How cute!  It is a little roll filled with chocolate.  

Well, that is all for now but I hope to post again soon.  Just keep checking back.  I'm still here.  I promise!

One last thing...Andrea is the winner of a copy of my book Train Your Brain to get Thin!  Thank you all for entering.  Congrats Andrea!  The book will be on it's way soon.

QUESTIONS:  What has been keeping you busy recently?  Any travel plans in your future?

Catching up on island food and Ryan’s B-day (back in July)

I am so, so, so, so behind these days with posts, and I even found this post that was saved, but I never finished writing, way back from the summer.  I thought I would go ahead and get this done now, or else decide it was just time to move on.  Plus, it is snowing here, so I could use a little Azores sunshine to brighten my day.

This is a picture from my favorite soup and salad place on the island.  Sadly, I just found out this place has closed.  I just can't believe it.  She was always so busy and had the best food, but she told some of my friends that business was suffering and she could not keep up with the expensive rent.

Another place we tried out before we left was Fox's Pizza.  I had heard about it many times, but never went, and I knew before we left the island I would need to check it out because I wanted to write about it on my Living at Lajes website.

 

Nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to the pizza, but it was good and I definitely recommend this place.

 

I love this picture.  This is the main square in Praia da Vitoria, which is the second largest town on the island.  It isn't too far from the base, and was only about 5 minutes from where we lived.  One day I noticed they repainted the pizzeria/cafe on the corner to a nice shade of pink. 

 

I love this cute little walking street.  It may not be the longest in the world and it may not have any stores you have ever heard of, but it was cute and charming, and was always nice to stroll up and down.  In fact, I always felt right at home hanging out in town.

  

This was another place I needed to try before leaving the island.

 

I loved the colors in side.

 

Here is a galao, which is espresso and milk, similar to a meia de leite, but a little bigger.

 

I tried the omelet and fries here.  It was really good, so I have no idea why I hadn't tried it out sooner.

Another random meal I enjoyed before leaving the island.  This is a shrimp kebab.

Ryan had a nice steak.

  

Now, and this is the time when I can really have a good laugh about this, so this Caneta.  We went here once at the first start of our 2 years on the island.  It was good and we went for lunch.  I took pictures, but it was before I started this blog, so when it came time for me to add this on my Living at Lajes website, I thought it would be easy.  Nope!  I could not find the pictures.  So, the only logical answer was to go there for Ryan's birthday dinner.  It was a bit of a drive from where we lived, so we just never went back.  But I was on a mission.  You may be wondering why this is so funny.  Well, I was going through all my old pictures and updating my Facebook albums, when there, in a very, very random location, was a folder labelled Caneta.  I managed to drag and drop it to a spot where it shouldn't have been.  I can't believe after just over 2 years, those pictures magically turned up.  But that is definitely OK because we needed to go back and Ryan had to try the kebab because he was told it was amazing.

They have a nice courtyard there, but we went inside and ate in the upstairs restaurant.

We started with bread.  This place even served the corn bread, and this was where I first tried it.  I loved the island corn bread, but not too many restaurants would serve it.

 

We had the fresh island cheese and pimento spread.

 

Olives!  I miss these since olives are not too big in Japan.

 

Here is the inside.  Very quaint, and definitely has the traditional island feel.  

 

Here I am with Ryan, about to enjoy his birthday dinner.

 

This is the kebab everyone raved about.  It is huge steak chunks on a skewer and when they serve it they place butter at the top and the hot metal melts it so it drips down the beef.  I am not a meat eater, but for people that like meat, this seemed to be wonderful.  This is what everyone told us, and in fact, Ryan did enjoy it.

 

It came with a side of fruit and French fries.

 

I had the boca negra, which was my favorite fish on the island.  It always came served as the whole fish, so I learned after a while how to eat it like this.

 

Since it was Ryan's birthday we did indulge in dessert.  This was the ice cream burrito.  Basically like a crepe wrapped around ice cream and smothered in chocolate.

 

I had stracciatella, which is basically chocolate chip ice cream.  

 

Of course no Azorean meal is complete without a coffee beverage.

It was a great last birthday meal on the island.  It was hard to believe that just 2 years before we have just gotten to the island.

I have a few more pictures to share, just so I can say I finally posted them.  The first is from the American celebration.  They showed American movies and served American food.  It was really interesting to see that they were having this kind of event.

  

There was one restaurant that my friend Alexandra and I stumbled across when I made a wrong turn one day.  It wasn't so much a wrong turn, I guess, it was more like I had to turn around so I turned down this street and found this place.  We made sure to go back another day and try it out.  It was a very small, house like establishment with only a written menu out front.  They had a little lunch buffet, so I think that is why we never saw a menu.

 

We started with bread.

 

We also had some fish soup.

 

The buffet looks like it was good before everyone ate everything.  We got there a little late, and of course there was very little left of everything.

 

 

One of my very last days there, my friend Alexandra and I went to the beach so I could get in one final swim in the Atlantic before I moved all the way over to the Pacific.  There was a cafe that we passed by all the time and never went in so we decided we had to check it out before I left. 

 

It turned out to be so cute and the owner was so nice.  We couldn't believe we hadn't been in there earlier.  Well, at least Alexandra could go back.  She is still on the island and has just under another year left there.  Perhaps the military will reunite us at the same base again!

Well, that is it for now.  I am sorry I have not been able to keep up with posting, but I have been a bit (and by bit I mean insanely) busier than usual.  I actually have more island pictures to post, so they will probably get interspersed with Japan stuff from time to time.

QUESTIONS:  Is there anything you are behind on doing?  Do you have a favorite cafe?  Is there any place you have been meaning to go/try but for some reason keep putting it off?