Maybe it’s time he commits seppuku, though, I don’t know if I’d want to see a stomach full of hot dogs get disemboweled. It’s been a year since the last “Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest” at Coney Island, when reigning king (at the time) of eating food “really really fast” lost his title, and his [...]
Continue reading...Having taken (and nearly failed) more chemistry courses than I would like to remember, I’m usually not particularly enthusiastic about molecular engineering. However, a recent news story caught my eye this morning. Apparently, Masayuki Nakao, a professor at Todai, has just debuted the smallest bowl of ramen known to man.
Continue reading...5. January 2008
December 27, 2007 - January 4, 2008 Every week (i.e. whenever time allows), I’ll be doing a “Japan week in review.” These segments will cover smaller news articles from throughout the week that we don’t want to cover individually. Although these articles of news won’t necessarily be very important, they’ll surely be interesting instead. Included after [...]
Continue reading...25. December 2007
Unsurprisingly, we’ve recently gotten quite a few emails asking about Christmas (クリスマス or kurisumasu) in Japan. Though this might be a bit late, I thought I’d endeavor to answer those questions today, unwrapping my presents with one hand and typing this up with the other. A Brief History of Kurisumasu Christmas in Japan is an interesting creature. [...]
Continue reading...4. November 2007
Come lunchtime sophomore year of high school, all the cool kids were eating Cup Noodles. I wasn’t cool, unfortunately, but I loved them as well—with an instant ramen in my hands, I looked very much like that kid in the picture up there: excited, elated, and full of MSG-goodness. Towards the end of the school year, [...]
Continue reading...19. August 2007
You’d think that after possible nuclear meltdown, a heat wave, minor tsunami, and regular Godzilla attacks, people would be tired of canned disaster food. Problem is, people can’t get enough of it. Fujitaka, a Kyoto-based vending machine manufacturer came up with the idea of serving people ramen out of the can. The Japanese people can’t [...]
Continue reading...12. August 2007
A little while back, the Tofugu team went on an excursion to Japan. One of the things we really wanted to see was the Mori building. More specifically, we wanted to ascend the Mori building and then look at everything not inside it. Being one of the best city-views Japan had to offer, we thought [...]
Continue reading...29. July 2007
I came upon this Ninja Akasaka’s website while planning a trip to Japan with the Tofugu team; when I presented the idea of going there to the boys, they were excited, to say the least. Even when I started to have second thoughts and tried to talk them out of going, they wouldn’t hear of [...]
Continue reading...3. July 2007
While every country has its own unique foodstuffs, Japan definitely has some strange flavor combinations. Somehow, though, I think this is one of the most unappetizing ones I’ve come upon so far. Wendy’s Japan has created product with a pun-derful name: The An Burger (あんバーガー, pronounced ahn baa gaa)! It’s basically cheese, an (sweet azuki [...]
Continue reading...10. June 2007
The other day, one of the little elementary kids I watch (for my job) offered me something from her snack box. It was a packet of dry (かんそう) natto. I’d heard about dry natto before, but had never had it. Now, let me stop here and say this: if you don’t know what natto is, [...]
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4. July 2008