What is so interesting about crêpes you might ask? Not a whole lot. I’m just salivating for a crêpe at this very moment, hence a small reason I’m writing this article. What does it have to do with Japan? If you have ever venture out in the metro areas of Japan, it’ll be hard not to spot a crêpe shop. In the minds of a Japanese, this famous French food staple will often bring up connections to the ever so rebellious young Japanese and Harajuku.

There isn’t that much to say about the history of crêpes in Japan. Crêpes were first introduced in Japan sometime in the late 1970s. At first the popularity of the snack was dismal. But then came along crêpe shop that opened up in Harajuku. The young Japanese who congregate the area welcomed the food item, and thus began its popularity.

The crêpe wrap served in Japan is the sweet crêpe variant, which is typically filled with sliced fruit, whipped cream, syrup, and anything else you can imagine when thinking about desserts. In addition, they are also served with vegetables and meats if one desires a meal. The filling is wrapped around with the crêpe wrap to form a cone shape. If you are in Japan don’t be surprise to get an extra helping of Japanese mayonnaise to go along with your meal crêpe. They sure do like the mayo over there. As you may have imagined, the crêpes served in Japan are more liberal in what they use for the filling.

The following are examples of what you might find on a Japanese crêpe menu:

• Strawberries with vanilla ice cream, topped with chocolate sauce
• A slice of cheesecake
• Potato salad topped with a hot dog
• Spaghetti
• Tuna, pizza, and cheese (yes, all in one crêpe)
• Frankfurter salad. One variant of a frankfurter salad I’ve seen consisted of lettuce bedding, the frankfurter with a side of turkey, topped with kidney beans and ketchup

Om nom nom nom. Why bother with utensils and dishware you would typically use for the fillings listed, when you can have everything housed in a nice cone shape wrap? For some reason I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer condenses spaghetti into bar form.

Why is it hard not to spot a crêpe shop? It is mostly due to the displays that are viewable outside the shops; plastic crêpes that illustrate each menu item. Some find it fascinating, others find it scary. Personally, I’m the former. Look at the attention to detail in the first two images of this article! Plastic food displays aren’t just limited to crêpe shops, as they are commonly used by food establishments. However, the crêpe shop displays stood out the most to me, which is probably due to the extensive sized menus each shop carries and the plethora of colors exhibit by the crêpe fillings (contrast the colors of crêpes to katsu and fried products topped with curry). If you want to bring home one of these displays, stop by Kappabashi-dori in Tokyo. The district specializes in kitchenware and there are a few shops dedicated to plastic food displays.

If you live in a major U.S. city , then you might be fortunate enough to have access to a shop that specializes in Japanese crêpes. For those in the Seattle area, there is a Japanese crêpe shop that lies in the heart of the ID (acronym for International District, also known as the un-PC term Chinatown) called Unicorn Crepes.

Thanks to MSG150 for the photo above

UC was originally operated by three young individuals (I have heard they have since added more staff), one of which was an apprentice at a popular crêpe shop in his hometown Kyoto, so you know you are getting the real deal. The shop even has plastic crêpes proudly displayed! Oh, and the crêpes are pretty good. UC is located only a block away from the Uwajimaya. The peeps over at MSG150 gave their impressions of the place, which I agree with.

Here is a video for those who are interested in the construction of a Japanese-style crêpe.

For those who want to drool over pictures of Japanese crêpes, here is the Flickr search results.

I’m hungry.

Nara-City, the capitol city of Nara prefecture, is known for it’s beautiful temples and overly aggressive biting deer monsters. This year, Nara Heijo-Kyo Capitol is celebrating its 1300th year anniversary, and will be holding a big a event. Usually when this kind of thing happens, whoever is running the event comes up with an over the top mascot that cutes you into coming. This year, the Association for Commemorative Events seems to be taking the opposite approach.

Perhaps the event is expecting too many people, and Nara is too small to support them, so they are trying to scare visitors away? What’s he doing with his hand? Trying to touch you in inappropriate places? He kind of looks like Buddha…except for the fact that he has antlers coming out of his head. I would never spend any time alone with this guy. In fact, I wonder how he eats, because no restaurant I know of would let someone with no shoes and no shirt in, even if summers do get warm. Also, I know what the thing on his forehead is supposed to be, but honestly, it just looks like a third nipple (actually, his only nipple from the looks of things) smack dab between his eyes. Nara Association of Commemorative Events, what were you thinking?

The entirety of Japan also feels like Chester (I’ve named him Chester, don’t ask) is a bit on the ugly side. When the Events board asked for suggestions on what to name him (Please pick mine!), they instead got a ton of people complaining about how ugly it was. Still, I’m interested to find out what his name ends up being. I mean, come on, he has antlers coming out of his head…

Winning a Prize (it’s a contest!)

When I saw this deer-Buddha-man, I thought: “Hey, I bet there’s someone out there who can come up with something better.” That’s when I took to drawing my own mascot.

The Monk looked up from copying Sutras. It had been three days since he had last eaten, so he thought the rumbling must be in his stomach. He went back to work, ignoring the vibrations.

Outside, a giant deer was blowing toxic green slime all over the city. When he came across a building, he would trample it with his feet, made completely of diamonds. When a building was too tall, he would simply swing his head forward and cut them in half with his kick-ass katana antlers. There was nothing this deer could not overwhelm with its sheer might and skill.

The Japanese government knew they had to call on Godzilla, which sucked because he would always destroy Tokyo before helping with anything else. After flattening the Ginza area, Godzilla was coaxed into going to Nara, where he roundhouse kicked the deer in the stomach. The deer threw up some of its radioactive slime from the impact and then sliced Godzilla in the face with his katana antlers.

This is where you come in. You have two choices (as well as two prizes). Here they are:

1) Draw your own Nara Mascot:

Prize: Japanese text book fit to your level of Japanese
Deadline: Monday, March 24, 2008 Wednesday, April 9. 12:00 noon Pacific Standard Time.

The rules are as follows. Not following the rules could make your entry less winnable:

• Must be an original drawing of some sort. Hand drawn, computer drawn, anything is okay. Just don’t steal some other mascot and put it up here.
• Has to somehow be related to either deer, a buddha, a temple, a shrine, or Nara (in some way). Basically, it has to relate to Nara in some way.
• The funnier it is, the more likely it will win.
• I will pick my favorites and then put them up in a future post for you all to vote on (to pick the final winner).

The winner of the “draw your own Nara mascot contest” will win a Japanese textbook of my choice. It really depends on what level you are, so if you win, we’ll figure it out together. I’ve got favorite text books up and down the level curve, so all people studying Japanese should apply! Just send me your image by the deadline!

2) Finish the Story

Prize: Mystery Prize worth $20+ somehow related to Japanese
Deadline: Monday, March 24, 2008 Wednesday, April 9. 12:00 noon Pacific Standard Time.

Everyone see the story underneath the image of my awesome slime-spewing deer? All you have to do is finish the story and send it in to me. Please don’t write more than two pages, single spaced. I’ll pick the ones I like the most and post them up on the 25th, as well as choose the winner for it. I can’t tell you what the prize is, but know that it’s pretty sweet. If I don’t like any of them, then I suppose it is possibe that nobody can win.

There you have it. Any questions? Please contact me. I’m really looking forward to seeing your submissions!

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, though, the novelty of eating freeze-dried foodstuffs was wearing off, and that urban legend about the guy with the waxy stomach started going around, so Cup Noodles went the way of Twinkies and Spaghetti O’s—I just kind of stopped eating them, and eventually I forgot them all together. That is, of course, until I discovered the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum, which has rekindled my love of all things Nissin.

Located in northern Osaka, the museum’s main galleries chronicle instant ramen’s rise to glory, from it’s creation in 1958* to its eventual space debut in 2005. Now, I’m sure that’s all very interesting stuff—but that’s not what I’d be going to Osaka for. Nope, I’d be going to get myself a spot in line at the museum’s “Cup Noodle Factory” for a customized cup or two of the good stuff.

Upon arriving at the attraction, you’d start the journey for the perfect ramen by transforming a humble styrofoam cup into a work of art. You’d then pass that off to a helpful factory employee who would stick the noodles into it upside-down (for some reason, this is very, very important). After that comes the most mouth-watering part: getting to choose the little freeze-dried extras.

First comes the soup; original, seafood, curry, or salt-based. Then comes the agonizing decision of which 4 of the 12 available toppings to add to your cup. You can choose from shrimp (エビ), egg (卵), green onion (ネギ), asparagus (アスパラ), corn (コーン), kimchi (キムチ), pork (豚肉), chicken cutlet (チキンカツ), cheese (チーズ), fish cake (ナルト), imitation crab (カニカマ), and garlic chips (がリックチップ). While some of those might seem a bit strange (ex: cheese) they’re all very popular add-ins—I’ve been told cheese and curry are great together, though I’ve never tested out this claim.

After everything has been added, your Cup Noodle is then sealed, shrink-wrapped, and packaged. All that’s left to do is find the closest available source of hot water and enjoy. If you’re curious, here are a few pictures of the process and results from Flickr, as well as a neat video:

The Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum

Address: 8-25 Masumi-cho, Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: +81-072-752-0825
Hours: 9:30am to 4pm
Holidays: Tuesdays and New Year’s Holidays
Admission: Free for the main museum, 300 円 to 500 円 for the ramen-making exhibits

* The museum’s namesake, having passed away earlier this year, is fondly remembered as “the King of Instant Ramen”. As the story goes, walking one night in post-WWII Japan (where food shortages were rampant), Ando came upon a line of people waiting to buy fresh ramen from a black-market stall. Peace will come to the world when people have enough to eat, he thought to himself. Soon after, Nissin Chicken Ramen, the predecessor of modern-day Cup Noodles, was born.

For this, Time Magazine called him a hero, saying:

His instant-noodle recipe included not only flour, palm oil and MSG, but—metaphorically, at least—a sprinkling of hope, too. After all, it is that midnight bowl of noodles that so many count on to keep going a little longer, a little later, in pursuit of the Asian dream.

I recently had a discussion with my friend Max about the nuances of Japanese pronunciation (maybe not so recently; it was when I was back home in Hawaii). One of the more interesting things we talked about was the fact that, in Japanese, there’s no “f” sound. This is a result of the fact that Japanese people don’t fold/bite their bottom lip when pronouncing it; they shape their mouth almost as if they were blowing out a candle (go on, give it a try). So, in Japanese, the “f” in fu (ふ) is pronounced more like an “h”, and the sound becomes hu.

Consequently, Japanese words that have been incorporated into the American vocabulary (such as tofu, futon, or Mt. Fuji) are not really pronounced the way most people think they are. For example, it’s not “tofu”, it’s “tohu”. Of course, when the Japanese word for “bean curd” (とうふ or 豆腐) is romanized, it’s still written as “tofu” because… well, just because. It’s traditional, maybe.

So, why am I telling you this? Well, I had forgotten Max’s and my conversation until today, when I saw this video about college students vandalizing the huge sand dunes in Nagoya:

Some people might not understand why a little sand graffiti warranted news coverage in the first place. Well, Koichi tells me that, in Nagoya, these sand dunes are a pretty big deal (he lived there for a year), and my roommate, Atsuko, confirmed this; “It’s a world heritage thing!”

Personally, I didn’t find the “scandal” (the ominous-sounding Ministry of Environment has begun an investigation) as funny as the fact that the hooligans chose the word “HUCK” to scrape out into nearly 50m of sand. While I admit that they could have done this because of their love of classic American literature or especially-absorbent towels, I’m willing to bet that these boys meant to write something a little more… rebellious but, sadly, mistook the “f” for an “h”. Boo foo.

Source: Japan Probe and National Geographic

Edit: Well, shucks. I guess it was their love of classic American literature after all D: A better explanation than the one I provided is here (in Japanese) and here (in English).

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 we’d give it a shot; unfortunately on our way there, we were accosted by an overly friendly Coldstone employee who helped us find our way there…by physically leading us to the foot of the building. At this point, we knew we had to go back and get some ice cream goodness. The guy helped us out, right?

On our way back to Coldstone, we started up a discussion. Like most Coldstones, do they accept tips in exchange for singing? Normally, the answer to this would be easy. In America, Coldstone is synonymous with singing for money. It’s one of the attractions that makes a Coldstone so fun! For a small tip you can finally feel good about you and your boring state job. Still, in Japan, the question of tipping is a little more difficult.

Tipping is not part of the culture in Japan. You do not tip for meals, you do not tip taxi drivers, and you do not tip hairdressers. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, though, most of which you won’t run into. If you hire a chauffeur for a hired car, you might give him 500-1000 yen (the latter number being for an entire day of driving). The only other exception I can think of is when you receive a very special service in a hotel (not “special.” Get your mind out of the gutter). Someone would have to go way out of their way to help you, and it would have to be a very abnormal situation. Once again, something that most people won’t experience.

Of course, in the end, we found out whether or not Japanese Coldstone will sing for free. And the answer is…you’ll have to watch the video!

According to a recent online poll conducted by Livedoor, a Japan-based internet service provider, the women of Gunma Prefecture (群馬県) are the most unattractive in Japan. Ouch. That’s right, out of Japan’s 47 prefectures, Gunma, located in the middle of the Japanese archipelago, placed dead last.

Of course, the men of Gunma had something to say about the poll. Some “were not surprised about the results”. One college student observed, “Now that you mention it, there aren’t many pretty women in Gunma”. Others, such as those who work in the Gunma Prefectural Government, found the poll to be a bit more upsetting.

One such official dismissed the unofficial results, speculating that “not a lot of people from Gunma voted”. Probably true, but it must be noted that these findings, however unscientific, aren’t unique. In a 1993 survey as well, Gunma Prefecture came in last in terms of female beauty. Double ouch.

Honestly, though, I’m not sure it even matters. Somebody had to come in last, after all. I’m sure there are some very lovely ladies who reside in the prefecture—but it probably still hurts for Gunma-ites because it’s their second time on the bottom of such a list. Still, I wonder, what would you do if your state or prefecture came in last on a similar poll? Would you laugh? Would you cry?

I think a person’s reaction to their state being labeled “Home of the Least Beautiful Women” depends on two things: how personally they take it, and how much pride they have in their state in general… I think I would be pretty miffed on behalf of Hawaii if it ever happened to us D:

Source: MSN Mainichi Daily News (a bit redundant, no?)

Oh, and if you’re wondering who came in as being “most pretty”, the top 5 are as follows: Akita, Tokyo, Hokkaido, Kyoto, and Okinawa. I’m sure the women there are feeling pretty smug right now.

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 it. They pouted, they whined, they eventually won me over. Ok, so only Koichi pouted.

So it was, one chilly Tokyo winter night, we found ourselves in Akasaka (赤坂), anxiously awaiting our dinner. “I will be very disappointed if we come out of this restaurant alive,” said Viet.

Despite being run by ninjas, NA’s main entrance is in plain sight. Maybe it’s a trick, I thought. It wasn’t (the trickiness doesn’t start until you’re inside, silly me). After entering and descending a flight of stairs, we were greeted by our very first ninja, standing in a small, cave-like room, dressed in black and standing behind one of those little hostess podiums. After ensuring that we had made reservations, the host ninja summoned one of his black-clad underlings—a cheery seating/serving ninja named Kuro who burst in with a cheer through a sliding door—to show us to our table.

Kuro led us through a winding, dimly-lit lava-tube like hallway which was, in some places, dangerously narrow and in others, only traversable via a “secret” bridge conjured by, uh, ninja magic I guess. At this point, I was kind of underwhelmed, but trying very earnestly to get into the shinobi spirit and fully enjoy the experience. Eventually we arrived at the “dining area” which is fashioned, I think, to look like a kind of dark and foreboding ninja hide-out, maybe? I guess that’s what the tunnel was for, you know, to keep out hungry intruders and whatnot.

Our table was in a tiny room meant to look like a dungeon (we were bad, bad restaurant patrons), complete with bug (drawings) on the wall and minimal levels of light. Kuro left us in there and said she would be back shortly. The three of us sat around for a while, wondering how we were going to eat our food without being able to see it. Luckily, our ninja saved us from the darkness by yelling something ninjacal outside, causing the lights to flicker on. Very clapper-no-jutsu. When she returned, Kuro presented us each with scrolls, which turned out to be our menus.

Although I wanted to order ala carte (the prices were a bit steep), Koichi and Viet were going with the set courses, so I figured I’d be a sheep and ordered the Surprise (びっくり) Course for ￥7,777, as well. As for how the boys enjoyed their food, I can’t really say, as I was too engrossed in my meal to notice them much. Some of the things were great (as well as showy) such as the vegetable and seafood soup cooked on hot stones and the escargot bombs, which were served with a bang. Some other things were not so great, like the lobster pudding and the foam that was served with so many of the dishes. Why chefs insist on using foam to season/accompany their dishes, I do not know. Maybe they think it makes them cool. Regardless of the reason, I absolutely abhor foam.

Luckily, just in time to take my mind off of the meal’s shortcomings, a ninja magician (English-speaking, because we’re 外人, right?) showed up to entertain and enthrall us. I didn’t think ninjas were required to know card tricks, but apparently I was wrong. While his tricks weren’t anything new, the fact that he did them right in front of us was really fun.

All in all, Ninja Akasaka wasn’t half bad. I would love to go again actually, except next time I would probably have a pre-dinner drink first, to help me loosen up a bit and enjoy the theme-y nature of the restaurant, haha. Also, I would order my items separately to save money, definitely. Oh, and they recently opened a Ninja Restaurant in NY, but I’ve never been, have any of you? How is it?

P.S. How do you guys like the flickr?

Ninja Akasaka

Hours: Mon-Sat, 17:00-26:00 and Mon-Sun, 17:00-23:00

Location: Akasaka Tokyu Plaza (1st Floor, on the street)

Telephone: 03-5157-3963