Avocado Pasta and Umami

Not too long ago in Motomachi, Tokyo, I and the girlfriendal unit discovered a pasta restaurant called Goemon (五右衛門*), where they call pasta 洋麺 (yomen, an industry word from western+noodle). I highly recommend the chain. We had some green pasta with avocados mixed in, and it was awesome.

Since then, I have made my own avocado pasta a couple times. I simply make a basil-based noodle dish and add avocado bits.

I'm not the only one out there experimenting with green pastas. Here we can see a YouTuber, Megwin, try out his own recipe which involves a lot of shiso leaves:


[vid]

Megwin complains in Japanese that the result lacks umami. Umami is technically an English word because we haven't been able to come up with a better one than umami, which is a distinct taste discovered by a Japanese dude in 1908. He went on to the company Ajinomoto, which has an eponymous seasoning product that you probably know as MSG. Maybe if Megwin had used a little more MSG, he could have brought out the umami of his dish.

Anyways, I recommend green pasta sometime to you guys.
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*I cannot figure out why Go-e-mon is spelled with four kanji characters but the sounds seem to be one too few. That's not how Japanese usually works. But an alternative spelling offered by wikichan is 五衛門, so I guess that extra character is silent. EDIT: Googled my way to this answer soon after publishing this article.
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Bonus vid: Me trying Shiso Pepsi

Japanese Study Links

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Tentacle Lunch

This betenticled, canned, whole-squid lunch could be something out of Naked Lunch, but it's par for the course for your hapless ¥100 store adventurer of a blogger.



And no, I don't recommend this. There's still beak chunks in it.
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This has been a mobile post

Two New Perverted Clay Videos

False advertising! Only one of these is a perverted video.



Link to the next poster contest here.

Next up, Azuki Pepsi tasting!

Trying to Recapture Aymericah with Pizza

This should now be in glorious HD if you wanna watch it that way.

Combos That Didn't Make the Cut

Click to zoom to a surprising degree.

I got a surprise illustration in place of the above photo when my latest article for JibTV showed up. A pleasant surprise though. They have to be cautious about showing packaging, but I don't! So here are some tasty things to titillate those of you that didn't get a belly-full of the Jib article.


Here we have the elusive double-weiner egg roll. That's a combo within a combo.


Here we have a pizza-egg-dog. Let's not even get into what you can put on pizzas in this country.



Next up is a melty-cheese-curry-doughnut. It tasted pretty much the same as any karepan (curry-filled fried bread popular in Japan) though.


So if you haven't done so yet, please visit the original article to support our JibTV blogging team! Subscribe to the RSS while you are there ;-)

Yama Udo and Bulgur

I have never knowingly seen 山うど before, but I caught sight of some in the store last night and tried them out. It was pretty good. I cooked them like onions and mixed them with something a hippy friend gave me, called bulgur, which I never really knew before either, and made a really unique and tasty dish. Then I took a pic, so, bam:
Unfortunately, I am now out of bulgur, which is a shame considering I can actually cook it correctly.
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I may have a job blogging somewhere soon. And like get payed for it. But speaking of my websploits, here is my coverage of CGM night the third at the Probe.
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Also, someone was concerned that I don't write about myself here enough anymore. I found it kind of amusing...

Ramen pizza and lizard tails

Yeah I did it! And I'd do it again! Nobody can stop me!
Seriously though: broke down and bought fry-pan ready pizza dough mix at the super and recommend it. Still fry it in olive oil like in that article I shared way back.
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Came home to find the cat pouncing at something. At first it looked like a snake, but then I realized that it must be a detachable lizard tale. So, gory little flick, but nobody died, coming up now:

蟹味噌汁

video post

Pumpkin pasta

What can I say, カボチャ is a very prominent plant here, and the only substitute I have for squash.

Recipie:
Half a japanese pumpkin, sliced thin
Okra
Green and red peppers
garlic
cayene
gram masala
tumeric

lemon juice
parmesan cheese

Short, twisty pasta or bowtie pasta

Process:
Cook the vegies on med-low heat, using oil.
Boil the pasta. I found a brand that cooks in two minutes.
Drain the pasta, stir it into the veggies with oil and spices
sprinkle in lemon juice
Enjoy. I find the sweetness of the pumpkin compliments the lemon.

Food Vlogging is Serious Business

In which I cook nabe and fish carbonara.