Easter bunny face egg surprise ending

I picked these egg molds up in Tokyo, at Tokyu Hands, also known as the best store in the world. They came in handy for making Easter-themed gobbledygook.

[Bunny and teddy bear face egg moulds (yudetama gokko)]

Basically, take some boiled chicken eggs, peel them while they're warm and then plop them in these kawaii-shaped molds called yudetama gokko, which is Japanese for "make your food cute so people don't think it tastes gross" (though the Interwebs tells me the alternate meaning is "boiled egg make-believe").

Drop them in ice water for 10 minutes or refrigerate them until they're cool. Then you can unmold them and destroy their cuteness, as you wish.

[Ugly egg Easter bearface and bunny. I don't know how to order these adjectives anymore.]

Here comes the kicker:

[Original Juan cayenne hot sauce photobomb (it's not that hot but it's pretty tasty)]

And the money shot.

[Caesar-flavoured hot sauce boiled eggs shaped like cute animals. There must be an adult film about this. ]

No chocolate eggs for me, thanks... only the real deal with hot sauce this holiday. Happy delicious Easter, folks!

Shiitake mushrooms are not all the same

If there was a contest, I vote Montreal's Chinatown(s) to be the worst Chinatown in North America. For a city this size, Montreal's Asian quarters are sad, especially for the sizeable East Asian population. The Asian supermarkets are overpriced, variety stinks and quality is meh, at best.

Take for example, the sorry state of shiitake mushroom selection in this city.

This is what you get at the local Loblaws chain (which also owns the T&T Supermarket chain):

[These shiitake mushrooms have an extra "i". Also, not much far off from the ones in our Azn groceries, but still...]

You can fool gweilo, but you can't fool a discerning Chinese glutton like me; calling that shiitake mushrooms is like calling Coors Lite "beer". Recommended use for these ones: chopped up in dumpling filling. I don't need to see that poppycock served to me.

And then there's what you can get, for example, in butt[expletive] suburbia from a random Asian grocery store in Markham, Ontario where Asian malls outnumber Tim Hortons franchises:

[Shiitake with distinctive crackles. Crackles on mushrooms are what sprinkles are to cupcakes.]

In Chinese cooking, the most revered grades of shiitake are winter mushrooms (dong gu) 冬菇, fragrant mushroom (heong gu) 香菇, and white flower mushroom (bak fah gu) 白花菇.

The quality of these mushrooms depend on the season, temperature in which they're grown, humidity, pH levels of the growing medium (often just tree trunks or logs), and all that junk. Winter versions are obviously cultivated in winter when the humidity is lower which helps create the crackled patterns on the cap, and produce meatier caps... mmm meaty.

As you can see from above, there's a discernible difference between good and not so good (usually prices will be a good indicator), which I have outlined below:

NOT SO GOOD

• Very dark cap and stems
• Little or no floral pattern
• Small, wrinkled caps
• Dense
• Thin caps
• Long stems
• Dark gills

GOOD

• Light in colour
• Pronounced floral pattern on cap
• Light in weight
• Large caps
• Thick caps
• Shorter stems
• Delicate-looking
• Pale-coloured gills

Connoisseurs recommend rehydrating dried shiitake in cold (not hot or boiling) water, as hot water will likely "destroy the flavour". I say, "Be a man; do the right thing," but that's just me.

If you're lucky enough to have access to fresh ones (home-grown or in store), you'll probably appreciate the delicate umami flavours more than the dried ones might lack; nonetheless, you should still look for fresh ones that exhibit similar qualities.

(Treehugger posted a step-by-step article on growing shiitake on oak logs. Or you can buy one of these shiitake growing kits from Amazon and have the most disgusting-looking centerpiece in your neighbourhood!) 

Hi-Chew for me and you!

Thanks to my dear Channy chan-chan, I replenished my collection of weird-flavoured Hi-Chew candy today!

(Hi-Chew, in case anyone wants to know, is a highly chewy but flavourful Japanese candy that can also be used as a substitute for squash or tennis balls, hence the ).


[TOP: High conc. [sic] black sesame milk candy which are not Hi-Chews. I think the "conc" is for "concrete"; BOTTOM: A new kora (cola) Hi-Chew package!]


[I think this one says is is spadorini flavour or something. I can't really read but maybe spadorini is Japanese for cheese drink.]


[I think this ones is sour plum, or umeshu something-something.]


[An older cola flavoured Hi-Chew packaging with the red banner! Untouched and unscathed! ]

[Ramune soda flavour (a nutsoid Japanese soda that has a bottle with a fandangled bottle with a marble in it. Ramune is supposed to be a transliteration of "lemonade" but as we all know, Japanese people went to the washroom when they were handing out the letter L so now they can't pronounce them.]

I don't really eat candy which is why they tend to accumulate but I like the packaging for Hi-Chews. Nothing tastes like aged vintage candy!

grossness burger

"freshness burger" is the mismatched noun agreement of a name for a japanese burger chain that serves... well, burgers. burgers, hot dogs, doughnuts and beer and some other fast food crap. one opened in hong kong on the boardwalk (next to avenue of the stars) this past winter.

the wrapping itself should have given it away: "there's no fun in this package".



frankly, the burger i had (i believe it was a negimiso burger) was like eating a mcdonald's hamburger, and instead of a beef patty, it was a dry, breaded pork patty, and instead of wilted iceberg lettuce, it was wilted cabbage, and instead of special sauce, it was with goopy teriyaki-like sauce.

i mean, look at it:


looks like a horse pooped it out of it rear end and someone slapped yellow wonder bread on either side of it. this picture just made it look nicer cause i had put it on a plate.

needless to say, i should have had street food instead.

rating: 3 out of 10.

fun with tayaki

these little portable japanese snacks come hot off the tayaki (たやき) presses like no one's business.

tayaki is basically a waffley sandwich that can be stuffed with savoury or sweet surpises. they're usually (and i believe traditionally) shaped like carp.

savoury fillings:
- tuna (from a can... gross)

and sweet fillings:
- custard
- red bean paste
- glutinous rice balls

this one is from a small stand in the koenji district of tokyo and stuffed with red bean paste (azuki paste).



i don't know much more about these things because i can't read very much japanese.