tokyo cafe dinner

-
After the trip to the book fair, we all agreed to try out a restaurant that is not present in our province. We ended up at the nearby Tokyo Cafe, thinking that it's a good time as any to try out Japanese food. To our surprise, Tokyo Cafe is not our typical Japanese restaurant. There were no sushi rolls in sight! Instead, burgers, salads, and iced flavored coffees, among other Western viands, are on the menu.

We started off with the mango chicken salad, which caught my attention because I love the combination of ripe mangoes and chicken. The crunchy leafy vegetables gave a refreshing feel as we began to tuck into our dinner while the grapes added sweetness to the appetizer.

Mango Chicken Salad
Mango chicken salad

After the salad, we dug into the main meal. What Japanese (or Filipino meal, for that matter) meal does not have rice, right? The difference between the rice we normally eat and the Japanese rice, according to my niece, was the appearance: the Japanese rice is round and shiny but the Filipino rice is more slender and not shiny. Because she's not used to eating different types of rice, she didn't like the Japanese rice too much. I, on the other hand, enjoy eating this type of rice because I don't eat this everyday. It is a good match to the meat dishes we got.

Japanese rice
Japanese rice

Ah... Now something wrapped in a Japanese-styled container: the Kaibi Ju. It's a beef dish with rice and served with a side of vegetable salad. Out of the viands we ordered, this is the only one that is served like rice toppings. It even comes with a pair of chopsticks. I liked the texture of the meat and the flavor of the food but I'm not such a big fan of the egg. It gave a slimy feel to the dish... something that disconcerted me somewhat.

Kaibi Ju
Kaibi Ju

While I was busily munching away on my beef dish, they started eating the pasta and the pork dish. The pork shoga yaki, that's what they got. It's served with a side salad, just like the kaibi ju. However, it does not come wrapped in the typical Japanese style and no chopsticks came with the viand. I found this dish on the salty side, perhaps because I was eating the sweeter beef dish.

Pork Shoga Yaki
Pork shoga yaki

All together, it was a good meal. What made our experience in Tokyo Cafe unique is learning that Japanese food is not just sushi roll, teriyaki, and ramen. The cuisine has moved forward with the times; in this case, it has embraced Western food, injecting just the right dose of Japanese influence in the meal.

The book trip doubled as a food trip.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more