Busy in Japan

As some readers will know I've moved to Japan in an effort to get as far east as I can before I fall off the edge of the world into some sort of long-term job. Mainly I've been too busy learning yet another language and drinking in the cornucopia of fast-paced yet intensely polite experiences Tokyo has to offer. These can be mainly summarised as cheap sushi and other delicious things (more incredible junk food than you might expect, perhaps to offset the ridiculously healthy traditional diet and thereby combat the ageing population? Just a thought for you conspiracy theorists out there.), packed trains with no people pushers, women-only carriages, friendly internationalists teaching language for free, and of course people in nutty attire. I'm so busy here that I continually fail to update this blog. However, it's recently occurred to me that I could combat this problem by writing something less than the blog equivalent of War and Peace each time I post. On that note I will be posting various mainly photo based short posts for a while, although I do have more ridiculously long things in mind for the more patient among you when I have the time. 

Let me kick off my new approach with a few food and drink reviews:

First up is the booze shelf at my local Lawson's. This is one of ubiquitous Japanese convenience stores (コンビニ, I believe, though my Japanese is still pretty shaky). Japanese as a language has a very helpful habit of simply taking western words and making them sound like something from a poorly dubbed film (probably Godzilla) using a phonetic script called Katakana. Thus convenience store is shortened to "konbini" or "konbiniensusutoa". In any case, these wondrous caves of comestibles and services are dotted around urban Japan with an almost profligate frequency. This is a godsend, since you can do almost anything short of extending your visa in these places. You can pay tax bills, buy or rent phones, buy cheap freshly ground coffee or simply peruse the bizarre and less bizarre foods and drinks. Lawson's is far from the only company that runs these places, there are also the 7 Elevens, known to all you westerners no doubt, and the Family Marts, familiar to me from my time in Japan's monolithic economically transient neighbour.

Now to cease this digression and back to the booze. It was with some excitement that I entered my local convenience store and saw an impressive array of alcoholic treats to try, many of which had promising words like "whisky" and "ale" in their titles. Every Friday I've been working my way through the Lawson's selection and so I bring you a few reviews below. As a teaser let me just say that Japan's booze is somewhat tastier than Chinese offerings, although of course somewhat pricier.

 On the left you will see a very well known Japanese brand. You may well have tried Asahi at any number of Japanese eateries or even at pubs in the UK. I doubt that you've tried Asahi Dry Black, though. I love dark ales and lagers, so I was pretty excited about this. This tastes like a dark lager, something like Budvar Dark, it lacks that creaminess of ale that makes you feel like you're consuming a liquid Sunday roast of sorts. It certainly has an edge of dark ale, though, slightly creamy and with nutty overtones (sorry, I had to), a slightly oaky flavour greets the palate with a clean finish that befits its lagery provenance. On the right you'll see a glass bottle with a rather lovely gentle painting of a Japanese mountain landscape. This is some sake I picked up at an off-licence (British English for boozeria) near my work. Sake simply means alcohol in Japanese, but if one specifies Nihon-no-sake (Japanese alcohol) then what we consider to be sake should be forthcoming. This clear drink has really been growing on me of late, it's slightly stronger than most grape wine at around 14 or 15%, it is clear in colour and has a sweetly alcoholic flavour. For some reason it tastes a lot fuller than Chinese rice wine and therefor has less of that disturbing watery edge, the flavours are delicate and gently sugary, slightly floral even. A delicious beverage that is pretty cheap in Japan.
In the middle is a typical cute picture of a cat. Inside this can is a delicious white beer. It tasted something like Hoegaarden, with floral notes and a clean finish. Tasty.

 What you see here is the lonely salary-man's friend (or, in my case, the man who doesn't want to buy a massive bottle of sake that his girlfriend will drink none of). It is a one cup sake jar, these are available at convenience stores and supermarkets all over the place, they are basically a large measure of sake that are designed to be opened and drunk in a short space of time as they are not fully resealable. This one was not bad, but certainly tasted a bit less delicately sweet than the one above. There was a more astringent alcoholic bitterness to it, although it was still a very drinkable and lightly sweet drink.

"Japanese beer". What does this phrase make you think of? Let's take an English lesson approach: what's the first adjective that comes to mind? Drinkable? Light? Refreshing? Watery? Clean? Depending on my mood I'd certainly use any of these adjectives to describe the beer on the right, a pretty standard Japanese beer and probably of the sort that you would have tried in the west. It's from the well-known Kirin company and is a clean, light lager, It doesn't have any of the edge of excreta that our cheap lagers do (I'm thinking Carling here), but seems rather to subscribe to that Japanese ethic of perfectionism in that it does light lager very well and is very tasty with a plateful of katsu or the like (more on this later), cutting through the oiliness of such deep fried Japanese treats. However, there isn't much to say about it beyond that. It tastes like beer, it tastes good cold, it is inoffensive to lovers of beer, but certainly not exciting. This stands in contrast to the beer on the left, a Japanese craft beer, something I didn't even know existed. It belongs to that other stable of Japanese consumable culture, the western thing that they apply their care and perfectionism to, think here of Japanese whisky such as Nikka and The Yamazaki, absolutely delicious scotch style whiskies in their own rights (most probably more on these later, too). Aooni is an Indian pale ale (IPA), a very popular type of beer in the world of British craft ale at the moment, particularly so with some of my friends who've even brewed it on occasion. It was therefore with some excitement that I heard the hiss of the can being opened. It does not disappoint, it is a bold IPA that delivers a strong punch of citrus with a light and refreshing after-taste. It is not a beer for those that like unchallenging (read: boring) drinks, it really has a full uncompromising flavour and is a lovely surprise next to all the Asahi-like clones out there lining Japanese bars and shops. I'd certainly recommend it, and with a price of around 280 yen (about £1.70) it's good value in Japan, which has much higher duty on beer than other alcohols, adding characteristic Japanese quirk even to their taxation.  

This is a bag (I'd eaten the donut) from Mister Donut, a firm originally founded in the US, but now headquartered in Japan. as a quick Google search will tell you. This place is fabulous, selling donuts for around 100 yen (about 70p) and upwards. The first time I went in was to search for an infamous culinary mutation. My oldest friend Dan had some time ago told me a story about his father who when visiting Japan had started to miss western sustenance and therefore ordered a donut. He bit into it, hungrily awaiting the sugary tickle of jam or custard upon his tongue, but was attacked instead by an oriental explosion of curry. Having heard this story I took it upon myself to buy one and masochistically experience this cultural collision. I was pleasantly surprised (but then I had some idea of what was coming). The surrounding bread was not sweet and the curry was delicious, a filling snack that shouldn't be thought of as a curry donut but rather curry filled bread. It does in fact translate as "curry bread" from the Japanese "kare pan" (カレーパン), another B-movie moment of Katakana. However, pan clearly comes from another western language, perhaps Portuguese as they were one of the first nations to trade regularly with Japan. On that etymological note I'll sign off to prepare to go to Harajuku and see some neo-semi-punkesque-super-goths or whatever. 

Thanks for reading! (Sorry it got a bit long again.)