We went for Japanese food on Monday, trying to expand our restaurant choices beyond Chinese, Italian, and Mexican. And the kids loved it! Sis dipped everything in yakitori sauce, ate the edges of the scallion pancakes, and ate most of the rice of her katsu don, while Bud inhaled gyoza, shumai, miso soup, and yaki udon. They both coveted my bento box, though neither, bizarrely, really wanted to try tempura vegetables (even the sweet potato, of which Sis picked off all the crunchy coating!). The only thing we didn't try, beyond sushi, was the mochi, but only because they were out. All through lunch, we kept explaining that, while there are similarities--the characters (writing), chopsticks, dumplings--it wasn't Chinese. And so we kept telling them things about Japan that they would recognize and understand, like origami, Pokemon, Hello Kitty, hibachi, our Honda Odyssey, the very fast bullet train (which is in one of our books), samurai swords (that we saw at the Met). It was a start, a good one, because Bud is already planning our next trip for Japanese, thinking Gommie will like it. But, mind you, not "herbachi," which is too scary because of the fire.
If you want to try your hand at cooking some Japanese stuff at home, I've found that the "Cooking with Dog" series, http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingwithdog is great. Don't worry, they're not using dog. The titular dog is named Francis, and acts as narrator for the whole series. He's assisted by his owner, whose name eludes me at the moment.
ReplyDeleteIt's a nice series and really does a lot to clear away some of the mystique surrounding Japanese cooking.