Loco Moco x McDonalds

When you think of a Hawaiian burger, you'd probably imagine pineapple, maybe maybe some kind of mango chutney sauce if you're lucky. But that's not where McDonald's took their take on the Hawaiian burger. McDonald's chose to embrace a true local dish, the Loco Moco. So unlike the previous New York burger, the Hawaiian burger has true "Hawaiian" roots.

If you're not familiar with the Loco Moco, it's basically a breakfast food consisting of a bowl of rice, hamburger steak, brown gravy, and topped off with a fried egg. It's one of the best breakfast dishes on the planet (IMO), and I'd take it over Eggs Benedict in a heart beat.

This afternoon for lunch I found a sen-note in my wallet, so I headed down to the local McD's joint for to try this month's burger.

I was without coupon today, so I ended up paying the full price of ¥720 for the set meal. Today, instead of 爽健美茶 (tea) I opted to go for some Coke Zero. For some reason, I think they messed up my fries, 'cause the bottom was full of small pieces, somewhat disappointing. Anyway, on with the show:

 

As usual, the Hawaiian burger does not even come close to the glorious marketing photo. It's a 1/4 pound patty with bacon, lettuce, cheese, egg (a la the Egg McMuffin), brown gravy, and housed on a Parmesan cheese topped bun. The kicker here is that I found this burger quite tasty, and with the other Big America burgers, I felt that I'd tried them in some way, shape, or form. However, this Hawaiian burger was something I'd never tried before... Loco Moco on a bun, and it works, damn well. If I had one complaint, it would be the mess. They put the egg directly in contact with the bun, and with the gravy acting as lube, everything just slides all over the place. McD's food scientists should have placed melted cheese or something in-between to hold everything together.

If you get to try one burger in the Big America series, this is the one. They will probably get my ¥¥ again on this one.

XD-A9800: first boot.

It's been a few days since I first got my new denshijisho, and I'm pretty much in Japanese language heaven. Looking up words is a breeze, and really fast too. In fact, it's such a cinch to look up words on the Casio EX-Word, studying is almost fun! Most evenings I've been leaving it on while watching TV, and punch in words I hear. For example, I've been trying to get the word yurai (由来) into my head, I heard it on TV this evening, looked up the meaning ('cause I forgot) in the Kenkyusha Japanese-English dictionary and remembered it meant "derived" from, as in a name, in the show's context. Being able to look up words on the fly while watching TV adds more context to the words making them easier to remember.

Here's a look at some of pics I took on the first day. When you first turn it on, by just opening up the lid, you'll be greeted by this screen:

It's telling you to adjust the keyboard touch panel contrast. You do this by hitting the left and right arrow keys on the circular right hand side navigation. As you can probably guess, left is light (usuku/awaku): 淡く) and right is dark (koku: 濃く). After you get a comfortable contrast (the default setting will probably be fine), just hit the center button of the circular navigation marked, 決定 (kettei) to register the setting.

Next, you'll be shown the screen to set your battery type. The EX-Word now takes two AA batteries called tan-san (単３), instead of the previous two AAA batteries:

The top radio button is for alkaline, middle and bottom are for the eneloop® and EVOLTA branded rechargeables from Sanyo and Panasonic, respectively. Again, just hit the 決定 button after selecting. Since I'm using the stock batteries that came with the EX-Word, I just chose alkaline (default). Has anyone used those other rechargeables? I'll have to purchase a set someday.

しばらくお待ちください, after setting the battery, you'll get this screen. It says "shibaraku omachi kudasai," or "please wait." It's probably changing some settings for the battery.

The next screen is for User Registration. You can click yes (はい) or no (いいえ), I just chose no for the time being, 'cause I was excited to play study. Press the 決定 button. I've always wondered why there kanji isn't used for "hai" or "iie."

 

After all that tedium, you're greeted with the homescreen. Glorious, isn't it? Over 100 volumes of dictionaries and texts in the palm of your hand. I've only begun to search the various dictionaries, there's just too much information to go through in such a short time.

Get the absolutely amazing, Casio EX-Word XD-A9800 at beNippon. We're here to service all your Japanese language and otaku desires.

Unboxing the Casio Ex-Word XD-A9800.

I walked into the office to find a nice black box sitting on my desk. My brand new Casio EX-word XD-A9800 had arrived earlier than I expected, but who's complaining. Somehow I was able to restrain myself from playing with it until I got home, so I could snap some photos. My kitties found it almost as interesting as I did, but they preferred the cardboard and plastic wrap.

If you haven't seen the box, here it is. Not too exciting.

 

Opening the box, you can see the nice tight packaging. Momo-chan takes dibs on the USB cable bag.

Here we have Nana-chan proudly displaying the product layout. There's just the essentials inside the box, everything to get you up and running: Casio EX-word, USB cable, ear phones, two alkaline AA batteries, and instruction manuals (Japanese). There is a convenient Quick Guide printed in English that explains the basics... but, who needs instructions anyway.

Nana-chan thought it would be a good idea to take a shot with the screen open, but she wouldn't get out of the frame. Hiding behind the box didn't work.

So my EX-word is in-house, and works fine. The white case is nice, fingerprints aren't as noticeable as the shiny black case. It's a lot smaller than I thought, which is a plus. Casio's Blanview® screen is great, very easy to read. I'll be excited to see how it looks outside. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some playing studying to do.

Order your EX-word XD-A9800 from beNippon, and have it at your home before the JLPT. Stay tuned for more.

Casio EX-Word on order!

In 1994, while on exchange in Tokyo everyone was buying Canon wordtanks, however I ended up with the Sharp Zaurus PI-3000. The Zaurus was more of a PDA than dedicated dictionary, but it did include Japanese, Japanese-English, and English-Japanese dictionaries. I was particularly drawn to the touchscreen interface, which included Sharp's excellent handwriting recognition software that worked incredibly well. Instead of having to look up radicals or search by stroke order like my wordtank owning friends, I could just write an unknown kanji in the input box, and it would usually pull up the correct one. After 14 years of ownership, I passed it on to a friend during the move.

Having restarted my Japanese studies after moving to Japan last year, my main dictionaries have been Eijiro on my iPhone and DS Sono Mama Rakubiki Jiten on my DS lite. They work fine for my needs, but are slow. Eijiro for the iPhone loads up in a few seconds, but word entry is a pain, and with Rakubiki I might not have the game card with me when I need it. Even so, I haven't really felt the need to shell out for a dedicated denshijisho. However, after playing around with the new Ex-Words I'm hooked.

If you read my Casio Ex-Word report last week, you know that I was pretty excited with the new models. After a little consideration, I made the decision to pull the trigger. My XD-A9800 should be arriving in a few days, I can't wait! Stay tuned here and join me as I figure out how to work one of these things again.

Find the denshijisho that's right for you, at beNippon.

Barista's Choice Black

While canned coffee is a relatively new thing back home, in Japan all of the major drink manufacturers have their own line(s) of canned coffee. Coca Cola's Georgia brand seems to be most famous here, and I drink it every once in a while, but I can't say it's all that great.

At the train station the other day, I walked by an Ito En vending machine that happened to have it's collaboration with Tully's Coffee of Seattle: Barista's Choice Black. Since I hadn't had my morning coffee yet, I thought I'd try it.

Ito En advertises Barista's Choice Black as containing 100% Brazilian Arabica beans harvested at over 1200m, and roasted in Japan. I was pleasantly surprised to find the coffee to be quite good, compared to other canned coffee varieties I've tasted. I usually find canned coffee (black) is usually quite acidic, whereas Barista's Choice was not as acidic and there's a subtle sweetness that is found in fresh brewed coffee. Thumbs up on this one, I'll skip Starbucks or McDonald's at the station, and pick up a can of Barista's Black.

A 285mL can is 130 yen at the vending machines. It's 10 yen more than other varieties, but it's a larger can.

Happy Valentine's Day!

As Sunday comes to a close here, so does the lovely tradition of Valentine's Day here in Japan, and I'm currently suffering from chocolate overdose. See, in Japan, the men get all the luv on this holiday. Giri Choco (義理チョコ) as they call it, giri meaning "obligatory"is given to guys by the girls, such as co-workers or classmates. The lucky few will receive some tasty honmei choco (本命チョコ), which means "true," as in true love.

Small to large boxes of chocolates can be found at most stores selling for as low as 300 yen, and as high as... well, this is Japan... I wouldn't dare to guess. This year, with the economy in the gutter women are cutting back on giri choco spending and only giving chocolates to a lucky few. A lot more people are also venturing into home-made chocolate than in previous years, it would seem.

This year I made out pretty well, as you can see. Anyway, I must tend to my goodies, and not forget to brush my teeth this evening ;-) Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Oh, and for those of you who are upset at the chauvinism, next month has White Day where guys get to return the favor.

How to make a New Yorker laugh...

I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out exactly what about McDonald's New York burger is "New York." It's 606 kcal of beef, lettuce, tomato, bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, and a whole grain mustard sauce on a kaiser roll. Being a sucker for kikan-gentei (期間限定) items, I just had to try it.

With coupon, my set with medium sized fries and a medium drink came to 710 yen (720 yen is the regular price). Once again, the real thing is far different from the campaign pictures, which is to be expected.

The 1/4 pound burger is pretty massive compared to the rest of the burger, but the fixings are pretty much skimped on. I was impressed with the mustard sauce, which was quite good. There seemed to be some avocado flavor, although I couldn't tell for sure.

In the end, the verdict is the same as the Texas Burger. It's a great campaign, and the concept is interesting. However, when you factor in the price to taste, you're hard earned money is better spent at Mos Burger. And the New York label, what's up with that?

Next month's Hawaiian burger is going to be interesting however... I love me some Loco Moco!

Okonomiyaki, Hiroshima style.

It's been over a month, and I still have yet to post any pictures from Hiroshima. The truth is, I have not yet gone through them :-( When shooting digital, you tend to go crazy, and when you're back from vacation, you have over a thousand pictures to sort through, delete, and organize. Wish me luck.

In the world of okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), there are two different variations: Kansai (Osaka) and Hiroshima styles. Up until recently, I've only tried the Kansai version which is meat and vegetables mixed up in a flour batter and fried on a hotplate like a pancake. While it's pretty tasty, I've never been a huge fan.

 

Osaka-style Okonomiyaki by SpiceMan

Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is quite different than Osaka's in that it's made in stages. First, two layers of batter is ladled onto the griddle (teppan: 鉄板), spread out as thin as a crepe. After they're cooked, next comes the noodles (soba or udon) and a healthy heap of shredded cabbage. After that, your "toppings" are added on top. In Hiroshima, toppings can be the usual sliced beef, pork, shrimp, etc, but you should be sure to get the local oysters. Once the toppings are in place, the second "crepe" is added to the top then pressed and pressed until the cabbage is cooked down and it's pretty much flat. Finally, the whole thing is flipped over on top of a couple eggs. The dish is finished with Otafuku Sauce (オタフク・ソース) and there's NO MAYONNAISE like in Osaka.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennerosity/ / CC BY 2.0

In the end, they place the okonomiyaki right on the griddle in front of you, and you just eat it right there with a small spatula (kote: こて), cutting off bite sized chunks.

While I find Kansai-style a bit heavy, Hiroshima's combination of ingredients is perfection. During our stay in Hiroshima we ate okonomiyaki everyday, and I never grew tired of it. If you end up in Hiroshima just head over to Okonomi Village (Okonomi-Mura: お好み村) and join in on the action, any shop... you can't go wrong. But, if in doubt where to go, just look for the longest line.

First day of Spring.

You may have read around the Japanese blogging internets, that yesterday was Setsubun, a time for throwing beans at the Oni and eatting some ehou-maki (恵方巻き).

Well, today is the first day of the Spring that isn't quite here yet. The Hokuriku region was hit with a huge cold front, like the one that blanketed Tokyo with snow last week. For the past two days, we've been getting snow in Kanazawa and it'll continue into tomorrow.

This was the scene on one of the busy streets this evening:

Here's a picture of the sprinkler systems that line the streets here. You won't see these in Tokyo ;-)

This little guy is located outside my house, and is only spraying a little bit. They're called yuusetsu souchi (融雪装置), and spray warm water on the roads to melt the snow. The water is funneled from the local ground water system, and really does a good job keeping the roads ice free. The only drawback is for pedestrians, because the water and slush accumulate along the sides of the roads creating huge sprays of water when cars drive by.

See how the roads are nice an clear? Getting lots of snow is great, I just wish I had more time to enjoy it. Going on a photo walk would be nice, just need to watch for big puddles of water.

Ex-Word, is it time?

Starting late last month, Casio began releasing a slew of new electronic dictionaries (電子辞書) on the market. While electronic dictionaries have been pretty much reiterations of the same ol' stuff, Casio has sparked my interest. I'm not so much interested in the basic dictionaries as I am in the new technology being utilized.

First of all, is the new screen dubbed Blanview® introduced in 2008. Reading up on this new screen brought up comments from Engadget on how bad the naming was. I think it's quite lingocentric to dismiss brand naming based on other languages as aweful. Blan, coming from the French word for white, blanc, and pronounced without the 'k-sound', completely sums up the screen. It's pure white, not the usual grey LCD! I certainly do think the name sounds better than Whiteview or Shiroview.

Aside from being a color backlit screen, this new technology makes the screen easier to view indoors and out, while at the same time reducing energy consumption (33-50%). This means you'll be able to learn more, outside of the library! Casio is touting the following main features on its corporate site:

• Excellent visibility both in low indoor light and bright sunlight.
• Power-saving LCD module reduces the energy consumption of the backlight to approximately half of the power required by conventional models.
• Display color achieves "whiteness," improving visibility in a variety of environments.

Looking at the estimated battery life of the previous versions they range between 45 and 130 hours on 2 AAA batteries. However the new 2010 models range between 65 and 150 hours on 2 AA's. With a color screen and a change in battery size, getting more usage time will be nice.

The other main feature I'm interested in is the unsynthesized pronunciation dubbed: True Voice. While this was a feature of the Canon Wordtank and a couple Ex-Word models last year, in the 2010 line-up 10 models feature about 70,000 words pronounced by real voices, in high quality low noise digital audio:

• NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary (69,000 words)
• Koujien - 6th Ed. (60,000 words)
• Meikyo Japanese Dictionary (47,000 words)

The dictionaries vary depending on the model, but most of them carry the NHK dictionary. Use caution however, because even though some of the models like the Medical dictionaries carry the NHK Accent Dictionary, it does not have the voice component.

Here is a listing of the new XD models that do feature True Voice for Japanese (~70,000 words):

• XD-A10000 (English)
• XD-A6800
• XD-A9800 (English)
• XD-A7100 (German)
• XD-A7200 (French)
• XD-A7300 (Chinese)
• XD-A7400 (Italian)
• XD-A7500 (Spanish)
• XD-A7600 (Korean)
• XD-A7700 (Russian)

Casio has finally peaked my interest in denshijisho. I just need to decide which one to buy. Do any of your readers own one? Would you consider upgrading?