Books and Food

Last Monday, Diaby surprised me by inviting (and treating me to dinner) since it was the end of Ramadan. He wanted to eat at the Nepalese place we tried before, unfortunately, it was closed. Hence we went to Royal Host (a family restaurant). I felt a bit guilty, since Diaby has been spending too much money before, so I ordered a nice soup and bread. (sounds like prison food! haha) Diaby was surprised and asked me to order dessert. I ordered this beautiful autumn dessert of tofu ice cream, with read beans, chestnusts and mochi. Later on, I treated Diaby to a baguette, since he didn't know that you could have them sliced. (He comes from Guinea, a former French colony)

We hadn't met Kitaoka-sensei last week and discovered that she went on a cruise. For her omiyage, she brought us German chocolates. What I discovered...German chocolates are a bit bitter. (I'm not really a fan) But they were delicious. Unfortunately, I could only have one piece.
Last weekend was the 古本祭り　Used Book Festival in Jimbouchou, the center for used book stores. (If you are familiar with Read or Die) One thing....WOW! It was sooo overwhelming. Plus, when you go there, you'd think that it was chaotic. But not really, each store specialized on particular collections, hence if you knew what you wanted you'd just go to them. Ker Wee and I, the newbies that we were, ended up going into every store.

One of the highlights of the festival was a restaurant preparing fresh mochi, by pounding the freshly cooked rice. Ker Wee wasn't really into Japanese sweets, but I couldn't resist getting freshly made ones, still hot. There were only two flavors red bean and what I think is peanuts.

Clark would've loved this place since it was full of scholarly books. I accidentally (thanks to Ker Wee) entered a shop that specialized in Chinese books and found a treasure trove. They have English books as well. Unfortunately I had to restrain myself. Hopefully, Clark could come here and see!

The damage: 7 books totalling 10K yen only!!! One of my most amazing finds is the book "The Chinese in Southeast Asia" by Victor Purcell (2K yen). "I saw the fall of the Philippines" by Carlos P. Romulo (1st Ed. Australian) (1K yen). "The Japanese on Trial" by Philip R. Piccigallo (500). "Lords of the Rim" by Sterling Seagrave and "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky (each for 300) and 2 books "The Original "Point-and-Speak" Phrasebook" for the Philippines. The second book was printed for Japanese men who want to have Filipina girlfriends (it's and interesting novelty) (each for 300).

I also found the records of the Philippine Commission each for 12K yen, but had to restrain myself, since it wasn't my field of reseach. I'd want to go back again....if I had tons of money! :)


After Jimbouchou, Ker Wee planned to go to Akihabara. I had no problems, since it was close by. Since we didn't eat anything for lunch, we went to this famous Kyushu Ramen place. Apparently, the difference between Kyushu ramen and Tokyo Ramen is that Kyushu uses pork bones for their broth. The place was so small that our table was actually a pillar with stools. Interesting though! Now this tasted more like batchoy.

Finally, I just finished watching "Jamie's School Dinners" which Ditch "illegally" sent to me! hehe! Thousand thanks!!! And I did realize that I was, or used to be like the kids in the video. So I decided to try everything and anything, even once. For lunch today, I went to a Japanese-style Italian place after my part-time work and ordered Nattou-ika pasta. Nattou is fermented beans which is supposed to have a horrible smell. I've tried it as a roll but wasn't really tasting it. It actually reminded me of monggo. (A family delicacy which only I don't really like). The plus for Nattou is that it wasn't as grainy in taste as opposed to monggo. The minus (which is somewhat negligible for me) is that it is a bit "slimy". Would I order it again? Probably not. But at least if nattou is served to me, I'd eat it! Also, I wasn't sure whether I was eating it properly, since the waiter also gave me soy sauce. But since I was determined to taste nattou, I didn't want to drown the flavour.