Jon Siegel / ジョン 米岡

Took Waki out for a VERY fancy Xmas dinner tonight. Not sure how to tell this tale, but I’ll leave it up to you to pass judgment on our main course, which was an adventure, if not a sort of “challenge”.

Waki and I have had our fair share of exotic cuisine, only recently did I do whale which was quickly followed up with deer. In our travels we’ve both experienced an even more diverse array of meats and vegetables that would stir the imagination. Anyhow, prior to it’s arrival, Waki and I had a fun and light discussion about French and Japanese cuisine and their mutual stress on the importance of presentation. In fact, regardless of the ingredients or the type of dish, presentation is a key element of any fine dining experience.

As per tradition, our waitress explained that we would be splitting a whole pigeon for the main course. I’ve experienced pigeon in Chinese cuisine, so to have it in French sounded quite interesting. Waki was a little more skeptical, but agreed that it would be a good experience to try something new. The keyword here is “splitting”. Now, without further ado, behold:

As you’ll notice, we were presented each with half a deconstructed pigeon, with the head as a centerpiece. The point is, the waitress wasn’t beating around the bush when she said we would be splitting the pigeon. You see, the head was split with surgical precisely down the center, all goods inside fully intact. Waki was quick to flip hers over and try hiding it, I tried brushing mine to the side but still couldn’t stop from STARING at it. We did our best to maintain good manners, but just couldn’t keep from outright laughing at the absurdity of it. I just kept thinking of how I wouldn’t have been able to do it, cut that suckers’ head in half like that. This meal also turned out to be in the top tier of expensive meals I’ve had in my life, and it was easy to tell the restaurant was pleased with my business. On our way out the entire kitchen and hall staff along with the owner and his wife stopped what they were doing to wish us a good night and hold the door for us. Thanks for the decapitated pigeon! and a Merry Christmas to all!

Had dinner at a new ramen shop in Ebisu, not far from the intersection that leads to Shibuya. I tried their special yuzu sio ramen, which involves yuzu infused salty broth. It was very light, I didn’t feel that ramen guilt as I usually do after downing a bowl of liquid fat. In fact, this one had little bits of salad in the corner, as you can see from the photo, and the broth was light and citrus tasting, sort of. Not really filling, but left me with a nice warm feeling on a cool fall evening.

With no shortage of distractions and obligations, my music gear has been giving me the stink eye for not playing in a long while. Tonight I thought I’d have a go with my Korg Kaossilator and thought the results were fairly cool and maybe worth sharing. I usually like to play at about 140 or 180 BPM, but went for something around 80 BPM for this session. My screw-ups are pretty audible, but only last a second or so before I get the sounds to sync up again. It’s a tricky beast, but loads of fun and great for relaxing. Enjoy:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I took this photo at Hiroo crossing after a night on the town with Georg’s cousin, Kenneth, who is visiting for school for the next 6 months. We went out for a walk about Ueno and had a big tempura dinner that evening.

Much of my free time has been absorbed lately by the book I’ve been designing of my travels, and my new PS3. My book is coming along very nicely, I’ve just about finished the interior, working on the cover and trying to decide a name for it now. Something clever and smart, or something abstract and thought-provoking, or maybe something simply provoking. Also trying to design a custom font just for the title, even though I haven’t decided what to call it yet. Between these creative sessions I’ve been all over MGS4. I haven’t played a console game since my neighbors Stan & Mayumi moved back to America and took their PS2 with them. Technically I have been without a console gaming machine for about 6 or so years, which is like going without chocolate or pancakes for an equivalent amount of time. That’s how it feels. Now that I have my new PS3, and have it wired to my GIANT LCD TV at home, my free time is pretty much gone. My gorgeous Denon speakers which were previous used to playing jazz and rock are now graced with the soundwaves of machine guns, exploding tanks and “Snake? Snake! Snaaaaaake!!!!”*

*nerdy inside joke

Had quite a hangover this morning, thought a nice lunch would fix it up.

Delicious grilled chicken balls covered in Japanese yakitori sauce. A shot I took over dinner in yakitori alley in Yurakucho with Ben and Rachel who are visiting from NYC.

I’m going to stick to my policy of never discussing work matters online but I’ll say this, May and June have easily been the busiest, most hard working months of my life. With good reason. Hence my lack of communication and hermit-like behavior to friends and family. When the work load is this heavy, by default I shuffle my priorities into survival mode and my eating and social habits change quite a bit. Everything gets more efficient and my diet starts to resemble what I ate during my senior year of college. Chocolate cake for breakfast anyone? I suppose in terms of sugar, that was the closest suitable replacement for blueberry pancakes doused in fake maple syrup. Also funny is how I assume most people would take their hard earnings and save the lot or drink it all away. I’m only excited about the prospect of finally being able to pick up a PS3 or a Wii.

Great icecream place in Ebisu, stopped by after dinner tonight. I love when Asia takes a Western concept and fuses it with their own culture to make something wonderful and new. Ouca is an icecream shop that serves flavors such as pumpkin, red bean and sakura, and green tea to name a few. They serve it in cups into which you get to choose three flavors, and below the cup you get a pinch of salty seaweed to balance your palate after eating. I had green tea, pumpkin, and their seasonal strawberry flavor tonight. Green tea icecream is fantastic when done right, this was spot on perfect.

I have some guests visiting from California and what do we wind up doing one bright and early Sunday morning? Maidreamin’ Maid Cafe in Akihabara. A girl, maybe 15 or 16 years old dressed in a miniskirt maid outfit gave us a handout invitation to her maid cafe not far from Akihabara station. The guys wanted to check it out so off we went for a visit. Inside was a counter top and a few bar tables and stools. It was staffed entirely with young girls dressed in maid costumes. We ordered soda floats and sat back to take in the exotic scenery. After a few minutes, our maid returned with our floats and a special request. She wouldn’t allow us to drink the floats until we sang and danced the cue-cue-cute song. Altogether we made heart shapes with our hands and swayed back and forth singing, “cue-cue-cuuuute!” while aiming our hand heart shapes at our floats. After a minute our maid bowed and permitted us to proceed with drinking our floats.

The maids were super polite and super attentive. They even had an English menu! For a group of foreigners, we were actually well received there, although the other customers were keeping an eye on us the same way a cat keeps an eye on a dog. The table charge was about 500 yen and drinks were around 800 - 1,000 yen each.

Saw this while waiting in line to buy some icecream and couldn’t resist. This is a new chewing gum from Glico, “Squeeze”. There are three flavors in all, grape, lemon, and sumomo(peach). Seeing as grape and lemon are the most typical, boring flavors on earth, I went with the exotic sumomo. At first, it tastes like you’ve bitten into a piece of dry fruit, then the texture gives way to that typical gum texture and the flavor smoothes itself out. I found it rather satisfying, and being Japanese gum, it’s made from nice stuff rather than the materials used to make car tires like American gum. One pack is about 105 yen, about $1USD. I still think the pixel gum is the clear winner in the gum wars, I just hope it lasts. Japanese snack products are seasonal so if you acquire a taste for something nice, it will likely disappear next month.