The Anime Blog – We Go Beyond Anime!

In Japan, if you have a jones for a snack, you’re covered. The huge amount of street food and vendors alike ensure you need not walk four blocks without something to eat in between. Thanks to anime, Westerners are introduced to a wide variety of these intriguing street foods. Okonomiyaki turns up in Tsubasa, takoyaki [...]

In Dango Digest, Part One, we got acquainted with the vast world of dango. In the second part of Dango Digest, let’s take a peek at how to actually make the dango. Part Two has two basic recipes for dango, some sauces, plus two “rare” dango recipes: Hanami Dango and Botchan Dango.
This recipe is the [...]

When you’re having fun on the go and you’re looking for snackage, food which is as mobile as you is always a good thing. In Japan, country of a thousand festivals, food mobility is an important factor to enjoying the celebrations. Many festival snacks come in ball form (takoyaki), on a stick (yakitori) or both, [...]

Senbei, okaki, and arare, the elusive Japanese rice crackers. Or I should say, good senbei, okaki and arare are elusive. I’ve had my fair share of senbei and arare mixes, most of which have been underwhelming in terms of excitement and enjoyability. They all seem to taste the same with varying [...]

It’s not much of a secret that I love Japanese sweets, aka wagashi. In my free time, I go on the .jp and search out new wagashi to research and try. I spend hours pouring over websites and trying my hand at translating katakana.
The only thing that really gets me through the massive [...]

In the West, who would ever believe that anything as common as beans could ever become anything more than kick-ass burritos and tasty tail-gate chili? Beans have gotten a bad rap through the years as being poor man’s food and the “musical fruit”. Derisive songs have been sung mocking the bloating attributes of these tiny [...]

Kinako doesn’t sound good as a dessert ingredient; when translated, kinako means “toasted soy bean flour” and the kanji are written as “yellow flour” (is that like yellow snow?) To some people, the thought of soy= tofu= *blech* and the thought of beans used similarly= WTF?!
However, kinako is absolutely delish and I add it [...]

There’s a hierarchy of confections and snacks (okashi) in Japan, for those who didn’t know. At the top of the Japanese sugar mountain are wagashi.
Wagashi, as denoted by the wa-, are the traditional sweets of Japan which are painstakingly handcrafted with the finest ingredients. They include daifuku, dango, and botamochi/ ohagi. Many [...]