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 [...]

There’s this weird phenomena in Japan that, for whatever reason, men can’t be seen eating unsanctioned “female” candy. They can’t grab a box of Milk Pocky or Strawberry YamYam and still be thought manly and mature. This is at least the impression I get from candy makers whenever I see “Men’s Pocky” or “Men’s Bitter [...]

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, [...]

It’s coming soon! White Day is this Friday! It’s our day ladies! Our day to rake in the goodies after we forked ‘em over on Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Day in Japan, to those who are unfamiliar, is a day when women give men chocolate (choco) and don’t get diddly in return. That’s right, nadda. Women even [...]

In part one of “Man, What’s Up With Manju?”, I gave some background on manju, aka man, and listed a few varieties of man common in Japan. If you’d like to play with your own manju recipe, here’re two basic recipes to toy with and finesse to your preference. I’ve also included four complete manju [...]

Man, there’s this Japanese food called manju, and it’s crazy how many different varieties of this snack are out there. There’s An Man (anko filled manju) Kare Man (curry flavored manju filled with curried meat) Niku Man (meat filled Chinese-style manju) and even Pizza Man (this is one manju that really delivers!) This versatile food [...]

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 [...]