Lunch, Thursday 14 February 2008

Medical cafeteria (the nicer bit with the blue chopsticks)

Pork cutlet with grated daikon
rice
Miso soup
Cabbage salad with something called Rainbow Dressing

500 yen

Dinner, Wednesday 13 February 2008

Renais, closing time.

Mabou-don Chinese chilli-tofu on rice
Cabbage and carrot salad, with some beans
Miso soup (rubbish tonight, for some reason)
mandarin

480 yen

Dinner, Tuesday 12 February

Keniya (Grub And Coffee And Booze Shop), Mikage-dori, east side of intersection with higashi-oji-dori.

Boiled mackerel (flesh goes good, skin goes all stretchy and funny)
Meat and konnyaku (jelly type thing made from the starch of wild potatoes, flavoured with fish stock. Dictionary gives it as 'devil's tongue', which would be a good name if anyone had ever used it)
Rice
Thousand island cabbage (with onion)
Miso soup

780 yen

Lunch, Tuesday 12 February 2008

Koanosuke Thai cafe, second floor of the building where Peace Cafe used to be, Western side of Higashi-oji at Hyakumanben.

Green curry level four spice (spiciness can be ramped up or down)
with extra bits (+50 yen)
and Chai afterwards (+150 yen)

Spicier than expected, tasty green curry. Vegetarians ok, as contains nothing but vegtables and frozen potato wedges, that may contain meat. I like the potato wedges because they remind me of that lyric for the ages (with thanks to Mr White): I got a backyard with nothing in it, except a stick, a dog and a box with something in it.


Basic curry: 680 yen
extras 100 - 200 yen.

Dinner, Monday 11 February 2008

まんゆう軒（Manyu-ken）, on marikoji-dori, just north of higashi-ichijo-dori.

The posters in manyu-ken are:

• Ayrton Senna's head for the 1992 Japanese Grand Prix
• A large airbrush picture of Disney characters on a tall ship, with a 2008 calendar along the bottom, that recently and commendably replaced a large airbrushed map of the world, with Disney characters in explorer hats with binoculars looking at geographically appropriate cartoon animals, with a 2007 calendar across the bottom. Aside: Are there any non-domesticated Disney characters (assuming Ducks are domesticated insofar as they wear sailor-suits)? Aside: Do mice count as domesticated (since their co-habitation with humans is presumably (in the absence of confirmation from some kind of talking mouse) opportunistic)?
• Picture of yacht with squiggles on it for a regatta on Lake Biwa in 1986 (inside of toilet door)
• Toyota racing car from the 1992 Le Mans 24 hour race (back wall of toilet)
• Small sticker I think is another yacht, but haven't got closer enough to see
• The menu
• The daily special board (actually a board, not a poster)

Along the southern wall are arranged comic serials, and a small bookshelf houses the weekly rags, as well as newspapers and back issues of Playboy. In Japan Playboy is a general interest tabloid with a scattering of daft giggling bikini girls. While this means it can be left about in cheap restaurants, it is unlikely that Hunter S. Thompson could have reported on the Kentucky Derby in quite the way he did with a fake press-pass that said プレイボイ instead of Playboy.

Food: cheap and honest. Better than it needs to be. Miso soup is especially good. Shiro-dashi to remind you that you're in Kyoto, well salted with strips of daikon and tofu that stays firmer than usual.

Grilled mackerel with soy sauce and grated daikon
Thousand-Island cabbage
rice
miso soup

600 yen

Lunch, Friday 8 February

Medical Faculty Cafeteria.

Mackerel marinated in miso
kinpira with beef
tofu with chives, ginger, soy sauce
salty sesame beans
miso soup
rice
kintokimame

Cost: 440 yen

Dinner, Thursday 7 February 2007

Dragonfly cafe, Shinsaibashi, Osaka

Non-smoking cafe. In Osaka. Osaka, Japan. Non-smoking. No, really, no smoking. Not even a little bit. Not even lights. Or milds.

Basil pasta - expected bog standard genovese, but the basil is in the pasta, not the sauce. Bright green. They should give this to kids who don't eat pasta. What kid doesn't eat pasta? They should grind up vegetables that kids don't eat and put them into pasta. Especially the colourful ones.

Since the basil was in the pasta, they couldn't very well use basil as a garnish as well, so instead they used.... Bacon. Bacon, the universal condiment, as the Chinese have known for 5000 years. Why didn't they bring that piece of wisdom back from the east when they were busy carving it up? What the hell were you at, Marco Polo? Where was your head, Francis Xavier?

Run by a nice Swiss chap who gives French lessons if you ask, and may also be a DJ (rumour not confirmed.) DJ events on weekends, apparently, and occasional exhibitions. Current exhibition was of not-especially-interesting photos of Kyoto and Nagasaki. Not bad, just not interesting. The sort of photos they use as ads in train stations. Unfortunately deserted on Thursday night. Deserves more people, since:

1> non-smoking
2> understands the place of Bacon on top of every meal

Bacon on a bed of green pasta, one beer, one coffee, 1090 yen. (Any drink is yours for 100 yen with a meal)
Coffee came with actual milk instead of that UHT anti-freeze you usually get.

Lunch、Thursday 7 February 2008

Busy today. Bento lunch box from the union lady who parks outside the hospital at 12. Re-heat in wet lab microwave, eat at desk.

Pork tempura
Beans in miso
steamed vegetables
potato salad
rice with shiso

Cost: 400 yen

Dinner, Wednesday 6 February 2008

Renais again. With Nemoto and Yoshimura from the lab.

katsuniramoyasai-don (pork with chives and vegetables on rice)
Tofu with shallots, ginger and soy sauce
Salad of cabbage and carrot
Cost: 480 yen

Lunch, Wednesday 6 Feb 2008

Renais, the union cafeteria on the main campus.

katsudon (pork cutlet with egg and onion on rice). Egg a bit overdone. Otherwise passable.
Salad (Cabbage and carrot and a bit of cucumber)
Tofu with shallots, ginger and soy sauce

Cost: 555 yen

Cafeteria busy even at 2 pm, and smelly with wintering nerds.