Restaurant Evaluation

I went to restaurant called "Mame-cha" with Sherry, Fumio, and Minori today. We were gonna go to different restaurant first, but there was nothing at where it was supposed to be... so we had to find another restaurant and we did find a good one!

Basic info about this restaurant:

1.Staff

When we entered the restaurant, the first impression was great for me. This man welcomed us with smile. It was not like big voice or anything but I felt very comfortable and warm. 

Then we sat down, the server came to take orders. We asked her what we should eat when we want to have enough meal for each one of us, and she brought different menu which had what exactly we wanted on it. Then we asked her if there was any dish that had meat, egg, or dairy products. She said there was one dish that had egg in it but we could change it to different dish that had no egg in it. 

And when we left the restaurant, the male staff who welcomed us when we came in thanked us politely and he even came outside of the door and bowed until we went far. 

2.Food and price

I ordered Kaisen-don which costed 1944 yen.

It was like a dinner set, so there was miso soup, kaisen-don, pickles, chawan-mushi, warabi-mochi. This dinner set had savory-looking, and they were just delicious (except pickles. I've always hated pickles.haha). Although I usually don't like chawan-mushi, I liked this one. It was very aromatic from dried bonito flakes and it was very smooth, like mousse. Kaisen-don was of course wonderful. And wasabi-mochi, too. I was full after eating them. And I think 1944 yen including from main dish to dessert was reasonable price. It was under our budget which was 2500 yen.

3. Ambience and facilities

There was a lot of kinds of tables and seats like tatami, tables and chairs, and so on. Light was not too dark, not too bright, it was just right. And music that was bing played was just right too. The combination of light and music made the atmosphere in the restaurant very cozy and comfortable. And that made us want to stay there forever... we stayed there much longer than we were planning!

I used restroom in the restaurant and it was not perfect but it was clean enough so that was good.

My total evaluation:

Service ★★★★★

Food ★★★★★

Ambiance ★★★★★

Total average score ★★★★★!!

This restaurant was much better than I expected even though we found it by chance. I would definitely go back there as punter.

And finally I put video that I made from picture we took today.

Thank you for reading!

The Wall Street Journal

Hi!

I picked up three articles that had connections with food from The Wall Street Journal.

1. "For Pets, It's Fat Thursday With Pies, Dressing Under the Table"

This article was talking about pets' obesity. Today, more than half of dogs and cats are overweight because owners feed them human food, especially on Thanksgiving holidays. And they don't always realize that human food can be harmful for animals and their pets are suffered obesity. Because of these problems, dogs and cats have to work out and lose weight like human do. Even personal trainers for animals, doggy fat camps, and canine fitnesses exist.

2. "U.N. Says 2015 Likely to Be Warmest Year on Record"

As you can see from this title, United Nation said the year 2015 is the warmest year on recored. So now, the period 2011 to 2015 has been the warmest five years on recored. It was caused by the effects of El Nino and global warming. The global average surface temperature rose to 14.73℃, about 1℃ hotter than pre-industrial era.  

Obviously, if the temperature keeps going up, crops won't grow well. And there have already been drought in the U.S. and they cannot harvest crops.

3. "Work for Robots" (one of the sections of article "A Blocked Path to Development")

According to this article, sales of industrial robots have been increasing and will probably keep increasing, especially in Asia. And it was talking mostly about India. In India, many people lost their jobs because robots were used instead of people.

It might be a little silly to say, but I was thinking when I read this article, what if robots make all the foods we eat in the future, like in factories, restaurants, farms, and everywhere. And I don't want that to happen!

NPO in the UK and Japan

Hi everyone!

I will be writing about "Food For All" and "Second Harvest Japan" in this post.

They are both NPOs that help people basically through foods.

<Food For All>  

It's a charity group based mainly in London. They distribute meals to people like homeless, disadvantaged, financially challenged, for free. Its activity is different from other food distribution charity group and their main aim is to enable homeless people to get new skills and become self-reliance. 

<Second Harvest Japan>

It's a Japan's first food bank started in 2000. They get foods, which have to be thrown away  for some reasons even though they still can be eaten, from company, farmer, or individuals. And then they distribute those foods they have collected to people who need them. 

<What are the main activities or events that these groups carry out?>

Food For All

food bank

eco garden 

cooking meals for people 

Second Harvest Japan

food bank

cooking meals for people

bringing food to people

<From what you saw on their web sites, what surprised or interested you the most?>

I was interested in when they started their activities. Food For All has been doing it for more than 20 years and Second Harvest Japan just started in 2000. From these, I thought food bank (and other activities too)has been more popular in England than in Japan.

<How would you be able to offer help to either organisation -- as a volunteer or supporter?>

I would be one of those people who cook meals. Donating money is a good way to support, but I think actually doing something for people who need help would make them feel our support more than just giving money to them.

<Which group seems to be more active? Why do you think so?>

Food For All. I looked at both schedules and found that Food For All does food distribution everyday except Sundays, while Second Harvest Japan does their activities 4-5 days a week.

Food Culture Quiz

Hi! 

Today, I took an online quiz about food and I wanted to share my score and some information about food that I got to know through doing this quiz.

If you would like to take the quiz before you see some answers below, Click here

And my score was...

I wasn't too satisfied with this result because it was below average😭 But still, I was able to gain some knowledges about food.

First, I thought I definitely knew the answer when I saw the question "What is a chipotle?".  I clicked the answer "A Mexican restaurant chain that serves huge burritos" because I've been there when I was in the US and I loved it. But I was totally wrong! Chipotle was a smoke-dried jalapeño pepper! Then I suddenly remembered that the symbol mark of Chipotle was a pepper and everything made sense. 

Second, I got to know how to clean a cast iron skillet. When you clean a cat iron skillet,  rinse it with hot water, use an abrasive sponge and a little salt as needed. I knew we shouldn't use soap but I don't know why they said to use salt...Please tell me if you know!

And third, this is the answer I was surprised by the most. Strawberry isn't technically a berry!! There were 4 choices I could choose, which were banana, strawberry, blueberry, watermelon. I think nobody would think strawberry is not a berry. Strawberry is considered as "accessory fruit" and banana, blueberry, and watermelon are considered as "botanical berries". They reproduce in different ways.

Good thing about this quiz is that there are wide variety of questions from the ingredients to how you cook, I think.

Hope you will get some knowledges from taking this quiz ☺︎

Book review and video

Hi everyone!

I found the video that summarizes pretty much everything I have read through the book so far. So, watch this video before you move on to my review ☺︎

Did you get some ideas what sugar does to your body?


In chapter 2 in the book I chose, the author gives 140 reasons why sugar is ruining your health. 
The biggest thing is that sugar can cause a lot of diseases. Diabetes, many types of cancer, asthma, osteoporosis, and many many more. Like, it could destroy your whole body. However, what I was surprised more, because I wasn't expecting to see it, was that sugar can even cause attention deficit disorder in children, fatigue, and depression. And it can lead people to commit a crime. I was shocked!!


Even though I'm reading the book which is saying how bad sugar is to your health, I can't live without sugar so far...:P 

Introducing my book

Hi, 
I'm Aoi and  I'm going to introduce the book that I have chosen for this food class in this post. 

"Suicide by Sugar"
Written by Nancy Appleton and G.N. Jacobs in 2009. 

I was gonna read different book from library, but I didn't feel 100 percent right about reading that book. So I looked for the another book about something I was really interested in. Then I finally found this book.

Sugar has always been (and I think will be) everywhere around me. I've made a lot of pastries and sweet foods since I was little and that is one of my favorite things to do. And I work at cake shop now. I love eating cakes and stuff and I feel like I say "I want something sweet!" a lot. But I've known that too much sugar is bad for my health even though I didn't know what exactly it does to my body.

So I decided to read this book to learn how sugar can effect my body and to think how I'm gonna live with sugar.

The book starts with a fact that Nancy Appleton, the author of this book, was sugarholic which means she was addicted to sugar. First, I was surprised because I didn't know the existence of "sugarholic" and I thought craving for sugar was something that many people had. And then she explains what sugar addiction is and what happens in your body when you eat too much sugar.

I hope I can use knowledge that I will get from this book in my life. And I also hope I won't hate sugar when I finish reading this book!