Edokko

 Yikes, it's been a while! I'm so sorry not to have much to share these last few months - or rather, I have tons, but have been so caught up I haven't written any of it!

Last Monday, my second novel launched in paperback and as a Kindle Unlimited exclusive.

I began working on Edokko when I was newly back in Canada and truly felt the sting of leaving Japan behind. It's a joy to see it finally in print, and the publishing process brought me back to those early days (don't miss the cameo of the Japan Foundation's Japanese-Language Institute Kansai, where incoming Osaka JETs gathered for language lessons when we first arrived!) and the ups and downs of expat life. I still miss it very much.

Available now in paperback and ebook format

 

Lily Jennings is Going. To. Japan.

Sixteen and on top of the world, she's beyond excited to be setting off for an entire year as an exchange student in Tokyo. Fashion and fun are foremost on her mind as she arrives ready to meet her new host family and embark on a grand adventure, livestreaming all the way.

What Lily isn't expecting, however, is for her urban host family to cancel at the last moment and leave her hanging with nowhere to live. She's shipped off to the small town of Ajimu (sorry, where!?), a billion miles from anywhere cool and exciting, with a neurotic host sister, no chances for romance, straight-up-vile classmates and a microscopic community watching over her every move.

Too bad for the people of this small town—nothing's going to hold Lily back when she wants something!

Find it on Amazon or your favourite retailer via http://edokko.lorengreene.com!

Pandemic Melon Pan

An acceptable substitute, given the situation

Hello blog, it’s been awhile!

Like most of you, I’ve had little chance to be out and about in town recently, even though I’ve heard about new Japanese restaurants opening up, places closing down, changing hours, etc.

One thing I have noticed, in my neighbourhood at least, is the plethora of options for Japanese food available via delivery services that I had absolutely no idea existed. Normally I’m a bit meh on these apps, because I know a lot of them don’t give a fair cut to the restaurants, and when possible I want to support the restaurant directly. However, in the time of COVID, that’s harder than it used to be. Especially here in Toronto, where we’re under a state of emergency and all dine in options are completely closed.

I want to hope that the restaurants getting on board with DD or UE is helping spread the word that those restaurants exist and therefore are doing them at least a bit of service. I know I’ve found a couple new options in the neighbourhood and beyond that I never knew were even here.

Which brings me to the focus of today’s post!

A couple of weeks ago I started having intense cravings for melon pan. It’s been quite a while since I could get back to my regular source (....Japan), but my baking attempts in the past have also failed. I really just wanted to buy some and be done with it. I used up all my creative cooking/baking karma with the Dalgona phase (and subsequently a lot of Vietnamese egg coffees, steam milks and Thai iced tea batches) back at the beginning of the pandemic.

Muahaha, bring those tasty baked goods right to my door

In Toronto, traditional melon pan is harder to come by, and the only place I could think of that had it was Nakamura Bakery at J-Town in Markham. I thought to myself, well, I’m not willing to drive an hour for melon pan; not today, anyway. But surely something else more local must have popped up in the last 5 years!? Surely someone is making melon pan closer to downtown by this point!?

So I turned to the food delivery apps.

I did a couple of searches for Japanese food, and a couple of searches for melon pan, and I didn’t really find the traditional type that I was looking for, but I found something else of interest. Not too long ago in Baldwin Village (and two other locations), a new shop called Hattendo appeared selling cream pan, originally from Hiroshima. I’d seen their shop in Japan a couple of times; I used to walk by one when I was passing through Yokohama station. But I’d never actually tried their bread. I thought, well, they have cream pan with a melon pan top on it, and black sesame lattes, and they deliver to my house, so let’s give it a go. Ooh! Seasonal flavours!!

Turns out they don't really photograph too well, though

Hattendo’s “melon pan” is a pretty distant cousin of traditional melon pan - what I was really getting was cream pan with a melon pan top, so the interior was unlike melon pan at all. However, it did scratch that itch a little for me. And it definitely opened my eyes to the fact that there are a lot of good Japanese options that have surfaced in Toronto over the past few years.

Since melon pan day, we’ve also ordered in from Little Pebbles, a Japanese bakery in Kensington market, and I have several tasty looking izakaya dinner options marked for the next time we order in. There’s also a new ramen shop in the west end (an area that is sorely lacking in ramen at this point) called Musoshin, and they make shokupan! haven’t tried it yet, but looking forward to getting out there sometime and checking them out. Must be tough to open during this pandemic, so they probably need all the props they can get.

So the next time you’re craving Japanese food in Toronto, even if you want to go pick it up yourself to support the businesses, the delivery apps are actually excellent resources to find out what’s new around town.

In fact, I just discovered that I can get mochi donuts delivered to my house. Be right back...

If You're Happy And You Know It

Ride a bike!

(But not in Toronto, in winter.)

It really is unapologetically pink...I guess I see why M was so dismayed when they opened this sucker up at Calgary Airport!

The Young and the Chariotless

When I landed back on Canadian soil in August of 2010, the first thing I did was purchase a bicycle. Having a new bike right away, I hoped, would take away the sting of leaving behind my mama-chari in Osaka, at the very last minute, as I hastily dropped the keys with a Post-It note on my co-worker's desk on the final day. I needed the bike right up until that day, and I didn't have time to deal with boxing it up for transport across the Pacific. I thought that at least if I left it at school, it would be used by someone, and perhaps someday I would see it again. I took the second key home with me, just in case.

The first week home, I bought a cheap Wal-Mart bicycle. I needed to get to work, and I'd become accustomed to the independence of travelling by bike. I also bought a helmet, because unlike in Japan, I was significantly more concerned about being hit by a car. It was a Raleigh five-speed cruiser, and not an expensive one; it did have a partial chain guard, which was the main thing I was missing about my mama-chari at the time, as I remembered ripping up a few pairs of jeans on my mountain bike as a youth. It also had the curved handlebars I liked on cruisers. 

I have to assume the Japanese adapted their bicycles from European ones, as they were trading with the Netherlands as early as the 1600s; Japanese bikes bear strong similarities to Dutch ones. The covered chain guard and skirt guard are very uncommon in North America. Fender mudflaps and rear racks occasionally show up on American-made bikes, but are considered standard in Japan, along with the rear wheel lock and ubiquitous front basket. I would have liked to go for a bike with all the trimmings, but I had to settle for what Wal-Mart had in their inventory at the time. In retrospect, I was actually lucky to get a bike that had two out of the six features I wanted. I installed a rear rack and basket myself.

Eventually, as all Wal-Mart bikes are wont to do, my bike began losing steam in its 4th year, and during a particularly rough trip down into the Nordheimer Ravine one autumn, my jacket bounced out of my rear basket and twirled itself around the derailleur, which fortunately did not end in my dying in the ravine. The bike was never particularly good at switching gears again.

Dutch in action at Casa Loma

But we're going off on a tangent now. As I searched for a replacement to my bike (I had taken that cheap Wal-Mart bike with me on the plane to Toronto, wrapped in a tarp - can you believe it?) I decided that it had to be Dutch or nothing. I wanted a skirt guard; I wanted a proper rear rack. I wanted a mama-chari. I walked down Bloor Street taking photos of bikes I liked and jotting down their make and model to Google later. I never walked by a bike without giving it a once-over. To my surprise, the premium to get such luxuries as full chain guards required paying CAD $600+ for the bike. As I looked at bike shop after bike shop, almost buying a Giant-brand Liv Simple, I realized that I would never be able to tick all the boxes affordably. I finally settled for a step-through Beater Bike, with a partial chain, and a rear rack. What I hadn't bargained on was how much less hill-friendly the Beater was going to be compared to my Raleigh, with its fat tires and five speeds. The Beater, gorgeous though it was, was useless on hills, and the tires were the perfect size for getting caught in streetcar tracks. Riding it was exhausting. So I went back to the drawing board, formulating a plan for my trip to Japan in February to just buy a cheap mama-chari, have them box it up right in the shop, walk it to the post office and pay to have it sent home. I figured I'd be out $150 for the bike, $50 for domestic, $100 for the international shipping. Maybe a bit from customs on the other side. That sounded a lot better than the $600-ish I was pricing for Dutch-style bikes with gears in Toronto.

I think you guys already know this is going to go downhill.

I left the job of actually buying one until the last moments of our trip. I looked at bikes at Asahi Cycle in Rinku Town and Tokyo, but I never spotted one close to a post office (an essential for this plan to work). Eventually, when I was on my own in Tokyo with just one day left in the trip, I realized this wasn't going to work. I went on Rakuten and found a seller that did international shipping for Daiwa bikes, and I bought a cute pink Nana+ bike. No need to drag anything to the post office myself! They shipped to Canada!

...except that they only shipped to Canada through their proxy service. I had used Tenso before, but not in a few years, and the hoops they had me jump through just to get the bike shipped anywhere were out of this world. I waited two weeks without seeing my item appear on the "my page" section, even though the domestic shipping said it'd been delivered. I emailed them, and had no response for days. I started to worry that maybe this company was less reputable than I originally thought. I sent a third help request, which got a response at last, and was informed since it was oversized, they hadn't yet connected the purchase to my account, oh, and also it was too oversized to be shipped abroad. It had arrived fully assembled. I learned later that this is the standard for bike shops in Japan. Tenso said they were unable to downsize it for me by removing the pedals/turning the handlebars, as they weren't trained to do so.

From there we began the lengthy process of finding a solution, any solution. Tenso offered to ship it elsewhere in Japan for me, but in order to do that, I had to verify my address in Canada. Mind you, I'd already done that when I bought things through Tenso in the past, but it had to be done again, including scans of my driver's license and the receipt of a postcard at my mailing address in Canada. That's right, I had to wait for a physical postcard to arrive by postal mail at my apartment. Only when they were satisfied that I really did live at my address in Toronto would they allow me to redirect the bike somewhere else, but obviously, not to Toronto! They urged me to let them courier it to a friend.

I don't have tons of friends in Japan whom I'd be comfortable asking for a favour so large as "can you receive this bike in the mail, bring it to a bike shop to take it apart, and put it back in the mail?" and even fewer that I wouldn't mind being laughed at by. (As genuinely fond as I am of my co-workers at 〇〇 High School, and as much as they already knew I was quirky, I prefer not to be remembered as "that one that asked me to ship a bike to her".) In the end, I asked my friend Nicole, of Irish Chocolate fame. She returned to Japan after leaving 〇〇 University and is now an English teacher in Chiba. She saved me from a separate mishap involving buying Mister Donut cups on Yahoo! Auctions, and so I thought she might be able to intervene again. Luckily for me, Nicole agreed, and some time later my bike appeared, fully formed, at her apartment.

Nicole, bless her, bought a bike-sized cardboard box online and wheeled it all down to her local shop, where they took it apart and packed it up. Then she brought it back to her place (how!?!?) and called Japan Post for an at-home pickup. Except...now it didn't fall within Japan Post's size guidelines. The JP Post guys returned to Nicole's apartment two hours later with the box in tow. It was too big! She told me it would have to be done via a commercial shipping company like FedEx. Now we were getting way, way too expensive, and I wasn't sure what to do next. I'd already sunk more money into the box and the domestic shipping to Nicole, and the losses were too big for me to cut now. We decided to Frankenstein the box to make it smaller, since that approach worked for Emily when she sent her kotatsu home, but after some measuring, it literally needed to be half the size. Nicole promised to look up some options when she got home from her vacation in Europe.

I decided to take a different tactic. My roommate, M, made plans to go to Japan for a concert in October. I decided to ask her if she'd check the bike as her second piece of luggage (oversized). She agreed without too much protest, to my relief, and so I asked Nicole to have the bike couriered to Narita Airport instead. Surprise - the luggage shipping company that we usually use for the airport, doesn't accept bikes. Nothing about the size, never mind that it was in a cardboard box and disassembled, they just don't do bicycles. Nicole had to call JAL ABC, because apparently Sagawa thought we were asking them to ship some expensive French racing bike worth $8,000 and not the little steel mama-chari I bought at Daiwa Cycle for under two hundred bucks. Luckily JAL ABC agreed to take it (after warning me about a COD fee) and it was delivered to Narita on the day M was scheduled to return to Canada.

Ah, but it's not over yet! As I gallivanted through Montreal on a rainy Saturday night, just before midnight, my cell phone alarm went off, reminding me that "M Is At The Airport Right Now." And then there's an email in my inbox dated 30 minutes prior, saying "Does your bike have suspension? Because if it does, I can't take it with me." Followed by, "If you don't answer soon, I have to leave." Oh noooooooo--

I emailed back as quickly as my thumbs would function, NO, NO SUSPENSION

ALSO PLEASE DON'T LEAVE

After all, what was the next step if the bike got stranded at the airport? Call ABC and try to convince them to ship it back to Nicole (I really wanted to stop bugging her) or to another friend? Jes kindly agreed to receive it when I sent a desperate-sounding email asking for her address, but I didn't want to face the phone call where I explained that I, an uninvolved third party, wanted to use a foreign credit card to have this package sent not back to the sender or recipient but to someone else altogether. Also, what was Jes going to do when she got it? It was just too big!

Luckily, M hadn't checked in for her flight just yet, and decided to forge ahead. Air Canada, bless them, accepted the box without complaint, and it was successfully on its way to Canada at last. I waited until 2:30 AM for the inevitable email about something going wrong, before finally dropping off to sleep. In the morning I called for an airport van cab, and then I called The Bike Joint down on Harbord Street to arrange assembly, and then I recruited a friend with a car to drive it down there with me. BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE BIKE.

It wasn't until she arrived in Calgary and they opened the box for inspection that M realized the extent to which I had thrown her under the bus.

I found this note written on the whiteboard when I got home, after M was safely sleeping off the jet lag:

...but at least I have my bike.

VHS Tape Bonanza

A box of tapes on their way out of the library

The Japan Foundation Toronto is moving, and though that means a lot of changes and adjustments for those of us who found Bloor and Avenue pretty convenient, the upside is that the library is overhauling, which means clearing out old items, which means VHS TAPE GIVEAWAYS.

You might have guessed from my persistent interest in all things retro, that I have just a teensy bit of nostalgia for decades past, with the 80s/90s (my formative years) entrenched firmly at the top. That means I don't just treasure the memories of taping my favourite shows on the family VCR - I still own the family VCR. I actually received a VCR-DVD combo unit for Christmas of 2013! However, 99% of my tape collection is at my parents' house, so I left it there to begin the long project of dubbing dozens of old favourites onto DVD whenever I visit them for the holidays.

So, when the Japan Foundation Toronto decided to get rid of most of its videotape collection to save space...well, needless to say, the airport x-ray techs probably got a kick out of my suitcase as it went through the scanner on my most recent trip back home. It was so hard to resist! I found some fabulous Tokyo-in-the-late-80s-early-90s snapshots with videos like Neighborhood Tokyo, Tokyo Date, NHK The News 1985 and Norimono Ippai. Lots of glamour shots of the Yurikamome Line, pre-extension, in that last one. I also scored the Ichikawa classic Tokyo Olympiad, and four out of a set of Japanese recent-history programs covering events like the Hanshin earthquake, the marriage of the crown Prince (now Emperor), and the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123, which was actually just in the newspaper here, as the 30th anniversary was yesterday.

All in all, a pretty impressive bounty of pre-millennial pop culture. I'm sad that these tapes can't be borrowed from the JFT library anymore, but on the other hand, it was good timing for me, because I was able to take the time to watch and enjoy them all, and they won't end up in a landfill, either. I was happy to see how quickly the rest of the tapes (there were at least 500 given away over two days) were picked up by other patrons to take home.

Looks like at least a few others out there still have VCRs!

Japanese Music in Concert

For a music fan, I'm not willing to expend a lot of energy or cash to go and see a band - in fact, I'm lucky to go to a concert every 3 years at the most, and usually only shell out for nosebleed seats. However, I've actually seen a few really good Japanese bands while living here in North America. I've seen bands that would be playing sold-out shows in Tokyo, and paid next to nothing for them.

The secret is...anime conventions.

Almost all of the big conventions feature a musical act. Here in Toronto, I hit up Anime North every couple of years when they have a particularly interesting guest. I'm also in Baltimore almost every summer, and been able to see some fantastic acts at Otakon. T.M. Revolution, L'Arc~en~Ciel, JAM Project (including Okui Masami and Kageyama Hironobu, for you anisong fans out there!), Home Made Kazoku...all free with the price of admission to the convention. How good is that? When friends in Japan heard that I'd seen L'Arc, live, they were completely bowled over. 

In Osaka and Tokyo, I saw ZARD and AiM and Wada Kouji - now, those last two are definitely a story for another day - but going to a see a big-name show was pretty unlikely. I just don't have that kind of interest in any one band - plus I've been lucky enough to see T.M.R. in the U.S. not once but twice, and (long after this post was originally written) even ran into him on a flight between Japan and Canada!

Quite a lot of Japanese artists have come to Toronto to perform as well - Kyary Pamyu Pamyu was here a couple of weeks ago, and though someone offered to sell me their tickets at the last minute for cheap, it wasn't enough notice to actually go. Too bad! I also missed out on B'z the year before last, which was really unfortunate. These are fairly big-name artists, though, that it'd be tough to get good tickets for in Tokyo, and here they are performing at the Sound Academy in T.O.!

New York, L.A. and other bigger North American cities also have plenty of Japanese performers who slip under the radar, both at local venues and at cons. The next time you're looking to find some new J-artists, why not check out a convention? You might be surprised at who you can get to see, practically for free!

Santouka Ramen Comes To Toronto

Santouka is doing ramen right in Toronto. Yes!

Things have been busy with NaNoWriMo going on - I apologize for the lack of blog posts this month! I did, however, want to say a few words about Santouka Ramen, the new shop that soft-opened last week on Dundas East. A friend of mine works here and she recommended it very highly, so I made an effort to check the place out before word had gotten around too much. I wasn't even thinking about writing a review on it, so I never stopped to take any photos, but after we walked out of the shop, I began jotting down notes -ah, blogging life! It looks like I was just in time, too - in the week since I visited, at least a dozen food bloggers have gotten to Santouka and the lines are apparently around the block. Their grand opening is today, and I can guarantee that it's going to be quite a lot harder to get in there without a wait after this.

The shop is just a little east of Yonge-Dundas Square, and initially I imagined that it would be competing with Kenzo and possibly Kinton for the customers in the area, but it looks like that isn't the end - buzz is starting to get around for a new shop on Gerrard called Raijin (also specializing in tonkotsu ramen) and of course Sansotei (which I haven't been to yet) is doing quite well for itself. A far cry from when I first moved to Toronto and only had Kenzo and Ajisen to choose between - and that was barely a year and a half ago!

Santouka looks to be a fierce competitor, though - they are a branch of a chain that has been operating in Hokkaido since 1988, whose owner was apparently inspired by the famous ramen film Tampopo. Apparently, there was a branch right in my town in Japan, at a shopping centre I visited often, but I wasn't nearly as much of a ramen fiend then as when I returned to Canada and started missing Japanese food! The fact that Santouka is Japanese-run is really encouraging (not knocking you, Ajisen, but those Chinese chopsticks are awful to eat noodles with) because I know Toronto is inching more and more toward authentic Japanese food. They have the same menu in all their overseas shops - the first Canadian branch was in Vancouver.  

Toronto's version of Santouka appears to be very close to the original as well, of course. My shio ramen (salt-broth) came topped with menma (bamboo shoots), kikurage (jelly ear mushrooms), char-siu pork, naruto, and a single umeboshi - pickled plum. The umeboshi came as a bit of a surprise to me, as I'd never seen one topping off a bowl of ramen before. Many of the "usual" toppings you'll find at local ramen places (corn, egg, etc) should be ordered separately at Santouka, as each type of ramen has its own set toppings. The shio is the only broth that comes with an umeboshi.

According to Santouka's website, they simmer
their broth for 20 hours!

Notably, Hakodate is famous for its shio ramen (conversely, Hokkaido ramen is usually known for miso-based soups topped with sweetcorn), and usually shio is a clear, light soup that is chicken or vegetable-based, so this is what I originally expected, having not done my research on Santouka before turning up there! However, Santouka's broth most definitely was pork-flavoured, and when I asked, my server told me that all of their broths were actually tonkotsu. Their specialty is a blend of tonkotsu with the other three traditional types - not quite representative of Hakodate ramen, nor Hokkaido ramen, but their own experimentation. The four types of broths available at the Toronto location were shio, shoyu (soy sauce), miso and kara (spicy), which covers all the traditional types of ramen available. (Sadly, tomato ramen doesn't look to be going mainstream anytime soon!)

I found my bowl very hearty, but a tad too salty in comparison to other broths I've enjoyed - even for salt-broth ramen, it was a bit overwhelming for me. I hoped it was an isolated incident, but other reviews seem to indicate that this is characteristic of their recipes. My companion, enjoying the kara miso version, did not have the same complaint. That is not to say that I didn't enjoy it - it was excellent, and the size of the meal was pretty much perfect, but I might go for a different type of broth next time. And definitely their specialty, tokusen toroniku - wish I'd given this a shot the first time!

I also ordered as part of the set menu, which meant that I also received a rice bowl, pickles and egg on the side. The egg is my favourite part of a ramen meal, so this was an obvious choice for me, and I went with the char-siu donburi; succulent char-siu and greens atop a bed of rice. The egg was more hard-boiled than soft - it was even a little bit cold, but after spending a few minutes in my soup, it was delicious. The taste was perfect. Somehow I even ended up with two eggs - I think I have one of the kind serving staff to thank for that!

It's a real relief to see the ramen competition increasing in Toronto, and Santouka is doing it absolutely right. The atmosphere of the shop is perfect - I loved the wooden bench seats. The food was excellent and the staff friendly and prompt. I had a nice conversation with our server, who was from Kyushu - now there's some quality ramen! My only issues were the price (a little steep, but that's my complaint about just about every Japanese restaurant in this city except Okonomi House) and the amount of seating. The capacity is definitely going to be an issue for this shop, as there weren't nearly enough seats, and even though we walked in without a wait at 4:30 on a day before the opening had really been made public, by the time we left the line was out the door. It's going to be awhile before you have any hope of slipping into any downtown core ramen restaurant without a wait, though - be patient, because when that bowl of steaming noodles is set in front of you, it's all going to be worth it!

Bota Bota, spa-sur-l'eau

Some of Bota-Bota's water spa facilities

I was in Montreal a few weeks ago for the International Travel and Tourism Show, and in my downtime I took a few hours to do what is probably now my favourite Montreal activity - visiting water spas. Finnish baths are very popular in Quebec, unlike Ontario, and they're a natural choice for a hot springs fan like me.

For this particular visit, my spa of choice was Bota Bota, spa-sur-l'eau; a classy water spa built in a refurbished ferry moored in the Old Port area of Montreal. It was a smidge more expensive than Spa Scandinave, which I visited in May, but to do the three-hour "layover" option on a weekday put the price at $45 (as opposed to the $65 for an all-day pass on a weekend).

The price includes the bathrobe and towel, but not sandals, which are mandatory, so you must bring your own. This seems to be a trend for water spas, or at least ones located in North America. In Japan, nobody wore sandals from bath to bath - why bother? These places do have many other services that the visitor may want to make use of that aren't located in the bathing area - massages, manicures, facial treatments, etc - so sandals are certainly of use to them, but for visitors just on the water circuit, having to buy a pair of flip-flops at the gift shop to get from the changing room to the bath doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Fortunately, I read a review on Yelp mentioning the sandals this time, and dug my summer shoes back out of storage. Body Blitz in Toronto supplied us with sandals, as did Spa Scandinave, so water spa fans should be aware that the rules do change from spa to spa. I recently visited a water spa in Ottawa that didn't even supply their bathrobes with the entry fee - more on that in another post!

Deck 4 sauna, looking out onto Vieux-Montréal

The water circuit at Bota Bota is located almost entirely outdoors, which was a pleasant surprise. There are multiple decks, and the baths are on Decks 3 and 4, on opposite ends of the ship. The open-air bath on Deck 3 is expansive and colourful, with an almost-view of Vieux-Montréal (the sides are a bit too tall to see out comfortably from inside the tub) and a relaxing feeling. There's a cold-water barrel tub located just inside, as well, to submerge in and open the pores. A steam sauna and Finnish sauna round out the circuit on this floor, and bean bag chairs are scattered around inside and out to help make guests comfortable. Deck chairs are also available outside.

Deck 4 has a smaller bath which is more like a hot tub, with water jets. It faces the St. Lawrence River and offers a view of mostly-industrial buildings on the other side. At night, however, this view is very pleasant. An outdoor cold-water barrel bath is located just around the corner, by the deck chairs, and there are spaces here to hang up your robe and towel. This floor also has a Finnish sauna and relaxing space inside.

Reviews I read mentioned that Bota Bota's facilities are a bit cramped, and given that it's located on a refurbished ferry, space is certainly limited. I didn't find it cramped, however, not even in the dressing room. The changing facilities are not the best I've seen, but not bad. I prefer some sort of sterilization when I use public hair items, and Bota Bota did not keep barbicide or a UV sterilization cabinet for its combs, so I was relieved that I remembered to bring my own hair items. I've gotten too used to Japanese super-sento, where you often can take a clean brush from the UV unit, use it for yourself and toss it into a bin to be cleaned and sterilized before it gets re-used. The shampoo and conditioner here were okay, but not great. I did appreciate the presence of a hair straightener, though there weren't many dryers.

Bota-Bota's main draws were the atmosphere and the outdoor baths. You haven't lived until you've relaxed in an outdoor bath in winter! For the price I paid it was a very nice evening, but with Spa Scandinave right down the street and offering free tea and cucumber water as well as sandals, I'm not sure their peak prices are good value. Still, for me, the outdoor bath made it completely worth it, and I hope to go back someday, after I've covered a few more of the spas Montreal offers. Magnifique!

All images courtesy of the Bota Bota website.

Mister Donut

A few months ago, I was driving through Vaughan, north of Toronto, on my way to IKEA, when I passed something that took me completely by surprise. It was a sign that had once said 'Master Donut,' in exactly the same font as in the photo here. Seems like that building was once a MisDo location that changed the name and kept most of the sign lettering, and a little thrill went through me to see it.

Mister Donut is by far the most popular donut chain in Japan. Krispy Kreme and Doughnut Plant have given MisDo a little competition in Tokyo, but with over 1,000 stores nationwide, it's unlikely that it's much for them to worry about!

I really liked Mister Donut - as a Canadian, my loyalties do lie with Tim Horton's, but it's hard to argue with an Angel Cream.

Of course, Canada no longer has Mister Donut restaurants, despite Wikipedia's claims - in fact, I haven't had any luck with them outside of Japan, even if I truly expected (and I don't) to find them anything like their branches in Asia. Though the chain was founded in the United States, most of the locations turned into Dunkin' Donuts in the early 90s. (The two franchises were actually created by brothers-in-law who broke off their partnership to begin their own chains of coffee and doughnut shops.)

In Pennsylvania and Ohio, many Mister Donut stores became known as Donut Connection, serving the same menu as Mister Donut once did (and my attempt to visit one of these on the way back to Toronto from Columbus last year failed, too!), and the Godfrey, Illinois location is supposedly still in business under the Mister Donut name, but it is the only one left.

It's a shame, because I found Mister Donut donuts a great deal lighter, fluffier and less greasy/heavy than others, plus I love iconic brands. I collected the MisDo point cards and had traded them in for a bunch of the special coloured coffee cups before I left. I hoped to obtain all six colours. As it turns out, disaster struck my cups one day, and now I only have two remaining!

On a future trip to Japan, I'm hoping to pick those up somehow. I don't think I could possibly eat the hundreds of donuts necessary to get all four via points, but I'll give it my best try, especially since to me, these donuts are head and shoulders above Tim's. Jam-filled and Bavarian cream are not my thing - but give me green tea, dark chocolate pudding, Pon du Lion or sugary, fluffy whip, and I could most certainly make a good effort toward my cups on a month-long trip!

Mister Donut, I miss you! Come back to Canada someday!

TV Japan

We're just getting things set up to move into our new apartment (in what I consider to be "midtown," but to seems native Torontonians would say "uptown") and I came across an ad I had picked up at Bon Odori last year for TV Japan:

• 24 hour broadcasting available everywhere, to bring you the latest news about Japan and the world
• Broadcasting schedule adjusted for each time zone
• Regular live news broadcasts to bring you the latest news available
• Continuous content expansion for information programming, entertainment programming, and cultural / educational programming, plus sports coverage including Grand Sumo Tournaments
• High-quality cultural programming to enhance mutual understanding and foster increased friendly exchange between Japan and the United States / Canada
• Providing “TV JAPAN” to hotels in key cities and resorts, including Hawaii, to better serve travelers on business trips or on vacation.

Well! That's very interesting, indeed. We haven't decided on a cable provider for the new place yet, if we have cable at all, so my question to you Tadaimatte readers - have you tried TV Japan, and if so, how is it? I  may have to go down to the Japan Foundation Library one of these days and check out the programming - I seem to remember you can watch it at the library for free. Hmm!

Book Review - My Year of Meats

My Year of Meats
by Ruth Ozeki
[Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada]

Have you ever bought a book just because it had a really intriguing title? That was how My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki ended up on my Amazon wishlist. Touted as a documentary-style work of fiction, it is both a story of relationships and a critique of the meat industry (which I freely admit I am a consumer of, so reading this book gave me the heebie-jeebies on occasion). The dynamics of the two main characters seemed, I imagined from the synopsis, very interesting indeed, and they did not disappoint. The narration is primarily from the point of view of a Japanese-American woman named Jane, who is hired to work for a Japanese studio producing a television show called "My American Wife." The show explores the lives of American families and is sponsored by BEEF-EX, promoting the use of American beef in Japan. (I only ever remember buying Australian beef in Japan, but what do I know!) The rigid rules imposed on her direction - only "perfect" Caucasian wives cooking with real American beef - cause Jane to stretch further and further in trying to show not just storybook people, but real families of different races, orientations and religions.

Alongside Jane's narrative is the story of Akiko, wife of Jane's boss and a very delicate woman struggling with abuse, infertility and an eating disorder. Her husband forces her to watch "My American Wife" and rate it as well as preparing all the recipes to help her increase her weight. His actions, however, cause her only to grow further away from him, and she becomes emotionally invested in the families Jane selects from the show. She grows out of her complacency and begins to really think about what she wants for her life.

Toward the end of the novel, the documentary side of the story becomes quite harsh as Jane exposes the truth behind the chemicals, hormones and terrible conditions the animals are living in. Soon, it becomes her personal mission not just to hint at the dark side of the industry, but to expose it fully to the public.

I enjoyed My Year of Meats, though at times I felt it focused too much on the anti-industry theme and not as much on the characters as I wished. Still, it was an interesting way of presenting a topic that the average person might not be likely to pick up a book about. For the most part, I liked the characters - Akiko was sympathetic and well-written; Jane's perspective was much harder to identify with, but interesting nonetheless. I enjoyed the minor characters like Miss Helen, whom we saw very briefly but received a very realistic impression of. Others, like Mr. Ueno, seemed to fall a bit flatter.

All in all, it was a good read and a good length for this type of story. Toward the end, I was growing slightly weary of Jane's point of view, but the Akiko scenes eased this considerably. Of course, once I had finished the book, I was also immediately considering veganism! Perhaps it's just a weak will, but Jane's narrative had me wanting to start myself on a shojin ryori diet right away. I think I eat too much red meat...

Check out Ruth Ozeki's My Year of Meats on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca!

Kotatsu

I have been waiting to make this post.

I am an enormous fan of the Japanese furnishing known as a kotatsu. I own two - one big, one small; one is sort of formal and classy-looking for guests, and the other is pink-topped with a big fluffy polka-dot blanket, just the way I like 'em!

There is no possibility that I overdid it on the pink. None.

My fascination for kotatsu started well before I actually arrived in Japan, though I can't quite remember where from. (Possibly Ouran?) I have poor circulation, so I'm literally cold All. The. Time. I fell in love with the idea of kotatsu long before I had ever laid eyes on a real one - and no surprise, when I finally had one of my own, I was hooked. 

So just what is a kotatsu? 

The underside of a kotatsu

A kotatsu is a table that has a small electric heater built into the underside, and a removable tabletop. Cheaper kotatsu are often made of plastic and are light and easy to store, but classic wooden ones are still very popular. A square blanket - often two of them - is placed between the frame and the tabletop. A person then sits on the floor or on a cushion with their legs under the table. Originally, the intent was that the heat would enter through the bottom of traditional Japanese robes and exit at the neck to effectively heat the entire body - since Japanese houses depend largely on space heating and most are not insulated effectively (if at all!), a kotatsu is a cheaper way to stay warm in an inadequately-heated room. It has come to be symbolic of family life and domesticity, as families still gather around the kotatsu on winter evenings, and is a comfortable spot to read, eat, or nap on a cold day. In the summer, the blanket and electrical cords are removed, and the kotatsu becomes a normal coffee table. 

Kotatsu have their origins in the Motomachi period, the 14th century. The cooking hearth, irori, was used for heating as well as cooking and fuelled by charcoal. Over time, the irori was adapted to have a seating platform, and eventually, a quilt, which trapped the heat coming from the burner. This was called a hori-gotatsu. In the Edo period, the concept was adapted into a square shape with the wooden platform encircling it. 

The easiest way to sit at a kotatsu is with
a zaisu; a legless chair. Cushions also work!

The visual style of the kotatsu we know now came about with the use of tatami mats in homes. The charcoals were kept in a earthen pot on top of the tatami - this style is known as the oki-gotatsu. Electricity eventually replaced charcoal as the primary heating source, and the electric heaters came to be attached to the underside of the table. This is the type of kotatsu used in modern Japan today, and I doubt I would be exaggerating much to say that just about every household has at least one - in fact, we even had one at my school, in the resting room, and on the cold winter days when the students were off for New Year's break, I sometimes chose to spend the day there rather than at my desk by the (open!) window.

My apartment also came with a kotatsu, courtesy of my predecessor - it was actually I really nice one; solid wood and in fantastic shape. Unfortunately, it was a bit too tall to be comfortable for me to sit at, so I put it into storage and later gave it to a friend, who shipped it back to the U.S. (That was exciting - if you've ever pondered the logistics of packing up a twenty-pound solid wood table, well, it's something we expats need to think of at times!) I bought a brand-new one and spared no expense at this very exciting purchase - I must have checked out every major department store from September on, waiting to find my "perfect" one. Finally, I saw it at last, at LOFT in Shinsaibashi, decked out for Halloween:

This display caused me to throw excessive amounts of money at the Shinsaibashi LOFT

That was my kotatsu, I decided. I bought the one on the left, choosing a pink lacquer tabletop. The glass top was so inviting, but I knew I would be shipping the table home at the end of my contract in Japan, so I decided not to take chances. (Good thing - my table actually suffered shipping damage obvious enough that a glass top never would have survived!) I had a fleece blanket like the ones above, but later got a more traditional square one with a removable, washable cover, with the intent being that someday when I furnished a living room that wasn't entirely pink, I could sew a new cover for the blanket and make a new table-cover in a more vanilla sort of colour. As it turned out, upon arriving back in Toronto, I was lucky enough to be able to buy a bigger (double the above size), chestnut-coloured wooden kotatsu from a family selling theirs on Kijiji. It's the perfect size for guests, and I improvised with a twin-sized kakebuton for the blanket. I've watched Kijiji since, with an alert on the word kotatsu, but I've only seen two pop up in the year since I've been in Toronto.

That does mean that having your own kotatsu isn't necessarily going to be easy - the cost of importing even a cheap one is rather steep. I've seen guides to building your own online, which may be a good bet if you have the woodworking skills and the confidence to work with the heating element. (The heating elements themselves can be bought online as well!) A word of caution, though: I asked at the electronics shops in DenDen Town what needed to be done to take my kotatsu home to Canada with me, and he recommended a step-down transformer (it weighs at least 10 lbs!) for safety and to prolong my kotatsu's life, since using any appliance on the wrong voltage will wear it out faster. It was actually pretty tough to find the correct adapter, even in DenDen Town, because most Japanese appliances will work in Canada/the U.S. just fine. In the case of a heater, though, you want to be safe rather than sorry! I've seen these transformers for sale at Mits here in Toronto, or you could probably pick one up online.

Image via Wikimedia Commons
In case you were wondering what
a non-pink kotatsu looked like!

You can also buy yourself a kotatsu and the accessories online, of course. J-Life is based in the U.S. and they sell elegant, classic tables. Rakuten, on the other hand, is a little harder to purchase from (watch out for that shipping!) but they have colourful, modern kotatsu and kotatsu-gake. Personally, I like all types - the classic wooden style, the colourful tabletops and blankets with a ton of "pop," and even the lightweight retro plastic ones like the table we had at school. It was very 80s, like the rest of the room, and that was one of the things I loved about it.

So, are you ready to settle down for a cold winter under the kotatsu? I've found my perfect method: a puzzle mat (for comfy sitting and laying down) with a nice fuzzy rug laid over it. 100x100cm table with adjustable height extenders. Downy, fluffy kotatsu-gake blanket with a washable futon cover so I can change out the patterns and colours as I want them. Heat turned on a nice medium-low, and a small zaisu legless chair with padding on the back. A cup of tea. Earl grey - hot. Maybe a nice pot of sukiyaki, too!

I hate winter, but my kotatsu makes it bearable. ♥

Tokyo Fare Watch: October

Looks like American Airlines is having a seat sale good enough to make an AA + JAL flight worth Torontonians' while! I got some really good results on Vayama.com for flights leaving Toronto, connecting in the U.S. and arriving at Haneda or Narita. For the current sale, you'd be looking at a departure between October 4th and November 30th, and a return between October 7th and January 31. Not bad for someone looking to travel through the holidays!

Tea and Tsukimi

Photo from Secret Teatime's Facebook Page

This past weekend, I went to a nabe and tsukimi tea party held by friends from my time abroad. At times, I really do regret spending so much time in Japan alone and wrapped up in my hobbies - as much fun as I had trying my hand at aikido, ikebana and others, travelling all over Honshu by local train, and of course wandering everywhere in Kansai on foot and by bicycle, when it came time for JET events, I was so embarrassingly out of the loop that I imagine anyone not from my year would have a hard time remembering my name. My Japanese friends were largely in Tokyo, and many local friends, JET and otherwise, returned to their lives abroad. By my third year I was living the hermit life, and I have come to regret it a little since returning. Where I was antisocial in Japan, I now go out of my way to be social back home, via cultural groups, JETAA events and now, meeting up with a few familiar faces from JET.

I didn't even realize there were so many former Osaka JETs here in Toronto! I attended a dinner last month with a group of six or so and had a great time, though the tsukimi evening eclipsed (see what I did there?)  that by far. The founders of Secret Teatime are tea fanatics and students of the Omotesenke and Youkenryuu schools of tea, respectively, and Helen did her JET tenure in a city very close to mine. In case any of you readers forgot, I am a fan of tea of all kinds, so when she invited me over for nabe and tea ceremony, I could not say 'yes' fast enough.

Friends in Toronto, you absolutely must check out Helen and Sorlie's endeavors with Secret Teatime! They are setting up a studio in Scarborough, and are offering lessons in Japanese tea ceremony in the Youkenryuu style. Watching the ceremony on Saturday was a real treat, and we enjoyed luscious dark chocolates from Ambiance Chocolat. The chocolates were handmade and amazing, and brought me back to my days making trips out to the fabulous chocolatiers and bakeries in Kyoto. I'm really hoping to make it to more of their events in future and perhaps a few lessons as I've only learned the very basics of chanoyu. My roommate is almost certainly sick of hearing me talk about tea (though she graciously supplies me with it at Christmastime!) and I have a lot to learn about it, myself, so I'm looking forward to lots more!

Kurogoma Smoothie Recipe

Lately I've been craving those black sesame iced lattes from Dotour - so much so that I've even pledged to pick up some kurogoma marshmallows the next time I visit Chinatown or the Pacific Mall. (In case it wasn't obvious, I'm crazy about black sesame!) Well, I've tried the latte version a few times lately and I find that I drink it very quickly, so I decided it was time to try a smoothie recipe instead!

Did you know that black sesame is very nutritious, and supposedly can help you grow strong, glossy hair? It's also delicious - that's good enough for me!

Kurogoma Smoothie - 1 Serving

• 1  1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 frozen banana
• 1 tsp black sesame paste 
• I use store-bought nerigoma, or you can make your own!
• 1 tbsp honey (omit this if your store-bought nerigoma contains sugar already)
• 3-4 ice cubes

Mix the nerigoma with a little hot water to help it dissolve, then add it to the blender with the milk and banana. Add the ice cubes and then the honey last - adding the honey first will cause it to stick to the sides of blenders like mine (I actually use a mason jar blender), so it's better if you pour it over the ice and the banana to prevent that.

Blend on high and serve! Garnish with whip cream, black sesame seeds or kurogoma marshmallows, if you're feeling fancy! Omit the banana and add the ice cubes to the glass instead of blending them for a more latte-like experience.

For Toronto buyers, you can pick up Japanese nerigoma at J-Town or Sanko, and T&T sells a Korean-made black sesame paste made with brown sugar that I recommend. If all else fails, go the mortar-and-pestle route. Enjoy!

My Love Affair With Uniqlo

The first time I walked into a Uniqlo store, I knew it was over.

I've never been a brand shopper - in fact, my clothing shopping mantra has usually been "get in, get out, I don't have to try it on do I!?" And the cheaper the better. Up until the point where I stepped into Yodobashi Camera's 7th floor Uniqlo store, I didn't care about my clothes or where I bought them. Now, I'm stockpiling money to finance a shopping trip to New York City, specifically so that I can go to Uniqlo.

My students teased me about this sometimes - hard to say whether that was because Uniqlo clothes are inexpensive, or simply because I bought 90% of my summer wardrobe there. (Hey, I didn't really need a summer wardrobe on the East Coast, so why bother spending money for clothes you'll get three weeks' wear out of?) I didn't mind, because I was so thrilled to have found the awesome place that is Uniqlo. Short for "Unique Clothes," this store delivers everything in bright colours at great prices, with an amazing turnover rate for fashions. If I found something I liked but was a bit expensive, I could usually go back six weeks later and get it for 50% off. Their colour range is so dynamic and it was easy to find 'basic' items, which is great when you like layering. The tank tops and legging offerings were fantastically diverse. And the one-piece dresses!

They've been expanding rapidly, so if you're lucky enough to live in any other country but Canada, please get yourself to this store. And take me with you!

Melon Soda Recipe

Drinking melon soda and feeding my expensive cake habit.

As you might have guessed, I have a penchant for cooking, and recreating food that I loved in Japan is usually my top target. One thing that I've managed to duplicate recently with some success has been melon soda. 

If you've lived in Japan for any amount of time, you understand the ubiquitousness of melon. It's a favourite flavour, and one I think might have even met with more success in the western world if it were properly marketed. Alas, it is not - the amount of hassle I had to go through to make a satisfactory melon soda (and it's far from perfect) from the materials I could find here is proof enough.

But surely, you might say, if this 'melon soda' thing is so popular, it's been imported? Actually, it has. A company called Sangaria markets their aluminum-bottle melon soda in the U.S. and Canada, including, occasionally, select grocery stores here in Toronto. I paid a hefty $5 USD each to buy these at North Market in Columbus, OH last year and came away extremely disappointed. You might recognize Sangaria as the producers of those cheap aluminum-bottle Ramune drinks in Japanese vending machines...and if you've ever drank one of these, you know they do not hold up to the real thing. The soda goes flat within 5-10 minutes, seems to warm abnormally quickly, and has a distinctive tinny taste. I haven't noticed the carbonation or taste issues with Fanta's aluminum bottles, so I can only conclude that it's something about the 'cheap' variety that Sangaria and other 100-yen soda makers provide.

As I've mentioned before, Coca-Cola has importing issues when it comes to their Japanese products, so it's unlikely we'll see Fanta Melon or Fanta Melon Cream over here at any point. So what's a girl to do when she has only sub-par melon soda to tide her over? Well...first, hit eBay, if you value authenticity as I do, and then when the prices scare you away, try your hand at making it yourself. 

As with Italian sodas and any fountain drink, you'll need to start with a concentrated syrup. This was tough, because the big-name brand that's easy to find in Canada, Torani, does not have a melon flavour - only watermelon. Apparently, Starbucks used to sell under their label and use a Torani 'melon' syrup in their matcha drinks (...what?) but it's now discontinued and the only Torani type I can find is watermelon. You're definitely going to need a cantalope or rock melon flavour!

In the end I settled on a Monin syrup because I could net a 1-litre bottle from Amazon for less than $15. The colour is not right - melon syrup is supposed to be green - but the taste is close. I also picked up some kakigoori melon flavouring; that is, the concentrate that is used to flavour shaved ice. If you have access to this from a local Asian grocery, it's a great idea.

"Cream" soda - melon soda
with vanilla soft serve

That's enough rambling - on to the proportions!

Homemade Melon Soda - 1 Serving

• 500 ml club soda/soda water
• 2 tbsp melon syrup
• 5-6 ice cubes
• Muddler (chopstick or a long spoon will do)
• A few drops of green food colouring (optional)

Pour the soda water into your glass and add the syrup, stirring gently to mix well. You can add a few drops of food colouring (2 is often enough) to get the authentic colour. Add ice until your glass is full. 

For a cocktail look, add the syrup first and do not stir until serving - this recipe can be used with melon liqueur as well. Prefer melon cream soda to the original? Just add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and enjoy!

Okonomi House

Osaka-style okonomiyaki at Okonomi House in Toronto!

I briefly mentioned Okonomi House last week in my post about Tokyo Grill's hiyashi chuka, but I didn't imagine I'd have a chance to get out there and take photographs for a proper review anytime soon. Somehow, though, whenever I get within three blocks of Bay and Charles, the craving for okonomiyaki grows too strong to resist!

Entrance - the sign to the left, of
course, reads okonomiyaki!

Okonomiyaki, for those unfamiliar, is a speciality dish that both Osaka and Hiroshima lay claim to. Okonomi House serves the Osakan version - a savoury pancake filled with shredded cabbage; grilled and topped with a Worcestershire-like sauce and a dot of mayonnaise. In Japan, the mayo - Kewpie mayo, of course - is often laid out in stripes and then topped with shaved bonito and aonori, seaweed flakes. 

This may sound like a lot to handle for those inexperienced with the Japanese palette (says my roommate: "I hate cabbage!" yet she loves okonomiyaki!), but I've actually found this dish to be a fabulous gateway to the land of non-sushi Japanese food. It's most often described as a "Japanese pancake" or "Japanese pizza" - neither of these are even close to accurate - and is one of the two 'safe' foods I've introduced to friends and family that everyone has liked. (The other being tonkatsu.) Even though it contains cabbage and has fish flakes and mayonnaise on top, which are all warning signs, the combination always works out - many times, I depended on that little mom and pop shop next to my apartment to start off someone's visit to Osaka with some real okonomiyaki or takoyaki.

Okonomi House - Fine Japanese Cuisine

Toronto's Okonomi House is not exactly next door, and it isn't quite that same fluffy, airy style that I came to expect in Osaka, but it's the closest one could ever hope to get without actually hopping on a flight to KIX. The restaurant has been a fixture at Bay and Charles since 1978, and it's not hard to see why - every time I go there, day or night, the place always has customers. I love the 70s decor, and the fact that even though you don't cook the okonomiyaki yourself (a popular choice at Osaka restaurants), you can still watch it being made through the glass wall by sitting at the bar. The interior of this place is not so different from the izakayas I used to visit with JET friends, and the iconic chochin lanterns are very like the ones that hang outside of restaurants in Japan.

The food, of course, is fabulous. While the other dishes as all right, if a little on the Westernized side (teriyaki and yakisoba, and I still haven't found anyplace in Toronto to get the perfect yakisoba), it's the okonomiyaki that is the superstar here. I've tried a few versions, but I keep coming back to the pork okonomiyaki, which is considered the 'standard' type in Japan. I cannot say I recommend the chicken - the texture and way it is cut just doesn't lend itself well to this style of dish. Thin strips of pork or beef, though, nice and browned on the edges, are perfect. The scallop version is supposed to be very popular as well. 

Okonomi House's cute chochin, paper lanterns

You can tell that Okonomi House has adapted its own style over the years, whether to better suit the clientele of Toronto or the owner's preference, so it's sometimes a not quite what former expats or Japanese nationals living in Canada would expect. The first time I ordered, I was shocked to see that the bonito and aonori were extras that you had to request, but Canadian diners might have initially shied away from them. The size of the portions are also smaller than standard, and it's almost certain that I will leave a little bit hungry - or eat half of my dining companion's entrée. An exchange student friend was aghast to see the heavy irons used to press the pancakes into dense discs - in the town where she grew up, she had never eaten an okonomiyaki that wasn't fuwa-fuwa; 'fluffy,' and the outside of Okonomi House's okonomiyaki are also softer and less crunchy than she was used to. I heard somewhere that this technique is more common in southwestern Japan, as well as the placement of the mayo in a dollop in the centre of the pancake, unlike the usual striping you'd find in Osaka. Chicken wasn't something either of us ever saw in Japan, either, but the whole design is supposed to be 'as you like it'! If Canadians like chicken in their okonomiyaki and would prefer to skip the extras, so be it. It may not be 100% perfect and authentic, but I'd wager a guess that the cook probably knows his clientele better than I do.

Myself, I'd be thrilled to see a mochi-and-cheese option, and maybe a modan-yaki; a popular variant made with yakisoba noodles on the bottom - but I doubt the menu here is changing anytime soon, and we certainly don't want to risk the prices going up! Okonomi House is the best deal in town when it comes to Japanese food; my usual lunch of a pork okonomiyaki with aonori and bonito, with a cup of green tea (sadly, the teabag version), is well under $10. It's also a place I don't feel uncomfortable coming to alone when I need to, which is always a plus for a downtown core restaurant, and they offer their food to-go.

Another great thing about Okonomi House is the service. Every time I've gone, the servers have been friendly and super-attentive, checking on you just the right amount. Once or twice, the servers have picked out something in my pronunciation of words and asked if I spoke Japanese, leading to a conversation, which is something I can safely say has never happened dining anywhere else in Toronto and always makes me happy. The friendly atmosphere is (well, besides the okonomiyaki!) is what keeps me coming back every time!

Yum!