Kotatsu

(PICTURE: The kotatsu at Masumi's parents' house.)








I had heard from a few people that I had to experience a kotatsu table before I left Japan. A kotatsu table is basically a low table that has blankets that hang down over the sides. The table is then heated underneath by a device which makes the warmest and coziest table you can imagine.

As soon as we entered Masumi's parent's house I saw their kotatsu and couldn't hide my excitement. As I ate and drank, I kept thinking how 40% of my relatives (especially on the Zucker side) would fall asleep in roughly 4 minutes and 12 seconds if they were given delicious food, a warm cozy table and pillows to sit on. Then after about an hour of sitting at the table with no back rest, I began to think how 99% of my relatives (including me) would have back pain before dessert.

The Greatest Weekend Of Eating Ever! (Part 2)

(PICTURE: Dinner at Masumi's parents house. Yup, I'm wearing another cardigan.)

After getting the invite to Masumi's parents' house, I asked what I could bring. I offered to bring sake but was told they had plenty. Instead, I said I would make nikujaga. You should be asking yourself, "What is Nikujaga? And how does Ben know how to make this dish?" Nikujaga translates to "meat and potato" soup but everyone here calls it "Mother's Taste" soup. Apparently every mom in the country makes their own special version of this soup. One of my students even told me that a woman is only a good wife is she can make good nikujaga.

A few weeks ago I went to my favorite eel restaurant and was given some amazing nikujaga by the wife of the chef (I was the only person in the restaurant and she was cooking dinner for her family). I fell in love with the soup and asked Masumi how to make it. Masumi took me to the supermarket and showed me all of the ingredients to buy to make her mother's version. She gave me verbal instructions on how to cook it and since then I've been eating nikujaga two times a week. Now if you're following this blog entry you should be saying to yourself, "You offered to bring Masumi's mother's recipe soup to Masumi's mother's house?" Yup, that's exactly what I did.

When I had originally offered to bring my nikujaga I was feeling extremely confident. Frankly, my nikujaga is delicious. However, as soon as we showed up at Masumi's parents house, I started to get nervous. Then to make matters worse, I realized I FORGOT AN INGREDIENT!! That's the bad news. The good news is that everyone truly seemed to like my nikujaga. Now that said, my nikujaga was clearly the worst dish made that night! Masumi's mom prepared about 10 different things for me to try. She told me that she was only making special dishes that a person couldn't buy at a restaurant. Like I said then, "Nothing beats home cooking."

The night before I was completely stuffed and thought that there was no way I could eat as much again any time soon. Well, I was wrong. Masumi's mom fed me and fed me and fed me some more. For the first time that I can remember, I had to actually turn down food at the end of the night when she offered to give me another bowl of a special rice she had prepared. As the title of the last two blogs makes pretty clear, this was the greatest weekend of eating ever!

The Greatest Weekend Of Eating Ever!

(PICTURE: I'm not sure what is tastier, shabu shabu or my new cardigan from Uniqlo.)

My friend Masumi is a master chef (by skills, not by trade). One piece of advice I can give all ahoyhanoi readers is that when a master chef invites you over for dinner, you accept.

I showed up to Masumi and Kensuke's house with a bottle of sake and an empty belly. The bottle quickly disappeared and over a course of many hours my belly was jam packed with delicious food. Everything Masumi makes is relatively simple but extremely delicious. The first time I ate at Masumi and Kensuke's house I left nearly comatose after eating a six course meal! On this night, Masumi out did herself again by making many different dishes from salads to soups to sashimi to the main course -- shabu shabu. I had mentioned once to Masumi that I had yet to eat shabu shabu in Japan. Being the amazing host she is, she made sure that I could check shabu shabu off my mental checklist of Japanese foods.

Shabu shabu is relatively easy to prepare. Kensuke got some delicious, very thinly sliced pork from his favorite butcher to go with mushrooms, tofu, leek and mustard leaves. The mustard leaves were actually grown in Masumi and Kensuke's garden.

After finishing all the food, a few bottles of beer, a bottle of sake and a half of a bottle of red wine, Masumi's cell phone rang. On the other end of the line was Masumi's sister who was visiting from Sendai. Masumi's sister and her parents had been eating and drinking too and decided to come join us. About fifteen minutes later, I got to meet Masumi's family. Not only was it great to meet them but they brought MORE FOOD AND DRINKS!

After a couple of hours of hanging out, Masumi's parents and sister went back home. However, before leaving they invited me to their house the next night!

(PICTURE: Me, Masumi and her family.)

Uniqlo

(PICTURE: My student doing crowd control in front of Uniqlo. That's him talking to a woman about what had sold out inside the store.)

On Friday I asked my students what they were doing on the weekend. One of my students told me that he was going shopping at Uniqlo at 6AM. I asked him if he was going to be breaking the window and robbing the store since they don't open till later. He told me that it was Uniqlo's big sale and that they were opening very early on Saturday morning. I guess I should say at this point that Uniqlo is considered "The Japanese Gap."

I just so happen to have another student who works part-time at Uniqlo and when he came into my class later in the day, I asked him all about the sale. He told me that it was Uniqlo's 60th anniversary and that almost everything was on sale. He said that the first 60 people would be able to buy 10 Yen socks (roughly a dime) and that the store would have bread and milk for people at 5:45 AM.

I thought, heck I like sales and decided to go. I emailed Masumi and Kensuke on Friday night and told them of my plan and asked if they wanted to ride bikes at 5:30 AM. Shockingly, Masumi and Kensuke agreed.

The next morning, amidst the pitch blackness and freezing cold weather, we rode the five miles or so to Uniqlo. As we were riding I noticed something strange -- there were a lot of cars on the road for five in the morning. It didn't take me long to figure out that lots of people were going to this sale. As we approached the store, the road near it was lined up with cars who couldn't get parking spots (Mom, picture Route 10 being backed up because the Marshall's parking lot was full). We parked our bikes and joined the end of the line. From my best guesstimate there were about 600-800 people waiting in line ahead of us. When the store opened the doors they let in a small amount of people in at a time. It took us about one hour before we got into the store. While we were waiting, every fifteen minutes or so an employee would come out and announce in Japanese that something had sold out. The first thing to go were the socks. The second thing to go were women's leggings. Luckily, I'm bigger than the average Japanese and was able to find a few grandpa-style cardigans that I had wanted to buy (I can assure you that you will be seeing these cardigans in more than a few upcoming pictures). I also bought Huyen a couple of things that I had her pick out the night before while telling her of my plan on Skype.

Anyway, this is a warning for anyone who might be in Japan in five years: Make sure you get to Uniqlo at 5:30 AM for their 65th anniversary sale.

Yakiniku

(PICTURE: Yeah, that's a lot of meat.)

I recently mentioned to someone that I had not eaten much meat in Japan. Between the abundance of fish and tofu, it seems that meat doesn't appear to often on my lunch of dinner plates. Sure there is usually some chicken or pork in soup but that doesn't compare to big hunking slabs of meat which we too often eat in America.

Well, after not eating much meat for a couple of months, I dived into a meat orgy at a Yakiniku restaurant. Yakiniku is the term for Japanese grilled meat. At the restaurant you can order individual plates of the meat you want or pay a little extra and get all-you-can-eat. It wasn't a hard decision. I believe we ate about a dozen or so different cuts/marinades of beef, chicken, pork and squid. Besides the meat there were also sides of vegetables, salads, noodles, rice, garlic, and even ice cream -- with the choice of a topping -- at the end.

I'm not a vegetarian by any means but the next morning I felt like how a life-long vegetarian must feel after taking a bite of a hamburger for the first time in decades. Lets just say I had a tad bit of stomach pain.

18 Months

The other day I was riding the bike at the gym and started to let my mind drift. I began to think about December 29th, when I would be landing back in Hanoi. I imagined being greeted by Huyen, right in the lobby where the two of us met the first time. I can vividly picture the giant smile that will be on Huyen's face. It will be the same smile I saw when I landed in Hanoi in August, and the same smile I've seen thousands of times over the last year and a half.

As I thought about hugging Huyen at the airport, I became conscious to the fact that I was sitting on a bike at the gym with a giant smile on my face. Anyone who saw me must have thought I was either crazy or checking out the girl who always wears daisy dukes on the treadmill.

I've said for a long time that I know Huyen is the one for me because whenever I see her I smile. When putting together this video -- yes, another cheesy video -- I found myself laughing every time I heard Huyen's laugh on my old video footage. Smiling because you see someone and laughing because you know they're happy, well, those are pretty amazing feelings.

Coincidence

How about this for a coincidence: One night Masumi mentioned to me that she and Kensuke have been sponsoring a child in Vietnam for a number of years. They have been sending money and gifts to a little girl through an organization called Plan. I was obviously interested and asked Masumi to show me information about the girl the next time I was at her house. Well, the other night I went over to Masumi and Kensuke's house for a home cooked meal and asked to see the letters they had from the little girl. Through the organization, the girl writes letters in Vietnamese and they are translated into English. I was looking at the letter when I saw a familiar name: Nguyen Huyen. Yes, the little girl has the SAME NAME (minus the middle name) of Huyen. This blew my mind. I mean, what are the odds that my friends in Japan would be sponsoring a girl with the same name as my girlfriend in Vietnam. I just think it is nuts. When I told Masumi and Kensuke about the coincidence, Kensuke had a great line: "Well, now we can always remember your girlfriend's name."

One person was not impressed by this coincidence -- my Huyen. I called Huyen after dinner and told her about the coincidence and Huyen says to me, "I told you Nguyen Huyen is a common name." Come on!!! It's not that common! I had never met another Nguyen Huyen during all my time in 'Nam.

Anyway, the little girl Nguyen Huyen lives pretty close to Hanoi. When I get back to Vietnam, I'm gonna plan a trip to her commune to bring her some presents. So stayed tuned in a few months for a blog update and a picture of Nguyen Huyen and Nguyen Huyen.