Mums, eh? Great, super, human beings non pareil. …but what to do for Mother’s Day?
Yes, Mother’s Day is coming, but it needn’t be the usual inexorable march towards packed, sub-par garden centre coffee shops and least-manky petrol station flowers.
We at Japan Centre think mums are super, so we’ve come up with a few ideas to show your mums, grannies or mums-in-all-but-name that you’re thinking of them.
Read More…
Japan Centre has teamed up with Third Window Films again, this time to give you guys a chance of winning a DVD with three superb films from contemporary Japanese Director Miki Satoshi.
This limited edition box set has been specially created to coincide with the UK release of his quirky comedy ‘Adrift in Tokyo’.
The ‘Miki Satoshi Collection’ set includes 3 of his hit best titles: ‘Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers’, ‘Instant Swamp’ and ‘Adrift in Tokyo’. All three are going straight to DVD and won’t be available to see at UK cinemas, so this is a great opportunity to see some fun Japanese films.
Fed up with winter yet? Ready for something colourful and cool (or better yet an excuse for a party)? In Japan, the change from winter drudgery to sunny springtime is marked by Hina Matsuri in a couple of weeks’ time.
Hina Matsuri or Girls Day is a festival held on the 3rd of March where families with daughters wish for their health and happiness. It was originally called Peach Blossom Festival (momo no sekku) as it heralded the blooming of the peach blossoms and the final start of spring! As part of the festivities, many families set up elaborate displays of dolls made to represent an ancient Imperial princess’ wedding procession. Not your run of the mill Barbie or Cindy, these dolls are handed down for generations and are considered works of art in their own right (definitely not candidates for the budding kiddy stylist DIY home hair cut).
Don’t worry if dolls (er, action figures) aren’t your thing, like all Japanese festivals Hina Matsuri is also about great food. Read on to find out about Japan Centre‘s five festive selections of sugar, spice and all things nice to get your teeth into at Hina Matsuri.
Valentine’s Day is one of the many days of the year where you can get into some serious trouble with your other half if you don’t put some effort in to spend a relaxing and romantic evening together!
Why don’t you let Toku Restaurant take the weight off your shoulders and help you plan a perfect evening! We have a special 7 course ‘Gozen’ Valentine’s Day menu just for you which is full of amazingly elegant, delicious and healthy Japanese food such as sushi, sashimi, tempura, beef tataki, a Japanese dessert and and a sake or plum wine aperitif. Did you know that in Japan, they say that octopus sashimi is quite the aphrodisiac too! 
Hyper Japan is back again for another long weekend of amazing Japan-osity at the UK’s biggest J-culture party! Hyper Japan are so excited about this year’s event, they even forgot it’s usually held in the summer and instead are having the event from the 24th to 26th February 2012! Good news for us anyway, just means that that we can have some serious Japan related fun sooner than we thought!
Japan Centre also has a pair of tickets to give away to a lucky winner so you can enjoy all the awesomeness of the event for absolutely nothing, yatta! Continue reading for more details of Hyper Japan 2012 and how to enter the free ticket competition!
Rice is rice, right? Well, when you eat rice three times a day like many Japanese people, differences in aroma, taste and texture become much more noticeable. Even I can taste the difference between a standard variety of rice and its high quality counterpart!
If you are interested in seeing what the difference is between different strains of Japanese rice, be sure to pop along to Japan Centre Regent Street store this weekend for a free sample! We will have a variety of different Japanese rice available which you can try and find out which is the most delicious. We also have a sale on many brands of Japanese rice, so it’s a great chance to stock up on some rice for that sushi party you have been promising for ages! We can even give you some tips on how to cook Japanese sticky rice perfectly at home, as well as adding sushi vinegar so you can use it to create your own sushi.
Where:
Japan Centre
14-16 Lower Regent Street
London
SW1Y 4PH
When:
Friday 27th Jan: 4pm – 7pm
Saturday 28th Jan: 3pm – 7pm
Sunday 29th Jan: 3pm – 7pm
We look forward to seeing you at Japan Centre this weekend!
You know how sometimes you just want to eat something quick and easy? For example, even though that expertly grilled medium rare sirloin steak is some of the most delicious, tender and tasty beef available, sometimes a cheeseburger from McDonald’s is just what the doctor ordered (well, probably not my doctor, but you know what I mean)!
Instant ramen are like the cheap and cheerful cheeseburger of the noodle world. Quick and easy to prepare, suitably satisfying for our taste buds and never too expensive. Real ramen from an authetic Japanese ramen bar are also suitably delicious, but that is where the similarities end! Read on and find out why everyone at Japan Centre can’t get enough of the amazing taste of lovingly prepared, high quality ramen noodles!
The Bee is the latest production at Soho Theatre in London from the legendary Japanese playwright Hideki Noda. Famous for bringing Japanese plays to a larger international audience, Noda’s work has a contemporary style with a unique Japanese touch, making this play a fantastic spectacle that is suitable for everyone!
Japan Centre has a pair of tickets to give away so you can see this show in London and experience Noda’s exciting world of Japanese theatre. Read on for more details of the play and how to win tickets!
Bizarre, disgusting, gross, an ‘acquired taste’… all completely valid ways to describe some of these Japanese delicacies, but ‘weird’ is definitely one suitable word that comes to mind! Being British and coming from a country that is internationally recognised as having rather bland cuisine, this Japanese food can certainly seem a little intense for my taste. Of course, that’s not to say that they aren’t delicious, just… different!
Read on to find out what we at Japan Centre think are the top 5 weirdest Japanese food!
We’re going backwards and starting this list with a dessert. You may have heard of basashi before, sashimi made from raw horse meat! While although basashi is somewhat bizarre at the best of times, one plucky Japanese ice cream maker decided that his ice creams flavours were missing a certain… something.
“Ah-ha” he exclaimed, raw horse meat flavoured ice cream is surely what everyone really wants, but they just don’t know it yet. And so, basashi ice was born. I think it is unlikely that you will ever find such a weird tasting ice cream anywhere else, so better head to Japan if you fancy a taste!
Uni is actually a rather common sushi filling, both in Japan and also in Japanese restaurants around the world. It seems innocent enough until you consider where it actually came from. Uni is the roe from sea urchins that live in small nooks and crannies on rocky ocean floors and are covered in spikes to protect them from predators.
So once upon a time, a diver fished something from the bottom of the sea, broke off all the spikes, managed to rip the the sea urchin in half, then scoop out the raw eggs from inside and eat them! Certainly a weird food for me, but going by the number of uni flavoured rice crackers you can buy, presumably not so weird in Japan!
I first had nankotsu when I was living in Japan and went out to eat at a local izakaya bar. A friend had placed the order so I wasn’t sure what was going to be arriving, but they had assured me that everything would be delicious. A bowl of what looked like popcorn chicken was bought to the table, so I grabbed a piece and popped it in my mouth.
Instead of the soft chicken that I was expecting, there was a rather audible ‘crunch’ and I began to wonder why I appeared to be eating a deep fried stone. Thinking that my piece must have had some bone in it, I looked around the table and noticed that everyone else was crunching away on what I later found out to be nankotsu, the Japanese name for chicken bone cartilage.
It is common in Japanese cuisine, and indeed in other cuisines to enjoy the rich taste of fish roe. Fish eggs come in all shapes and sizes, from small black caviar to the larger orange coloured ikura salmon roe that is popular in Japanese food. But what about the other side… the male version?
Shirako literally means ‘white child’ and is the Japanese name for male fish sperm! This is a serious delicacy in Japan and is served in its natural state inside a thin membrane, often with sushi. The texture is said to be “soft and creamy”, with an acquired taste and presumably a little bit salty!
Shiokara is a strong contender for the weirdest, most disgusting sounding dish in any cuisine in the whole universe! Made from salted and fermented fish guts, usually from squid, shiokara has a seriously intense flavour and smell. It is so pungent that even many Japanese people consider it too hardcore! Although a quick ask round the office proved that 50% of Japanese people are quite partial to this tasty treat!
Shiokara is often served at Japanese drinking and snack bars called izakaya, where it is often washed down with a healthy slurp of sake or shochu! If you are interested in trying it, you might have to be prepared to go directly to Japan to find this delicacy!
• Habushu – Awamori sake from Okinawa with a viper snake in the bottle.
• Inago – Grasshoppers fried in a sweet soy sauce.
• Natto – Fermented soy beans that are stringy and sticky.
What do you think of these delicious looking dishes? Which one of these sounds the most appealing to you? Have you even tried any of these before? If you have any better suggestions for the weirdest Japanese food, let us know in the comments!
If you need some eye bleach to remove the nightmare of these delicacies from your thoughts, have a look at this fluffy Japanese Totoro toy and soothe your mind!
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/sigh… it’s that time of the year again! If you’re anything like me, then over the last few days you’ve feasted on way too much turkey and roast spuds, a single token brussel sprout and lashings of rich, delicious gravy. The pleasure that comes afterwards only lasts for a short while… until the regret starts and I begin to ask myself “Why did I eat so much?”
But hey, New Year’s coming up soon and that means that we can create another New Year’s resolution to get fit and healthy (for the 100th time!) The hardest thing about going on a diet is that diet food usually just doesn’t taste very good. Well, it never used to anyway… check out some of these Japanese foods from Japan Centre that are not only amazingly delicious, but also fantastic health foods, perfect for getting back into shape again.
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COMPETITION: Hyper Japan is Back for 2012… And We Have Tickets To Give Away Again!
COMPETITION: Win a set of Japanese Films on DVD
COMPETITION: Win a Japanese Pop Culture Snack Set!
