Food, and free food!

I ate 5 eggs today (over 2 meals), and that's a lot, by anyone's standards. According to Wikipedia, an egg yolk contains more than two-thirds of the daily recommended amount of cholesterol, which means I've had over 3 times the daily recommended amount of cholesterol. Ooops.

For brunch I had scrambled eggs with grilled cheese, which was the best brunch I've had in ages. Mainly because I haven't made grilled cheese sandwiches for a long time.

The scrambled eggs were French-style. It was scrambled with a whisk and I added a little bit of cream when it was just about cooked. It's impossible to find chives here so I substituted with spring onions.

I used the last 2 eggs I had in the fridge in the okonomiyaki for dinner. I haven't been to the supermarket lately so only had eggs and cabbage in the fridge, hence the okonomiyaki for dinner. Tomorrow I shall go to the supermarket and stock up again.

Recently I haven't had the time to do some proper cooking, mainly because last week was my busiest week ever since I came to Japan, juggling between exams, essay deadlines and Rachel coming to visit.

I did, however, managed to do a chicken cacciatore (Delia Smith's recipe) for dinner on Friday. It was a minimalised version of Delia Smith's original since I had no bay leaf or rosemary or onions. Anyway it tasted pretty good (maybe a little bit salty? - I might have added too much salt whilst seasoning the chicken thigh) and went well with the microwave-roasted potatoes.

After Wednesday's presentation I shall be a free woman. I'll have time to experiment with more new recipes, and I'm considering to attempt baking cakes using the microwave.

Last week on Chinese New Year, Rachel, Andrew, Seb, Victoria, and I went to Kobe's Chinatown to see the celebrations. On our way back to Sannomiya we walked by a "free cafe", with dozens of people queuing to get in. We thought "free cafe? hell yeah!" although there were little voices in our minds saying "there must be a trap somewhere".

It turned out there were no traps. It literally was a free cafe. Coffee (pretty good coffee too, perhaps better than the Starbucks nearby) and "orange juice" (it tasted more like a non-carbonated Fanta than actual orange juice) were free, so were the various kinds of senbei (Japanese rice crackers). There's a sign saying that you only had to be nice to people to enjoy the free stuff. Nice.

The cafe is called Harimaya Station, and has branches in several major cities in Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto and Fukuoka). The Nagoya branch is opening next month; there are also plans to open branches in Sapporo, Paris and New York.

The closest branch to the university is the one on Midosuji in Osaka:

大きな地図で見る

Can London (and/or Manchester) be next please?


P.S. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, it's going to get warmer next week. Ah I can't wait till spring! This winter has been far too depressing (spent Christmas with bronchitis, and New Year and Chinese New Year without my family or friends back home), and lately my mind has been harbouring feelings for a certain person and all the uncertainty that goes with it. I just can't wait till next week when I go off on my month-long travel, then I can relax and immerse myself in all the exciting scenery and photography. I also just realised that I haven't had any new clothes since early December, and since spring is approaching (and most of my summer clothes are at home) I shall treat myself to some new clothes, as a celebration of the end of exams and passing the JLPT :)