Fresh asparagus

A dollar a stalk, but at least it looks better than what I took a picture of in my local supermarket a few days ago.

Actually, I don't remember having seen fresh white asparagus in Japan before, and very, very rarely in California.

Fish head soup, anybody?

Aged broccoli

A very orange store

This reminds me, my wife sometimes uses the term "fruits tomato" to refer to especially sweet tomatoes. That's because tomatoes aren't usually sold at fruit stores in Japan. This is obviously a fruit store. Infact, it had little besides citrus and apples.

Local food

This was a pretty good little restaurant, a local chain, I think. The food was really cheap. I think my meal was about 800 yen and Yoshie's, the daily special, was about 600. The background music while we were there was a Brahms string quartet, which didn't go with the food in the usual sense but made a pleasant contrast and, after all, it was pleasant music.

Guessing game

What are these people lining up for? We waited 20 minutes to get to the front of the line. That was after taking a train up to the north side of Kyoto.

Sakura (cherry blossom) mochi. And other (very special) mochi.

Namako -- Sea cucumber

I've eaten sea cucumber both in Japan and in China. In China it was dried, then re-constituted in soup. I loved it. Here in Japan, where food almost always closely resembles the live state (not the fish heads for soup, above, of course), it was (how shall I put this?) disgusting both in texture (sort of a cross between slimy and crunchy) and flavor (like swallowing salt water while snorkling.

Imported rice!

This is the first time I've ever seen imported rice for sale in Japan, two from Thailand, one (the wild rice) from Canada. The rice market is severely protected here and I thought that rice could only be imported for industrial processes like making senbe (rice crackers). One year, when the rice harvest was poor, imported rice was sold for cooking, but I heard it was relatively low-quality Thai rice and not well received. This was on the shelf in one of the imported food stores that we seek out occasionally, when our local supermarket face palls.

Baby octopus

This is one of the very few foods I've ever tried to eat but couldn't. I put one in my mouth and chewed and chewed and chewed and tried to swallow. I got one or two little legs (or arms) down my throat, but literally couldn't swallow the body. Finally, I reached into my mouth and pulled it out, still essentially whole but a little chewed. I don't care to remember exactly what the rough suckers of the tentacles felt like as I pulled them out of my throat. It took a lot (more) beer to wash away the feeling.

Green tea flavored KitKats!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tsukemono in Nishiki koji, Kyoto

Kyoto is famous for many kinds of food, but certainly one of its greatest claims to culinary fame is it's bewildering variety of pickles. It seems like almost any soft of vegetable, and many kinds of animals, can be found pickled, one way or another. The best place to find all of these is Nishiki koji, one of my favorite markets in the world and one of my favorite places in Kyoto (where I west this past weekend).

$4.61 each for small tomatoes

Special (very very very special, I think) from Kochi-ken. I found these, and the strawberries below, in Nishiki koji, the most interesting food market in Kyoto.