Food from Japan

We ate and ate and ate for 12 days straight in Japan! I thought all they ate was tiny portions of sushi. Looks like I was VERY wrong!

The first picture is from our table at a Beer Garden one night. They bring you a whole platter of stuff to grill: sausages, sprouts, veggies, steak, chicken sausage (that we really liked). Each table has a little propane grill in the middle and you just tell them what you want more of and they bring it on out. (Plus it's all you can drink for 2 hours, which is a huge plus in Japan because beer is not cheap).

This picture is of udon. It's a really thick noodle made of wheat in a broth. The bowls were enormous. I got a pretty basic broth with a giant piece of fried tofu on top. Good, but way too much for one person to eat.

This last picture is of okonomiyaki, which they call a Japanese pancake. The only similarity to a pancake is that it's round and cooked on a griddle. These come with all kinds of ingredients. We made this one which was kind of a Mexican flavor (talk about combining cultures). It had ground beef, cabbage, green onions, jalapenos (though the Japanese don't like things spicy so you could barely taste these), cheese on top and ketchup. It has a little bit of flour and water mixture that kind of seals it all together. This was a fun thing to make and eat and we enjoyed it!