EVENT: Ramen Rules New York @ The Japan Society

New York City is the ever-evolving baby nation of cultures and that includes the world's palette. There's a restaurant to satisfy almost ever kind of food craving including the otaku's favorite "fast food" Ramen! On February 8^th I attended the “Ramen Rules New York City” Lecture at the Japan Society with guest speakers J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (Serious Eats) and Mashiro Nakano (Shinyokohama Ramen Museum). So what exactly did they have to say about ramen? 

Check out some of the very interesting facts I learned below and watch the video! 

J. Kenji’s presentation was pretty amusing! :)

La Tenoli

Cooking Mama: Tempura Time!

Last week I decided to make tempura for the boy wonder, the mom, and little sister.
It was extremely easy and made even the vegetables that I hate taste AMAZING!~
てんぷらで、嫌い野菜がおいしくなります！（笑）
So peep a few pictures of my tempura adventure, and speaking of which I'm making tempura tonight with a side of edamame that I picked up at Wal-Mart. Who would have thunk - Wal-Mart has got a decent healthy food hook-up :)

 I used green peppers, onions, asparagus, sweet potato, and eggplant for my tempura. I didn't get around to using the carrots or brocolli- but tonight I'm definitely trying them out.
Although I didn't have the usual dipping sauce, soysauce mixed with a little sugar and olive oil made it a more authentic tempura experience :)

Have any of you tried making Japanese dishes at home?
Love to hear about 'em.

Till next time!

La Tenoli

¡ NY JapanTown's Soul Food Festival !

Skewered pork, meat covered rice balls, stir fried ramen - Japanese soul food.
Despite the cloudy and slightly humid New York City weather, NY Japantown's Soul Food Festival was a perfect way to say goodbye to summer food fairs and welcome the fall.

The two block long festival was the last of three festivals that NYJapanTown hosted this summer. This time around I made it a point to try out some of the foods - Tonton Pork and Rice meat balls were among them.  Despite the excruciatingly long line for the Tonton, it was absolutely amazing! So much so, that I searched among the restaurant listings in the Chopsticks magazine in hopes of finding an address where I could get more. If it's this amazing alone on a stick, I can only imagine what a bowl of rice and a few veggies might add to the experience.

For all those interested, here's the address to Hakata Tonton:

ADDRESS
61 Grove St NEW YORK, NY 10014
(bet. Bleecker St. & 7th Ave S) 

PHONE (212) 242-3699

Just to show you how my life finds ways of bringing things full circle, there's actually a Spanish song called "Bachata en Fukuoka" AND Fukuoka happens to be the region of Japan where the dish originates. Just a random tidbit I found amusing.

At the festival I also got a chance to meet up with Perezstart's @babylinda and @xbbx! Got a chance to chat with them and their friend @JerseyJesus for a few. So glad we got a chance to meet up. Sorry for the lack of photographic proof, but I'm sure we'll make a memory of your next encounter at NYCC. 

Oh and I feel the need to take a moment to mention how amazingly spontaneous NYC is. During the festival a guy came around giving away freshly made pizza - god it was delicious! I suppose you might be thinking, "Why would you take pizza from a stranger?" Did I mention it was FREE? Haha, no seriously, it was delicious ~ fresh-out-of-the-oven status.

 The stir fried ramen and squid/crab plates caught my eye but anything over $5 was a huge turn off for me. Festival should always = yummy cheap food, no? Oh and look at it what I managed to get for a dollar!

 Well, there was another one before the picture. It just happened to get eaten before I could snap it.

Before I wrap up the post I want to make mention of a few things

•  I want to apologize for not keeping you all up to date with the giveaway. Unfortunately my scheduled Bento Giveaway will have to be put on hold - as soon as it goes back into action, I'll let you all know! 
• As for last week's Tenoli Tuesday post - the personal life's been a bit hectic and a move is in the works; needless to say I've been running around like a headless chicken. I've already got a post planned for next week, so stay tuned! :)

Ja mata raishuu! じゃまた来週！

La Tenoli

¡Raiding NYC!

Here's a massive photo dump that'll hopefully make up for all the tardiness in posting! 

So I went into the city on Wednesday for the first time in -- too long! Before meeting up with my friend Franklyn, I made a stop at the Tokidoki Capsule Store in SoHo (Spring St.) & got myself a little cellphone charm.

 

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[ At WeSC ]

The guys there were nice enough to give me a pair of royal blue headphone cushions until the purple ones come in ~ Got my guinea pig Butters to model it.

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[ At UNIQLO ]

 

Bought that Minnie Mouse Tee ($10.50) and claimed that Mickey print hoodie.

 

Apparently UNIQLO and Disney are having a love affair to kick off the summer! <3

 

Gundam and One Piece Tees. 

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[On the Subway]

Tokidoki lipgloss smells like blueberries!~ 

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[ At Crumbs ] 

I'm going to have to get a Red Velvet Colossal Crumb for my birthday next year! <3

Of course I had to get something for my dessert later, so I snagged a Good Guy cupcake.

 

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[ At Organika ]

Franco and I ended the night at Organika - an organic Italian Restaurant in the West Village

(7th Ave & Grove St.) 

 

Food was amazing! I'll definitely have to go again soon!

Hope you all enjoyed this very late and massive photodump post! 

I'm going to Japan Day tomorrow (Sunday) so expect a whole Flickr album next week and a few videos as well! 

La Tenoli

The Japanese KitKat Experience!

After much wait, I'm pleased to announce that my Kitkat video finally uploaded today! (sound, video, and all)  

A big THANK YOU to all the students from the University of Rochester who let me film them for free food : ) And another big THANK YOU to my roommate and camerawoman, without whom this video wouldn't have been possible. The editing was great!~ 
Hope you all enjoy the video! 



If you want to learn more about where I got these from and where to get some Japanese kitkats of your own check out my earlier blog post GIMME A BREAK! [KitKat].

Hasta luego!~
La Tenoli

Attempt to Succeed.

And then succeed beautifully.
Yesterday I made my first attempt at making Rainbow Cookies.
For those of you who don't know what a rainbow cookie is you could always Wikipedia it OR watch this Youtube video.

Since I don't have any square pans I had to use the round ones so I ended up making a rainbow cookie cake :3
Here's the result!

Tonight we're having it as dessert! - I'm really excited! yummi-ness.

In case anyone if interested in making rainbow cookies, here is the recipe I used.
TheSkinnyGourmet: Rainbow Cookies