Food Update

Another exciting food update.  The school cafeterias are starting to have some new items since the school term started.  The biggest change in the main (closest) cafeteria that I go to is that there is no more balanced lunch!!  It has been replaced by osusume setto (recommended set).  Hehe, huge change! But there is a new colour scheme associated with it and new display boards so big deal :P.  So, we start with some cafeteria foods.

Some katsu (chicken probably) with fries and cabbage:

 karaage (chicken nuggets) curry:

 A nice set with lots of things put together:

 and another similar one (this flower pattern plates were for the balanced lunch and are no more):

 Some fried fish (the new plates for the osusume setto):

 Tempura salmon:

 Some hamburg (without er denoting no bun, just the putty) with fried fish:

 Sanma (which is a fall fish, so not sure why...):

 Ex-sanma:

 So as you can see... pretty much the same food, but different name and plates:

 Here is some mochi I got at the convenience store on campus:

 And a coffee (not too good tasting) and ice cream sandwich:

 This was awesome - kinda like milk tea but with matcha (i.e., powdered green tea):

Visiting Aratamabasi area one day to look at the sakura, I found a conveyor belt sushi place...

 some fish:

 Tiny octopuses:

 clam:

 Not so tasty small shrimp:

 And a nice roll:

 I ordered this at a Chinese restaurant near campus - it is called horumon in Japanese.  It is basically, intestines/guts - I gotta say, probably not the healthiest food but it was so delicious!

 Had this tsukemen at that shop in Kanayama:

 When I can, I try to sample the local restaurants near my apartment.  I had this tantanmen at a ramen shop in the busy part of Imaike.  It was ok but not as good as the ones from the Chinese restaurants.

 This is what I see from my apartment/balcony:

 It says tonkatsu.  So, I went there to check it out.  As with most Japanese small restaurants, all you see from the outside is a door.  At least this one had a menu on the side (most don't).  So I went in.  The place was actually quite large and the bar was almost full.

 I got this miso katsu set.  It was delicious!  Probably the best miso katsu I had:

 I was sitting in front of these pigs at the bar:

 Today, I also walked around (stupidly for like 40 minutes) trying to find a place to eat at.  Finally, I came back to the street full of restaurants near my place and decided on this one.  It said udon on the board:

 Very small place, only the bar with about 10 seats.  The entire menu was hanging on the wall (quite common in small places here).  And, they only have 3 sets (the 3 below): tonkatsu, karaage, and ebi fry.  It also says that each set comes with a mini udon:

 So I ordered the karaage set (small deep fried chicken nuggets).  It was quite good - have to come back one day to try the other 2 sets :P.  The udon was interesting but tasty.

So.. basically, I've been to about 5 restaurants near my apartment - there are probably around 50 in the area... so still a ways to go.