Yule Eat Your Heart Out
This is just gonna be a bit on my quarantine munchies. No big news because I have no big activities. Today’s track is Yule Shoot Your Eye Out by Fallout Boy. Holiday song, breakup song, and pop-punk? Perfect. edit: in hindsight the Venn diagram between "breakup song" and "pop-punk song" is almost a circle so this isn't actually an accomplishment
This bottle of tea tells you how long to microwave it if you want it hot!
The quarantine requirements in Japan aren’t as strict as I’ve heard about in other countries (for example, in Taiwan you can’t actually leave your quarantine place or you’ll face a huge fine). I am allowed to leave my tiny home for essentials and I can’t meet my food delivery people. I’m not allowed to take public transit (including taxis), I’m supposed to take my temperature and email it in every day, I have a bluetooth-based contact tracing app installed, and I’m supposed to have Google Maps location history on. I was kind of hoping it would be like South Korea where they give you a box of essentials so you don’t have to leave at all but alas Japan is not quite at that level.
At first I was surviving off of Uber Eats and the Family Mart (a convenience store) across the street. If you aren’t familiar with Japanese convenience stores in general, the main thing to take away is that their food, although kind of basic, is generally replenished a few times a day. So if you were imagining getting a hot dog from a gas station, it’s at least three levels above that. The variety is decent, so far I’ve had:
Spicy tofu - possibly the palest imitation of mapo tofu I’ve ever experienced in my life. But I like spicy and tofu, 5/10
Spicy tofu ramen - literally the same tofu, but with broth and noodles. Better in this form, actually 6.5/10
Spicy chicken - This was a rectangle of breaded and fried chicken thigh that was highly reminiscent of a hot chicken sandwich from Wendy’s. Acceptable. Would have been better if I had gotten it fresh for stronger crispiness. 6/10
Basically a “Thai” chicken salad in a wrap. Peanut dressing was good. 7/10
Bento with bonito/nori rice, mentaiko (spicy cod roe), a small piece of fried fish, a fish cake, a small piece of fried chicken thigh, a little bit of omelette, and half a croquette. Some picked daikon and gobo (burdock root) on the side. Good flavor variety, high value. 7/10
Mentaiko spaghetti - exactly what it says on the tin. Probably my weakest meal so far. I’ve had good versions of this so it’s not like I dislike the concept, just this execution. 3/10
Red bean and mochi dango in whipped cream - surprisingly delicious, but maybe I was starved from sugar for not really getting anything sweet for a while. 8/10
Most food is stored cold but they’ll heat it up for you if you want. Sometimes I’ll buy more than one meal at a time so I don’t have to shamefully show my face in the store more than once a day. Because the employees just kind of toss it in the microwave, I figured that I would be safe doing the same at home with the extra meals that I purchased. Seems low risk, right? It is not. I have some kind of microwave/toaster oven hybrid whose buttons I cannot read, and for one of my meals I inadvertently activated the toast part, and started to melt the packaging. I realized it before the food leaked out though, so crisis averted. I will be much more cautious in the future. Oh also, there is apparently demand for vacuum-sealed corn on the cob?
Individually packaged, of course — this is Japan. “One corn, please.”
Before we go to Uber Eats, just look at this SoftBank ad. It’s got so much going on, including what appears to be one second of Bruce Willis?
From Uber Eats, I’ve had
Sushi - just look how pretty it is. 8/10
The “beady” one in the middle is seaweed covered with… something. I’m at a point where I usually trust Japanese food and will just eat it.
Raw salmon bowl - salmon, salmon roe (ikura), rice. Fish was good, rice was disappointingly not as much. But the fish/ikura combo carried the flavor. 7.5/10
Katsudon - fried pork cutlet, egg, sauce. SImple, good, 8/10
Katsu curry - The curry was in a separate container for pouring over the rice/cutlet. Look at this neat box that keeps the cutlet breading from getting soggy. On par with the other katsu because I ordered them from the same place at the same time. 8/10
“Katsu” is not a fancy word, it from “katsuretsu”, which is just “cutlet”, lol.
As of this writing, I’m surviving off of only Famima. In 2013, I got banned from Uber for spoofing phone numbers for referral credit (don’t judge me, Uber is expensive when you don’t have a full-time job), and the ban has caught up to me again in the world of Uber Eats. I will have to figure out another way to get tasty food. Today I made my first expedition slightly further down the block to the drugstore for some soap/detergent, but also snacks and tea. It’s just not economical to buy cold individual bottles; I’ve got to be a responsible adult.
But this bottle is definitely worth it.
