Cereal and coffee. Pea and ham soup with cheesy brown Toast. More coffee, and two chocolate cream biscuits. Three mandarins. Shared popcorn. Three slices frozen pizza with tofu salad and two glasses apple spritzer. Another chocolate cream biscuit for dessert.
Leftovers for breakfast and lunch, Brot-zeit for dinner.
Avocado is truly an amazing and delicious fruit, but I remember a time as a kid when I hated the smell, taste and feel of it. Mangoes and strawberries = dream although hardly local produce at this time of year.
A new take on the Tokyo dinner diaries. More of this to come over the next 30 days of spring in an effort to build some better eating habits and appreciation for the amazing food we have access to.
Sunday 19th March 2017
I have updated the dinner diaries from Botswana with photos of the caterpillars consumed. You can check out the revised gallery here: https://nomad-odyssey.com/2013/06/05/dinner-diary-cresta-president-caterpillars/
Eating caterpillars was a new and enjoyable dining experience for me. Served as part of the dinner buffet they were really the highlight of the evening and all thats worth reporting on.
Apparently they used to form an integral part of the protein diet of southern and eastern africans when times were tough. Deep fried they were a little chewy with a slightly gummy texture and a gamy, smoky flavour with a slight bitterness similar to stewed spinach.
The Moonflower provides a wondrerfully relaxing, rustic and pleasant dining experience. It could hold its nose in the air and be irritatingly pretentious, but it doesn’t, it is friendly and down to earth. I think it is the smiley, uber friendly waiters and staff that deserve credit for ensuring those that show up in jeans, tshirt and thongs still feel comfortable amongst the finery of the decore and clientele.
I had the grilled snapper on seasonal veggies.
The grilled options, which also includes lamb chops (also delicious) come with a selection of sides including mashed, roasted or fried potatoes or rice. I asked for extra green vegies and was ingormed I could have spinach, which I received sauteed in a white wine and cream sauce. Perfect.
Best yet, Moonflower does not break the bank. Mains are about 1200 Kenyan shillings, incidentally the same price I paid for a custom smoked salmon sandwich for lunch! I think that is about $15.
Highly recommend.
March has arrived with a warm, wet spring shower. Nourishment for all. So I went in search of beef (Gyu-niku no arimas ka?) and a warm, dry cave to eat it in. After walking around the backstreets of Gotanda and being offered multiple ‘massages’ of practically any nationality (Who ever said the Japanese are not multicultural?) I eventually found KanKan*.
KanKan, Gotanda
It really was a cave!
Yet again I was rewarded for adventuring into the unknown in Tokyo. You really cannot go wrong, as long as your spirit is in the right place and your willing to eat pretty much anything. Horse sashimi was on the menu here but I was looking for something more comfortable tonight.
The roast beef, BBQ potato, Onsen black pork and roasted camembert and salmon all went down a treat
You can find KanKan on the south side of Gotanda JR station, around the corner from Mos burger. Its on the 6th floor of the first large cluster of Izikaya and will have a gaggle of menu boys out the front. Of course its opposite a pachinko parlor. Menu available in English.
Not the very best in Japanese dining but that’s why they call it casual dining. All part of the experience.
* Kankan is not the actual name or a translation of the name but was the only part of the name I could recognize!
