We love Udon!

Udon is a type of Japanese noodle. It is a thick wheat-based noodle which is commonly eaten with broth and supplementary like eggs, leaks, fried piece of tofu or tempura. At least that is what we usually see in any Japanese restaurant. In actual fact, there are many variations to this delicacy and in some restaurants, you get to pick your own choice of side dish to go with it.

The place where I live is famous for its udon. How famous? Well, some people would drive five to six hours journey just to get a taste of this udon. Just imagine something like this, a 5~6 hours drive from KL to Kuala Terengganu, to eat that famous nasi dagang or keropok lekor! Something as irresistible as that!

Some general knowledge about Udon:

Soup/broth:
Some people thinks the soup is the better half of Udon. I live in Kansai area (where Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto are among the famous cities), which the cooking style is relatively different from Kanto area (representative prefecture: Tokyo). However it may be difficult for the average short-term visitor to spot many differences. Perhaps the most visible difference is a tendency to use light colored soy sauce instead of dark soy sauce, as in Kanto area. In short, Kansai's udon soup is very light and almost colorless whereas Kanto's udon soup is dark and has a bold and salty taste.

Teuchi udon versus machine made udon
We don't eat at restaurants that serve machine made udon unless in desperate cases where there is nothing we can eat at that restaurant. Since we have been pampered with good udon in Tokushima/Kagawa, our standard of good udon has got to be teuchi, which means hand made in Japanese. Teuchi udon may be a little expensive as compared to machine made udon. But don't get me wrong, machine made udon is good and accessible. We can find these machine made udon restaurants at train stations where we sometimes see them eat udon while standing!

たち食いうどん Eating Udon at standing and eating style restaurant

Some of Udon's vocab:

Kake udon
A simple dish with just udon and broth. The only ingredients are sliced green onions and perhaps a slice of kamaboko ( a processed seafood product). It is one of the simplest udon.


Kitsune udon
The name means"fox udon." in Japanese, and this is another common, no frills approach to udon. It's topped with Abura age, sweetened deep-fried slices of tofu.



Tsukimi udon
This kind of udon is topped with a raw egg, which poaches in the hot soup, or eat it raw after mixing with the udon and some soy sauce.


Tempura udon
This udon comes topped with tempura. Usually the accompanying tempura is shrimp, or kakiage, a type of mixed ingredient tempura fritter.

Tanuki udon
This kind of udon is topped with tenkasu, which is the deep-fried tempura batter.


Yaki udon
Fried noodle, the udon version.
Curry udon
We have never tried this. Curry udon is served in a soup made of Japanese curry. It may also be accompanied by meat or vegetables.


Being such a common food, there are a couple of interesting customs associated with it. First, it's traditional to eat cold udon in the summer and hot udon in the winter. At most noodle restaurants, you'll be able to choose between hot and cold noodles. We love both cold and hot but since cold noodle is eaten only in summer so our representative pictures of udon are all hot udons.

How do we look for good udon restaurant? Good udon means cheap and delicious. Basically we judge whether it's good by looking at the queue. The longer the queue is, the better it is. Seriously!

Good udon has its unique texture. It should be slurpilicious, chewy and springy! If you go to an udon shop, you will hear the Japanese slurping away the udon. They don't bite the udon, only occasionally chew it then swallow! We have not mastered that technique yet but making that slurping sound is real fun! Remember when you were little, your mom would warn you not to slurp cause it's not polite? Well, you can slurp your heart out without having to worry about people warning you regarding the bad manner. It's absolutely polite to slurp your udon in Udon restaurant!

Below are some of our favourite udons!

Tsukimi udon: simple udon with milky taste of soup (after mixing the raw egg with the soup)

Tsukimi tororo udon 月見とろろうどん: It contains Dioscorea opposita (yamaimo or chinese yam), which is a type of yam that can be eaten raw.

Tempura udon: Sya's favorite

Udon can be a side dish too!

Big bowl of udon that comes with shrimp donburi- ayah's favorite

The volume is really big! Two big bowls...can you finish them?

We once drove about two hours to a famous udon restaurant/shop in Kagawa prefecture. It was last year, January. There were a few famous Udon restaurants in Kagawa and this shop was listed as one of the best. People came from all over Japan just to try the udon here. We were so curious so we finally made our trip there.

It was cold...in the middle of nowhere...

There was no proper parking space. People just parked along the road.

We arrived at around 11 am but the line was already so long when we got there! The people up front came around 8am...gosh!

So we waited...

and waited...

Till Sya was so bored and decided to play with the snow...

After an hour wait, we finally arrived at the entrance, but not quite there yet as there were many people in the shop but they had only 11 seats available!

Ayah had plain udon without soup...just udon and green onions. He dipped some soy sauce to taste. It was really good!

My choice...with a raw egg. By the way, there were only two choices in the menu. Udon with or without egg!

Obviously people who came here were not looking for tempura or soup or any frills that can go along with udon. People come here to taste the real udon. The great texture, the springiness, the chewiness of the udon. 5 stars for this shop!! Hubby had three bowls and I had two bowls. It was just simply delicious. We truly understood why people would wait for hours just to taste the udon.

When we were finished with our lunch, the line was already closed.

I sincerely hope the person who stood last in the line would get a taste of the udon. It would be a shame if he didn't cause he had waited for hours!

Below is a good review by two foreigners regarding the udon shop. Whatever they say is true!

Japanese Christmas eve

Do you want to know how my Japanese friends celebrate Christmas eve?

Below are some interviews with my colleagues at 7pm last night, the Christmas eve.

O-san (a female scientist, just wed last year): We will be having dinner at an Italian restaurant nearby. Of course, with the Christmas cake as well.
Me: Then you should be going home, get dressed and touch up your make-ups!
O-san: Oh, we are going there straight from work. He finishes at 8pm. There is still time for me to finish writing up an article.
Me: Yeah...very typical scientist!

N-san ( a male surgeon, just wed a surgeon last year): I don't know. No special plans yet. Oh, but she did say she will pick up the Christmas cake on the way home!
Me: Oh, any presents for her?
N-san: I don't remember giving her any special presents. hehehe...
Me: Ah? very typical hardworking surgeons... :)

NS-san (a technician mother with 3 children): I will pick up the Christmas cake from the nearby bakery. Maybe cook something special tonight.
Me: And maybe a present from hubby?
NS-san: Ever since our first child was born, there was no presents from him.
Me: Yeah...we tend to save for the children. Very typical mother. :)

M-san ( A scientist, wed last year and just came back from Harvard Uni this year): I will cook dinner and bake a Christmas cake. We will have dinner together!

That sounds more like it!

And me?
Like any kid in Japan, Sya wanted a cake. So we decorated the cake together...

Sya and the hat he made in nursery

Mommy I want to blow the candles...

Mommy, can I have your cake, with that big strawberry please?

The remainder of this cake will sit in the fridge for a while. Any volunteers?

Sya received a teddy bear from his Japanese Obaachan (the landlady)

A present from his piano friend...

Merry Christmas to friends who celebrate and Happy holidays to all!

Pumpkin soup

I have been very busy during the past few weeks. Tons and tons of experiments to do from 8.30am~10pm...every day, non stop. Thanks to my supportive husband, dinner is always ready whenever I go home. When I reach home every day, I just need to attend to my son and put him to bed. My son's meal, shower, homework is usually taken care of. How lucky can I be?

Friday is my hubby's relax day. He can do anything without being disturbed by Sya and me as we both are not off on Fridays. He likes to go to the nearest electrical store, sits on Japanese massage chair for 20 minutes and relax. That's his luxury activity every Friday. If I have time to go out during lunch, we would buy bento and have lunch at nearest park...recently frequent trips to Bizan hill to enjoy lunch with the cats.
However yesterday, a busy Friday, I couldn't make time for a lunch date with him. Hubby called and asked me what I would be having for lunch. Since I was so busy, I told him that I had never thought of it yet cause I may not have time to even buy lunch. Before going to his Friday prayer, my hubby came to my lab with a big bag.

Inside was some food for my lunch. What was inside? It was pumpkin soup, nicely lined with asparagus and broccoli in a tupperware and two big pieces of bread in a ziplock plastic.


I thanked him and said: 'Arigatou abang. Tapi camana nak makan ni kat tea room ya. Ramai orang Jepun kat lab makan lunch during lunch hour ni...'
He said, 'Tak susah la yang...abang ada letak sudu sekali kat dalam...' He sounded a little disappointed. Knowing he had been taking the trouble to prepare, I thanked him again. Then he left.
I could only squeeze my lunch at around 2 pm. In the tea room, as I opened the tupperware, my Mongolian friends came in for her lunch too. She praised me and said the lunch looked lovely. I told her that my hubby had made it, smiled at her sheepishly. She looked at me and said, 'Ahh...your hubby must really love you...' She then continued and said, 'If my hubby were here, there is no way he would do the same to me.', she expressed her envy. My Mongolian friend who is a newly wed, just came to Japan 8 months ago. She came alone as her hubby could not leave his work. I know she really misses him. Those words, coming from her must have been hard. To make her feel better, I told her that it would be different when he's here, knowing the difficult situation she is in. She looked at me and smiled, unconvinced. We had a quick lunch. The soup was warm and delicious. Extra warm with extra ingredient, if I may say....:)


It's times like this that made me realize that I have been taken things for granted once in a while. Being busy is not an excuse to not appreciate the trouble my hubby had gone through to make my lunch. A lesson learned...no matter how busy one gets, there is a need to stop and think and acknowledge what we have....that we are really blessed. I know I can survive, because of him. I cannot be where I am now without him...never.
Again, thank you hubby. I cannot repay you enough in my life. I hope we can lead a normal life when we go back. Is the decision to go back next year good or not good...it doesn't matter now. As long as we can be together, that alone is good enough for me.

Mikan gari みかん狩り

Japanese love to use the word gari. Gari means hunting/picking in Japanese. I previously wrote about kouyou gari which means red leaves hunting. The word gari is used for fruit too. For example, fruit hunting like momo gari (peach hunting), budou gari (grape hunting), ichigo gari (strawberry hunting), sakuranbou gari (cherry hunting) and the list goes on.

Hunting for fruit doesn't mean you go hunting in the jungle...macam orang dulu-dulu. hihihi. Fruit hunting means you go to the fruit orchard, pay the entrance fee, pick the fruit and eat as much as you wish during the given period of time. The duration is usually for one hour. We are allowed to pick only the amount of fruit that we can finish. If there were leftovers, we would be required to pay extra charge, to buy the picked fruits.

Grape picking in summer 2008

Sweet potatoes picking in fall 2008

Strawberry picking in spring 2009

Cherry picking in spring 2009

We went to mikan gari last weekend.
So what is mikan? Mikan is a type of citrus fruit, a mutant to Chinese mandarin. Mikan is seedless, smaller in size compared to Chinese mandarin and the taste is very sweet.

We searched for the best mikan orchard in Tokushima. The name that surfaced was Katsuura orchard. It was about one and a half hour journey from our home, located on a mountain.

The location was breathtaking!

These mikan is an improved breed. The trees are about one meter tall only!

Drooling by just looking at them!

Sya was all ready to harvest those fruit!

Sya's first pick!

Even Sya who is about 100cm could pick the fruit easily.

The fruit was gathered in the orange color basket.

How to cut? Cut at 5mm~1cm from the fruit stem.

Sya really enjoyed it! He was so proud of his harvest! And the taste of the mikan...sweet!

Mama was told by the orchard owner that mikan from this particular tree is the most delicious!

Another family picnicking under the trees...

Sya and his harvest. Berat betul!

Counting his harvest...

Counting money...how much would mommy pay for one mikan? Bertuah betul...:)

Not enough...let me get some more...

That was big...

Makan mikan with daddy...

Mommy posing with the mikan and errr...shadow of the leaves. hehehe

While Sya bertungkus lumus memanjat utk petik limau...

Ada orang curi limau Sya...haa, kang cakap jangan curi, ayah ni...

Since Sya had picked so many mikan, we had to pay extra charge for the leftovers...We were alright about it cause the price was not expensive, it was normal commercial price.

A shot with the orchard owner who is in his 80s...Still very strong and healthy! He takes care of the orchard all by himself.

Along the road on the way back, we saw so many mikan trees with many mikan on the trees! Geram tak? Kat Malaysia, they would have been stolen! But then again, this is Japan...

Beautiful view along the way back...

We had a wonderful trip. The mikan was really delicious! We wanted to eat as many as we could to get back the money value. But ayah had stopped after his 20th mikan and I gave up at 12. Berbaloi ke tak? Berbaloi! We all agreed that the experience was more valuable than the price that we had paid. I would recommend this to anyone!