Yeah, I know, the stereotypical “What I had for lunch” blog post. Well, you have to put up with these sometimes. This is a recent food post and a few other random notes.

First up: food.

Breakfast

The other day I stopped by McDonald’s for breakfast. They have a bunch of “Mega” stuff here, where they basically just try to make things really huge and big. The most well-known is the Mega Mac, basically a big mac with the beef patties doubled up. I’m not a big fan of Big Macs normally (the cheese is terrible) so I haven’t tried one of those yet. I did see a “Mega McMuffin” though, and tried that one morning. Two sausage patties, an egg, bacon, and the McMuffin muffins. It was pretty good. I usually just get some toast, eggs, or cereal at home, but once in a while I might go with this again.

Lunch

The concept of pre-made lunch boxes, bento, is really popular here. You can walk into any convenience store and there is usually a selection of 5-10 different types of little microwavable lunch boxes. I’m co-organizing a track at the upcoming NTCIR Information Access Evaluation Workshop and we have 4-5 hour organizational meetings for that every once in a while. The other day we had a meeting, and I thought I would snap a picture of the lunch box that they supplied us with. It was also pretty good – but everything was cold. It is very common in Japan to eat things cold that in America I wouldn’t consider eating cold. (Then again, I was never a fan of eating cold pizza.) Usually things like roast beef fall into that category, and often there are meatballs or other things in these bento that I think should be hot. Throw the whole thing into the microwave and you are golden, but it is also common just to have it cold.

Anyway, this was a nice bento. We eat stuff like this pretty frequently here.

Dinner

For dinner I’ve been cooking a lot myself lately. Unfortunately, I don’t really cook well: I plan to take a cooking class next year once I have cut out some of my obligations and free up some time. I particularly want to take a real cooking class because I insisted on getting a real honest-to-god oven (you do not get those in Japan generally) in our apartment. It cost thousands of dollars. Completely ridiculous (granted, it is a microwave – convection – conventional oven and plays like, music and stuff) but I absolutely demand an oven because my previous attempts at making brownies in toaster ovens failed completely and I really want to be able to make brownies if I will be living here for 30 years.

So now that I have this crazy oven, I want to learn to use it. And generally cook more because I do enjoy cooking. Some of the things that I have in my cookbook (I have to update that someday) are dirt simple, and a spaghetti meat sauce like my mom used to make is on the menu. Simple, but you can make a whole bunch of it at once, and it is good.

Update on Quarter Pounder in Japan Situation

The other food thing is a quick update on the Quarter Pounder situation in Japan. Recently these two “Quarter Pounder” shops opened up and proved really popular. They only sold quarter pounder and double quarter pounder meals. Japanese people love things that are new and limited edition, so for the month that the shops were around (one in Shibuya, near where I work) and one in Omote-sandou (super high-end shopping place, like Park Ave.) were pretty crowded. The really funny thing is that most Japanese people had no idea that these were McDonald’s shops. The Quarter Pounder has never existed here, so I think the general consensus was that these were new fast food restaurants. Anyway, last week the Shibuya shop disappeared (and I assume the Omote-sandou one as well) and a bunch of signs went up at McDonald’s shops everywhere: “Surprise! Qaurter Pounder was us! Now you can order them at all McDonald’s Shops too!”

Most Japanese people I’ve asked so far were shocked. They had no idea. I guess the equivalent would be some cheap fast food place opening up that is fairly stylish and serves good sushi in the US. Then after a month, “Surprise! This is McSushi, and now you can get it at every McDonald’s in America!” Not that that will ever happen, but still.

Random other stuff

Last week I stopped by my old workplace for a meeting. Checking my old office, my name is still on the door. It has only been three months, so I’m not completely surprised, but I’m sure it will disappear after a while. I think that the last time I visited Columbia University my name was still on the door of my old office – that is about 2.5 years. I’m pretty sure it is gone now since everyone that I was working with at the time is gone now. 2.5 years is a pretty good record though.

While at my old workplace I took two pictures of the fall leaves at the Imperial Palace. One of the really great things about the Japanese National Institute of Informatics is that it shares a building with Hitotsubashi University so there is a small gym with showers, and the Imperial Palace is really close. I used to do a 5km loop around that place a few times a week and miss it (but there is a great 6.8km loop right near my new apartment, so I still have a place to run.) The fall leaves look pretty nice out there.

Finally, there are two new buildings going up right near where I live. It looks like one will be ~20 floor office building, and the other a residential tower. I think it won’t be bigger than the tower we are in though (26 floors, not that we’re that high up) so that is cool. I would hate to have our brand-new building eclipsed by another brand-new building next door. 🙂