Wagyu Burger!

After a weekend visit to Blacows, let's give credit where credit is due, I reckon the Japanese have managed to perfect that All-American gastronomic institution... The Hamburger.

Wagyu Beef Burgers!! Woot! Not your run-of-the-mill, bone dry beef burgers held together by corn starch, fried and sold at McDonalds. These beauties are ground from Hokkaido Black Cows (ok, try not to picture that)... and they make for the juiciest, most succulent burgers... ever.

Blacows... not the most imaginative name and missing a syllable or two

The juiciest patty on a freshly baked sesame bun... admittedly, not the best photo in the world, but it tastes great

Even the small one managed to wolf down 3/4 of a burger...

Damage? About ¥1500 a burger, depending on any additional toppings, it comes with 5 (yes, 5) Hokkaido potato wedges and a pickle. Oh and budget another ¥2000 for parking in Ebisu...

The tooth and nothing but the tooth...

Going, going...

Gone.

Camembert Cheese Fly...

and a skillfully handled chicken dish... problem is, those cheese flies look really large.

Typhoon Melor

What a fizzle... as it turned out, all that hype and anticipation was totally unnecessary, Typhoon Melor was more of a rainstorm with a moderate breeze.

All those big car factories on the Kanto plain must be kicking themselves for shutting down for the day.

We were hoping for a little more of a show and bang, but this weather event was like a Roland Emmerich movie, full of promise to start with... anti-climatic at the end.

Typhoon Melor

Makes land tomorrow October 8, 2009. First typhoon to make Japanese landfall this season.

Tokyo is definitely in it's path... stay tuned!

Nicole's email

Since she has turned 7 years old, Mei and I figured Nicole should have her own email address. So please write to her at:

smootoochung@yahoo.com

She's really, really looking forward to receiving emails... from someone other then her dad.

Gee, I wonder who will write to me?

Disgusting...

Squid fermented in it's own guts... it smells as bad as it looks, to quote Crocodile Dundee: 'you could eat it, but it taste like shit...'