Maybe I'm not caught up on my cookie-cutter technology. I just hadn't seen a three-part, 3-D cookie cutter before. Japan = SO TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED. $6.20, from Jbox.com...
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"Red is the color of the meat near the bone." [via Gizmodo]...
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The blog Oddee has a roundup of the ten most bizarre soft drinks out there. My favorite: Diet Water: "Isn't that an oxymoron? Meet the Diet Water: all the flavor of regular water, only half the calories." Also on the list: gau jal, a soft drink made with cow urine (India); a Japanese drink with pig placenta as an ingredient; and an old favorite of ours, Kidsbeer (also from Japan), which we blogged about in summer 2007....
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FXcuisine.com François-Xavier of FXcuisine.com travels to Sakai, Japan, and comes back with a beautiful photo essay detailing each of four steps that go into making exquisite knives. Most kitchen knives today are stamped out of large sheets of metal. They are never as sharp as those made in Sakai. Master Ebuchi has been forging knives for the past 40 years, but he still breaks one knife for each three he tries to make. This is delicate work. François-Xavier then takes us through the blade-sharpener's workshop before visiting the handle-maker and finally the engraver....
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What would it be like to step into a shrink ray and hop aboard a sushi conveyor belt? Wonder no more. Some crazy cats plunked a video camera down on a kaiten-zushi belt and let it roll.
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Unlike other sake masters, Philip Harper has curly auburn hair, a degree from Oxford, and speaks Japanese as a second language. He is the only foreigner to earn the Japanese title of toji, or master brewer....
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After we blogged about the personal-size ramen vending machine, Serious Eats community member lammoreaux pointed us to a video showing a Japanese operation that allows you to personalize your own ramen cup and then pack it with the noodle-and-ingredient combo of your choice—all shrink-wrapped just as you'd find it in stores. The video, after the jump....
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That's not just any field; it's a field of your nasal passage's worst nightmare. Kayoko of Umami Mart took a photo of a field of fresh wasabi while visiting Joren waterfall in Izu, Japan. If you visit there, you can buy fresh wasabi stems and wasabi-flavored soft serve. Related: Photo of the Day: Rice Field...
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The Guardian: "Seven diners in northern Japan fell ill and three were still in hospital today after eating blowfish testicles prepared in a restaurant not authorised to serve the poisonous delicacy."...
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This is for anyone who owns or has at one point owned any of the following: a personal gumball machine, a mini desktop fridge, a mini "olde-time" popcorn popper. It's a personal ramen noodle cup vending machine. In the video, which appears after the jump, the thing looks like more bother than it's worth. A vending machine—especially a Japanese one—is supposed to be all automated and whizz-bangy, but this one is little more than a hot-water kettle with a timer attached—mashed up with a novelty piggy bank. Still, the video is fun in that wacky-Japanese -appliance kind of way....
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