A Trip to the Dentist, Japanese Style

Since we're not going Stateside this December, we won't make our twice-a-year dental cleanings at Dr. Kahan's office. We're pretty diligent about our oral health, so we decided to find a dentist here in Tokyo.

We found Dr. Suzuki, whose office is right up the street from where we live. A friend recommended him, noting that not only is he a great dentist, but he speaks perfect English, as does most of his staff.

There are a few things that are particular to dentists in Japan it seems. First of all, we took off our shoes at the door and wore the slippers that were provided. And second, we waited only seconds before the hygienist was ready for us. (Though that is common in the U.S. - I wait at doctors' offices, but almost never at the dentist's - hurrah for Dr. K!)

The best part about the experience was that they gave the children brushing lessons. First the hygienist took a cotton ball dipped in red dye and painted the kids' teeth. The dye is designed to stick only to tartar and showed them where they were missing spots with their toothbrushes - which of course was all over their teeth, especially at the gumline. Then they gave each child a toothbrush and literally taught them to brush so that they had to brush away all of the red dye. Only when it was all gone and the toothbrush cleaned did the hygienist proceed with cleaning their teeth.

As for Marc and me, the cleaning was pretty normal with a few noted exceptions. They measured our gumlines pretty precisely to make sure we didn't have bone loss or gum disease - each tooth was given a score not to exceed 4 or they'd have to treat the gums. They also put a towel around our heads as they worked on our mouths lest the light shine in our eyes to brightly.

It was an excellent experience overall and we'd go back again. In fact we have to go back on Thursday in order to consult with the orthodontist for Bailey. Yes, the office has an orthodontist that comes into the office weekly to see the dentist's orthodontia patients.

Enjoy the attached pictures. Be sure to note the bare feet or slippers as you look - and yes, Bailey's and Sydney's teeth were THAT red! Better oversight of brushing will now ensue.

My best food experience EVER!!!

Tapas, the Molecular Bar, is located on the 38th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Tokyo. Containing merely seven seats, the experience is that of gastronomic intensity that is completely sensorial, not just taste-oriented.

We went with friends and used all seven seats. The scenery was fantastic. The bar was a corner part of the hotel?s main restaurant and had floor-to-ceiling windows under which the Nihonbashi section of Tokyo glittered brightly at our feet. But beyond the bar, we were soon too entranced with the food and the experience to notice anything else.

Our chef (and entertainer, information source, etc?) for the evening, Jacob, told welcomed us and gave us a few instructions. He would prepare each course, about twenty in all and give them to us one at a time. He would then instruct us on how to eat them and answer any preparation or scientific questions we might have. Luckily for us, he was half American and had trained at the Cordon Bleu institute in Santa Barbara, California. There is always one English speaker and one Japanese speaker as the chefs behind the bar.

For the first treat, Jacob poured Japanese plum wine out of a large beaker into tall shot glasses. He then spooned a little bit of yuzu foam on top. Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit and he pureed it and foamed it. It was very sweet, but an interesting feel ? liquidy and foamy at the same time.
As a small snack, we got shaved, deep fried beets, curled into a little ball, which was sweet and crunchy and if my eyes were closed I would have mistaken it for a potato chip.

The next snack was a puree of olive, infused with lectin and beaten. It looked like a ball of soap suds on the tiny plate. It sort of dissolved in the mouth with a puff and a hint of olive flavor. He instructed us to hold our breath as we put it in our mouths so we would taste it and not inhale it.
From there we went on to caramel popcorn. Seriously. They creamed corn and balled it in liquid nitrogen. Then they dipped the formed balls in caramel.

We had manchego cheese ice cream in the shape of a test-tube wrapped in the thinnest possible slice of dried apple. Manchego is a stinky cheese - sharp and strong, which was the perfect foil for the sweet apple.

For the next course, Jacob showed us a rack of large test tubes full of Konbu (seaweed) dashi (soup stock) mixed with sodium algenate. He jiggled the rack and the drops fell into the enclosed bottom, which was calcium chloride. The dashi formed little round balls that Jacob called caviar. The ?caviar? was a side dish for the sashimi tuna and soy sauce that he had been chemically solidified into a square. Instead of the usual bit of seaweed on the side, there was a piece of spinach that had been pureed and re-solidified on a baking tray and picked up to resemble seaweed. We were instructed to use our chopsticks to put the square of sashimi on top of the square of soy sauce and to put a piece of the mock-seaweed on top of that - along with the "caviar" if we could get it. Again, if we closed our eyes, it tasted like the most succulent of regular sushi combinations, but it was stronger and more solid in texture.

We had a "red" plate comprised of pureed tomato, which was actually yellow, a tiny bit of crab and a roasted red pepper. Keep in mind that each plate was no larger than my hand and had a tiny bite for each taste.

The next course was in a small bowl: an oji (porridge) base, seared squid and then risotto made of squid ink. Jacob topped this with the zest of the Japanese fruit sudachi. Jacob noted that with squid, you have to cook it either 4 minutes or 4 hours - anything in between creates that chewy feeling that most of us are used to. But this squid melted in our mouths - and no wonder - he seared it in front of us with a small blow-torch!

Following that course was beef : it was a roll of Japanese wagyu beef that had been rolled in edible charcoal. They sealed it in a vacuum bag and boiled it for six hours at a controlled temperature of 53 degrees Celsius. It was the most tender thing I've ever eaten ? we didn't even use a serrated knife to cut it.

In a tiny demitasse cup we had what they called "hot-cold" which was hot chestnut soup with a dollop of cauliflower puree "sprayed" on top.

The one rib off the rack of lamb that appeared next came with a warning: beware of squirting! When preparing it, they butterflied the rack and then put the marinade on the inside. They then used food glue to put it together before grilling. We had to stab it to let a little of the juice flow out before truly cutting it.

Served on the top of an upside down shot glass he gave us a disc of frozen orange which we were to insert into our mouths "like a cd".

On a tiny plate, we received a bit of lobster topped with potato foam on a bed of lobster bisque. Jacob drizzled the combination with vanilla oil for smell as well as for taste. A real treat for all of the senses.

The next course was wildly confounding! Jacob smeared a plate with pureed avocado. Then he used his handy blow-torch to sear some pineapple and then some unagi (sea eel). He laid the pineapple and unagi not-quite-piled on the plate. He announced that it was a miso dish without the miso. Eaten together, indeed the combination of flavors mimicked the sweet/salty/savory taste of miso-infused fish, but there was not a drop of miso on the plate. Eaten separately each food tasted like itself, but in concert was a different taste altogether. Wild!

Jacob placed a wide spoon with a ball on it in front of each of us. He had used the sodium amalgamate into the calcium chloride trick with miso soup, but instead of balls, he produced a wrapper, in which he wrapped real miso soup. So we used the spoon to place the ball in our mouths and the miso soup exploded out of the solid miso-soup ball/wrapper.

The next course was the trickiest one: Jacob had taken the alcoholic drink, a Blue Hawaii, and frozen it with liquid nitrogen. He spooned it into a bowl for each of us and gave us a spoon. Before we got it though, he gave us the warnings: try not to let the spoon touch your mouth. Do not leave the spoon in the dish or it will freeze and stick to your mouth. Put the food in your mouth and chew quickly: swallow. don't let it sit on your tongue or it will burn. It was frightening and fascinating at the same time. A true magician with food, Jacob showed us not only how it was done, but he was also able to take a few bites (after warming his mouth with hot tea) and make the smoke of the liquid nitrogen come out of his nose!!! Practice, he said. It was much more of a feel than a taste. Crunch crunch crunch - freeze - swallow! Hurry!

And then came dessert. We got a shelf-full of them. One was chocolate air, one was a gummy made of olive oil and rosemary. There was one spoonful of a ball of New York cheesecake. And there was a "snowball" of cotton candy, made not of sugar, but of cappuccino. Incredible!!

But then there was the last last very last course: fruit. Jacob gave each of us a small plate of citrus wedges - lemon, lime, grapefruit and orange - with strawberry halves sprinkled in. But then came the directions. First, we had to eat half a strawberry. Then we had to bite into a lemon or lime. Bitter, right? That was the test. Then he gave us a teeny tiny dish with a little fruit on it called literally a Miracle Fruit. It was grown first in Africa but now there are other places to get it, including Japan. We had to take the fruit, which was looked like an oval cherry, and pop it in our mouths. Then we had to separate it from the pit IN our mouths and roll the pit and the fruit around in our mouths for a full minute. He literally put a timer on the bar; you'd be surprised how long a minute is when you?re trying to hold something in your mouth.

When the minute was up, we had to swallow the fruit and spit out the seed. Then Jacob instructed us to bite the lemon or lime again. INCREDIBLE! It tasted completely sweetened - almost candied, or more like an orange. It turns out that Miracle Fruit contains a glycol-protein that alters the palate by coating the tongue. The affects last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the metabolism of the person. So we literally ate all of the fruit on that plate including the lemons. The strawberries were like eating a stick of strawberry flavored sugar!!

So that was the end of it. When we were chatting during and after the meal, Sora (tri-lingual and ever my guide for Japanese things) noted that frankly, English has a surprisingly small number of words with which to describe food. She said that Japanese has a few more, but not nearly as many as Korean. That also, was interesting to note - think about how you'd like to describe your food next time you eat it! Though each course was small, we left feeling satiated - but not overly full. It was the perfect amount of food and variation of tastes. It was a treat for all of the senses and a never-to-be forgotten night.

Special lunch with Bailey

Today Bailey and Marc went into his office to watch the Penn State vs. University of Wisconsin football game - on the brand-new 50-inch flatscreen into which Marc plugged his laptop loaded with the slingbox. One of the partners in the office is a Wisconsin grad, and obviously Marc is a Penn Stater, so they decided to watch together. An 8pm Saturday night game in Madison Wisconsin means 9am Sunday morning here in Tokyo! Afterward, Marc took Bailey to lunch. Later, I asked Bailey about it. "Mom!" Bailey practically shouted, "Dad took me to Burger King - the only one in Tokyo!" "What did you eat?" I asked, hoping to live a little vicariously through his onion-ring experience. "Dad let me have a junior WOO-PER!" Yes you read that right. Bailey had no idea it was called a Whopper; he called it a WOO-PER. It might have taken me ten minutes to stop laughing. Oh the things our children miss by living overseas....

After a loooooong summer....

On the way to taking the kids to school we pass a large construction site every morning. In Tokyo, they always surround construction sites with large, white, temporary walls. The panels sort of resemble pocket doors and there is always a large opening in the wall through which staff and trucks can enter the site. The opening section always has its own real pocket-door, closable section to it. Often, one of the panels of the white wall is clear glass, allowing passers-by to see into the site and what's happening with the progression of the building.

The site we pass each day is just humongous - we cannot fathom what is being built. But we do know that the glass panel, as of Wednesday morning, the third morning of school, contained a window-box full of flowers. The windowbox was inside the glass and placed low so as not to interfere with a view of the site itself. The flowers are a jaunty mix of autumn asters and mums.

Only in Japan would there be flowers at the construction site. What a sense of renewal. It seems apropos.

Thank you to everyone who helped us make our summer spectacular, whether in person, by email or by telephone, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

The photo here is from the start of the summer - the morning of our neice Alyssa's bat mitzvah. It was wonderful and joyous and the perfect start to a very long and merry summer of fun and visits.

More on that later; now I need to concentrate on being back in Tokyo - on being HOME.

Omochitsuki, February 11, 2008

Yesterday the kids had Omochi pounding at their school!  Omochi is a traditional Japanese treat for welcoming in the New Year - and we did it to celebrate the Chinese New Year, not the secular one.  Aren't we multicultural?? 

Omochi are sweet, sticky rice balls.  Rice is pounded by huge mallets in a ceramic bowl until it is extra-sticky, then balled and rolled into various toppings before being eaten.  Anyway, the event was under the purveyance of the parents' group - and specifically the Japanese parents who knew how to do all this.  They did it purposefully on a Japanese holiday so the dads could be there, too.

Each class got 30 minutes to complete the event.  First they put all the kids in traditional Hapi Coats and headbands.  Then each kid got a turn taking the long-handled hammer and pounding it into the hot rice. Think about it: SANCTIONED SMACKING!!!  Each time the kid hit the rice, the traditional shout of YOOISHO rose through the crowd.  Cheering and chanting abounded! The kids just loved it.  And according to the principal, we had just about 100% parental participation.  What a community!

The bowl with the pounded rice was then ferried upstairs to the big multipurpose rooms where Japanese moms stood at the ready to roll the balls and dip them into sauces.  There were three different ones: brown sugar, soy sauce and seaweed, and sweet azuki beans.  After the pounding the entire class trouped  upstairs for tasting. Each kid tried each one and there was so much that they could come back for seconds!

The parents were so great - they had prepared everything perfectly and stayed ahead of the pounding so that there were always plenty of omochi ready for the next class. As you can see above, Marc helped with a good deal of pounding himself.

The most interesting part of the whole thing was the coming together as an international community.  In addition to the Japanese contingent, there were Indian kids, French kids, American kids, Armenian kids, Korean kids - and the list goes on... All of those children and their families were uniting to take part in an ancient Japanese tradition.  Enjoy the photos.

Hello Kitty Mania!

January 28, 2008

I don’t have pictures of this yet, but I will get them: we went to Hello Kitty Place in a mall here in Tokyo. This is one of those “only in Tokyo” experiences.

The kids had the day off from school last Monday and I wanted to do something fun and special for them. Bailey had a birthday party to go to (brave parents – 10 boys and fishing rods at a local pond – of course Bailey was the one who got the hook in his finger. Don’t worry – he’s fine) so he was busy. But Sydney needed a little distraction.

My friend Amy is Japanese-American and has a daughter in Syd’s class. Malia and Syd are really great friends. We also had another little girl from the class – a Finnish girl named Aura. All three are five years old and clearly spend a lot of time together in the classroom. It is so interesting to see this Asian, European and American trio interacting with their different accents. It does not stop them from talking a mile a minute! Amy suggested this mall, La-La Port. Just the name is a little odd-sounding, I thought. It turns out that the mall is geared toward mothers and children – stores, restaurants, everything with mothers and kids in mind.

Amy drove and it took about 30 minutes to get there – it’s in Odaiba, near where they have that replica of the Statue of Liberty. There were some American stores – The Gap, Lands End, Claire’s, but most were Japanese brands of jewelry, clothes and shoes.

Lunch was an interesting affair. The restaurant we went to had a big red chandelier made of poufy balloons. Everything else in the place, from the tables to the chairs to the floor, was pink. The omelet Sydney ordered was heart-shaped, as was the mound of rice of my curry-rice dish. There was squeaky, clappy music playing in the background. The girls loved it!

After lunch we went to the Hello Kitty playground. I could not believe this place! You pay by the hour per person and they just mark your in-time. It’s so easy to say that you’re only going to be there 30 minutes – and then you end up staying an hour. Again, the girls just loved it. They got to dress in frilly costumes, put on make-up, serve tea, participate in a live Hello Kitty show (given by a woman in a blue puffy dress with multiple crinolines, chunky heels and high squeaky voice – think of every stereotype you know of cutesy.) and then jump in a ball pit. For the parents – presumably moms – there are massage chairs and a coffee bar – all of which cost extra. The girls changed outfits three times, spent as long as we’d let them in the ball pit (which had the advantage of a big ship in the back of it) and put makeup all over their faces - literally. Luckily there were wipes for afterward. Amy and I bought a throw-away camera. As soon as I have it developed (remember that???) I’ll get the pix up on the blog.

Our final destination in the mall was a chocolate shoppe. Again with the cutesy! Malia had a teddy-bear shaped cake-let, while Aura and Sydney had mini-parfaits. I had a coffee in a teeny tiny pink cup and saucer.

By then the girls were tired and I don’t blame them. They were pretty quiet in the back of the car on the way home.

By the time Sydney and I got home, Bailey was there. His friend Kalani and he had gone to the park with Minnie after the party and Sora had just picked up Kalani before I arrived. So both kids were pretty whipped. Dinner was a small affair of pasta that night before an early bedtime.

All-in-all it was an excellent day off. I’m just proud of myself because in the midst of all that pink and cute, I didn’t throw up once. I just have this crazy feeling that that’s not the last time I’ll be there…

Halloween!

November 7, 2007

Okay, it’s a week after Halloween and I’m sufficiently over the trauma enough to write about it. Yes, it was traumatic for the parents – fun for kids and traumatic for parents.
First of all, the last time we went trick-or-treating with the kids in Tokyo was October 2004. At that time, Sydney was 2 and Bailey was 5. It was the first time that the “gai-jin” (foreigner) area of Tokyo was celebrating Halloween and it was lovely. There was a route-map put out by a few people in the Moto-Azabu area and it listed about 15 homes that would be receptive to children ringing their doorbells. It was a wonderful afternoon/evening.
This time was quite different. Apparently, Halloween has caught on in Tokyo – especially in this area. For all of October, there were pumpkin and candy displays in all of the shops – even the convenience stores. There were pumpkins for sale at the flower shops. There were even Halloween items for sale in various places – costumes, etc.
We were invited to a party at our friends the McHugh’s house. Ann and Shaun are Americans and they have three kids – their daughter is 10, their son is 7 and their little daughter is 2. They intended to have a light dinner for the kids before trick-or-treating. When I showed up with Bailey after his speed stacking class (yes, they stack plastic cups for sport…more on that another time…) there were already a few people there. Minnie arrived with Sydney a few minutes later. Ahem, I mean that Minnie arrived with TINKERBELL a few minutes later. Bailey quickly changed into his Obi Won Kenobi costume and was quickly joined by a Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker and a Darth Vader or two thrown in for good measure. Can you see the boys’ theme? Well, it turns out that there were 35 kids at Saint Ann’s house, along with about 20 adults. Next year, if she does it again, I am buying her a halo.
We all ate and laughed for about 90 minutes. Ann had pizza, a fantastic chicken salad, fruit, veggies – simple and kid-friendly stuff that was still yummy for adults. There were, of course, proper drinks (read: wine and beer) for the adults. One of the reasons Ann takes it upon herself to do this is that her apartment is right in the center of Moto-Azabu, where the expats live and the kids want to trick-or-treat. So we knew that when we went out, we’d be able to get to the proper houses right away.
Then we took to the streets. I don’t know what I expected, but this wasn’t it. There were throngs of people. No, that doesn’t adequately describe it. There were hundreds of people. There were Japanese people, European people, American people and I’m sure some Africans for good measure. There were children of all ages and a myriad of accompanying adults. The frightening thing is that since all of the kids were in costume, there really wasn’t a definitive method of necessarily telling who was who and we couldn’t tell kids apart in some cases. Some Japanese people were out with little babies dressed in wee costumes that looked mighty uncomfortable to me. But the majority of the throng was still white people looking to have a little bit of home in their away-from-home lives. In addition, we were out on city streets for heavens sake, and there were cars with which to contend, few as they were. There were a number of times where other mothers joined me in screaming at the top of my lungs “Car!! Move to the side of the street!!”
We all tried to stay together with our friends, but it really proved to be impossible as we snaked through the streets, searching for lights that were on outside of houses, indicating friendliness to trick-or-treaters. At every house we had to push the kids forward into the fray so they could muscle their way to the door and get some candy. I still have no clue if they ever uttered the words “trick or treat’ or if they ever said thank you. There was no way that Marc and I were going to get into the middle of the mix of munchkins. Thank goodness for Minnie – she was so excited to be out there with the kids that she kept a tight rein on Sydney and we could easily follow Bailey because he often checked back with us. Marc’s and my roles were to follow. It was utter chaos until we had had enough. As we neared our neighborhood, we told the kids that it was time to go inside. They hit a few houses right near ours, said goodbye to whichever few friends were near them and we scurried into the safety and relative quiet of our own home.
I had put a bowl of candy out on our front step in apology for not being home, but since our house is up a hill and not precisely on the route, only half of it was gone. I knew some people who ran out of candy after the 200th guest. My friend and landlady, Yumi, told me that they bussed in children from outlying areas because they knew that our little section of the city has all of the expats and would have the candy ready for them. This is very very different from our last experience of Tokyo Halloween. And it’s extremely different from my lovely neighborhood party and relatively sedate trick-or-treating.
So now we’re done with it for a year and I will be more mentally prepared next time. We still have a big bowl full of candy, much to my diet’s chagrin, but the kids are good at not over-doing it all at once.
I know that in the States you will now start the run-up to Thanksgiving and then the countdown ‘til Christmas. I will be thinking of you as you do it. It’s quite interesting to be away at this time of year.

Wishing you calm and peace-
Aimee (writing with a glass of wine on the desk beside her…)