Cheese, Book, Restaurant, Thing #24
Japanese goat cheese, convenience store obsessions, the perfect(?!) planner
Hello readers and eaters,
Very nice to see you in 2024.
Cheese: Cheese? While in Japan? Heck yes. In between various meals of sushi, tonkatsu, tempura, yakitori, okonomiyaki and more during a recent long-planned vacation, I was extremely stoked to visit Cheese No Koe nearby Tokyo’s Kiyosumi Gardens (go there). It sells cheese from Hokkaido; the cheesemonger explained that there are 300 cheeses made in Japan and over 150 of them come from Hokkaido. It makes sense — I was in Hokkaido 7 years ago and felt like I was in a fairytale of dairy, butter, and ice cream while there. When there, I did try some cheese and… did not love. The cheese industry felt very fledging.
It’s wonderful to see how far it’s come. The first photo above was only part of the selection at Cheese No Koe! We visited the store on our last day so there was a limited amount of cheese I could 1) consume and 2) bring back on the plane. I honed in on the one goat cheese the store had (not the season explained the monger… but also, Hokkaido is cow land). We brought it back to our hotel to eat with rice crackers purchased from FamilyMart—I’ll save my homage for Japanese convenience store snacks for another time… but the love runs deep. It was a great cheese! Chalky, lactic, and just a subtle tang. It would stand its ground on any cheese plate.
I also purchased a Parm-like, 3-year aged cheese which I stuffed in my carry-on. I’ve been eating it during major middle-of-the-night jet lag bouts. It’s fine… but ain’t no Parm.
Book: Convenient Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is a short, quirky novel about a 36-year-old Japanese woman who doesn’t fit in with society’s expectations of her. She doesn’t understand social cues, has no sexual or love interests, and has no career ambition beyond her job at a convenience store. She loves this job and everything about convenience stores themselves (I get it!). It’s a good book for when you want something quick and a little weird. It’ll still makes you smile.
I bought this in the English-language section Tsutaya Books as part of my tradition to always buy a book at an independent bookstore when I’m traveling. Then, I write on the first page where/when I bought it. Tsutaya oozes “cool”—within the store there are art exhibitions, pop-up stores, and of course, books.
Restaurant: During this extremely aggressive Eating January (see: yakitori, etc.), another very exciting food thing happened. Washingtonian magazine debuted its 2024 edition of 100 Very Best Restaurants, and I contributed about a dozen entries for it. I’ve read Washingtonian since I was a tween—my parents have had a subscription forever and growing up, I always read it at their kitchen table. So it feels personally/professionally fulfilling to get to contribute to it (yes, I now have my own subscription). While any best-of list is subjective and there are many things to quibble about, this list takes a tremendous amount of effort and thought. The small Washingtonian food team visits a massive collection of restaurants to land on this list—trust me, there were many restaurants I visited on behalf of this list that did not make the cut. Here are the 5 dishes I’m still thinking about from these visits:
Garlic knots from Reveler’s Hour. This is basically a croissant loaded with garlic and parsley (note: pastas are pricy here. They’re very good but you’re spending more than you feel like you should. I’d return for a snack and drink at the bar—great service).
Hummus at Chloe. I was prepared to be underwhelmed by this restaurant but dang, that hummus was a party I was very happy to attend: ground veal, buttered pistachios, pickled radish.
Fried pumpkin at Baan Siam. A crackly outside-creamy inside dish you can’t stop eating.
Salted duck yolk egg ice cream from Queen’s English. Sweet, savory, luscious, everything.
Pepperpot from Cane. Now THIS is a braise. Cinnamon-y, fall apart-y meat that has all the right things going on.
Thing: Hobonichi Techo, where have you been all my life? I’ve written about my obsessive to-do list strategies and I’ve now improved upon them thanks to this cult-favorite day planner.
Here’s the problem it solved for me: I wanted a planner in which there was one date on each page so that I could write my daily to-do list, but also write things on future dates if I knew there was something I needed to do, say 2 weeks from now (ie noting down when summer camp registration opens so I can sign-up). I didn’t need a weekly or a monthly planner, and I didn’t want lines. Just a blank page, with a date on time. OH! And it needed to be a lay-flat so that it stays open on my desk. But also… not too big in size.
I researched a lot of planners, and found that many of them were actually pretty awful in terms of what they were promising to do. No, I don’t want inspirational quotes! No, I don’t want a week at a glance with no space to write! I want a seamless, helpful, spare calendar to help get my life organized.
I’m all in on this. Happy to be a member of the Hobonichi fan club. Any readers also fans?