I can just hear Fabio fighting the power! This mild, clear weissbier is produced by the Moortgat Brouwerij (brewery) that brings us Duvel and the various “Chouffe” beers and ales from the Brasserie d’Achouffe brewery. The Vedett name was originally used to market a lager in the 1940’s, but in the 2000’s, the brand was realigned toward a younger, upscale market with the introduction of a pilsener and the weiss I will review here. The flavor is not as heavily citrussy out of the bottle as some other weissbiers are. There is a hint of bitter over the moderate wheat flavor. The carbonation is low: You can feel a hint of bubbles on the tongue, but there is no head. It is cloudy, as a weiss should be, but has the least amount of accumulated sediments of all the bottled weissbiers I have observed. This weiss is the lightest in flavor that I’ve had so far. That’s not specifically a bad thing, as I’ve had a couple of microbrew or craft weissbiers where they smack you on the head with a hand drilling hammer with the amount of sediment and taste overburden they have. The Vedett Extra White Weiss has a good balance of flavor and body, but is on the crisper, refreshing side of the scale instead of the fuller, “meatier” (meal in a glass) side. Continue reading ‘Beer is Good – Vedett Extra White Weiss’
Archive for the 'Food' Category
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The teriyaki heritage of this seasonal burger is more pronounced in the cheeseburger version than the bacon version. The mild cheese doesn’t have the saltiness of the bacon or the tang of the mustard to offset the onion ragout and sauce, so the overall flavor is sweeter. Like its other tobikiri bretheren, it shares the same aibiki domestic beef and pork patty. It is good, just not my favorite MOS offering. Continue reading ‘MOS Tobikiri Cheese Hamburger Sandwich’
If you missed them last time around, Usagiya, the originators of the two patty style dorayaki are back at Shirokiya. You can watch the expert ladling technique as they make your dorayaki for you on the spot. Get it while you can, they were downstairs and will be there for another week, until 11/4. They also are doing a pancake item, just the straight patties with a pat of whipped butter on the side. Syrup shouldn’t be neccesary since the batter is basically castella batter which is high in sweet already.
I picked up some dehydrated apple rings for a snack and not really to bring back, since fruit in any form would probably freak out the Department of Agriculture guys. I got these over some apple chips I saw because there was only apples and salt listed as ingredients, so I figured sulfites wouldn’t be an issue. As-is out of the nearly-impossible-to-open package, they are sweet and firm and have the unmistakable apple flavor. Just for S&G, I tried rehydrating one in hot water, and it nearly returned to its original form – I “S” you not! The skin ends up being a little tough, but once rehydrated, the flesh even begins to brown like a fresh apple slice! Weird! Guess there really aren’t any sulfites to preserve the color. Continue reading ‘Astronaut Apples’
This ji-biiru from the small Oirase microbrewery and restaurant in central Aomori prefecture is somewhat widely distributed in central and East Aomori – I’ve seen it in Towada, Hirosaki, and Aomori city. Oirase is so close to Hachinohe, I’d really be surprised if you couldn’t find it there. Oirase brewery makes a pilsener, a weissen, a dark lager, and a “half and half”, which is just a mixture of the pils and lager. All of them are 5% ABV, and other than as draughts at the restaurant, they are sold in 300ml screw-top aluminum bottle-cans identical to those Coke and many other soft drink makers use on the JDM. I didn’t really have the fortitude to try all four, and being unpasteurized, they had to be kept under refrigeration which is difficult on a bus and train trip, so I opted for the pilsener. Continue reading ‘Beer is Good – Oirase Beer-kan Pilsner’
This is Kirin’s Pilsener offering. I’ve had it in a bottle before, but didn’t realize it was a mass-market product. It was better on draught, but still on the unremarkable side. It leaned toward the dry/highly attenuated side, but the decoction was weak to the point that it almost tasted like it wasn’t 100% barley malt, but had rice as an adjunct. The hopping was adequate to let you know that it was a pils, but it definitely wasn’t the rich offering that the competing Suntory Malts Premium Pilsener is. Flavor is clean and without any really bad traits, but really is somewhat plain. Whee. Continue reading ‘Heartland Beer’
MOS crafts some really good Japanese-style hamburgers. They aren’t modified from a Western recipie to conform to Japanese tastes: They are built from the ground up for domestic consumption – that’s probably why they bombed when they opened two stores in Honolulu decades ago. The Tobikiri hamburger is no exception to the domestic tastes rule. That’s not to say that if you aren’t Japanese, you won’t like this burger – it just isn’t the plain salty charred meat slab hidden beneath ketchup and mustard that you are used to. The patty is made from a mix of beef and pork (aibiki) and is topped with a thick slice of Hokkaido-produced bacon and sauteed onions with a bacon-shoyu sauce. They pride themselves on domestic sourcing, so the beef, pork, bacon, and onions are all domestic. This is reflected in the price, since the burger alone is 420-yen (around $5.38 USD). If you go to their website, they have a breakdown for the sourcing of ingredients on the product page. Continue reading ‘MOS Tobikiri Hamburger Sandwich “Atsugiri Bacon”’
WTF?!?! I’m reading the ingredients list on my lunch dessert tiramisu and the word “silicone” comes as a bit of a shock. I’ve seen food-grade silicone spray lube for use on industrial food preparation machinery, but this is the first time I’ve seen it listed as an ingredient! According to the internet, the common uses for silicone in food products is as an anti-foaming agent, but I’m not sure how it’s being used in this instance. This probably wouldn’t prevent me from buying this product again, but the use of margarine over butter would.
With plate lunch and burger prices in Hawai’i rising to the $10 USD mark, let’s see what I got for lunch today from the Seicomart convenience store in Japan. Seicomart is one of the few chains that have actual service kitchens in the back of the store, so they produce hot meals instead of only having cold lunches that the register staff can microwave for you. It took me the entire time it took me to eat my entrée to figure out what the heck it was being called because of the katakana on the label. Let’s see… that’s a “he” with a handakuten mark, followed by a little “tsu” and a “ha” with a handakuten mark and a long sound mark… “Pepper-burg don.” It was essentially a deconstructed loco moco. The flavor was really good. There was even a nice little piece of broccoli and a ragout of onions and carrot as a concession to nutritional balance. For 450-yen, equivalent to around $5.75 USD, it was a good value, considering it was between “mini” and full-sized plate lunch in size, but priced less than a mini. Continue reading ‘Cheap Lunch’
Pours a dark brown, medium heavy head, good persistant carbonation. A nice smooth dark, probably a good introduction to dark beers for someone not used to them. It’s got a nice mellow roastyness that is not too strong. There is not a overwhelming smokyness and the bitterness is well moderated. Easy drinking crisp, and tasty, damn I just downed one with my dinner just now and am feeling happy.
My final rating is probably colored by my buzzness and feeling of well being of having this with dinner after a hour+ ride, 4 out of 4 relaxed out monkeys.