from the twisted minds of snm
Nagoya’s Jiraya is back at Shirokiya, this time all the way at the back of the yatai-mura food court. I gave their takana tenmusu this time. The salted, pickled takana adds a nice flavor to the rice. I prefer this over the regular tenmusu. It adds a buck or so to the price, but I think it’s worth it.
Recommended
Three-and-a-half out of four musu-monkeys
$8.89 USD with sales tax
It’s been a year since I got the E36/8 M Coupe. In that year, I’ve put about 7600 miles on it, and the fuel consumption has settled into the 19-20 MPG (8.1-8.5km/l, 12.4-11.8l/100km) range with occasional dips and peaks. The mileage is double what the Land Cruiser gets, but the M requires 91-octane, so the price-per-gallon is a little higher. For all intents and purposes, my fuel bill has been cut in half. Roughly, that 7600 miles works out to around 390 gallons at 19.5 MPG, which means about $1660 for the year with an average price per gallon of around $4.25. Continue reading ‘A Year on the M’
Snow Peak stuff is supposedly designed to nest to maximize space effiiciency, but there isn’t a whole lot of information on their US distributor site on what fits in what. There is a little more information on the JDM site if you can read Nihingo, but nothing beats going to a fully-stocked Snow Peak store in Japan and playing with the stuff. The cookset nesting is fairly well documented – the Trek 700 or Solo fits into the Trek 900 which in turn fits into the Trek 1400 – but the mug fit is somewhat mysterious. Here are several combinations of mugs that fit within the Trek 700.
Titanium Double Wall 450 Mug, Titanium Double Wall 220 Mug, Giga Power Micro Max Titanium stove
This gives you two mugs with folding handles. If you max out the Trek 700, you’ll have enough water to overfill both mugs. The 220 is slightly small for USDM instant soup packets (Lipton, for example) that use 8-oz. of water, since that works out to 237ml, but it is perfect for JDM instant soup packets (Knorr, for example) that require 150ml/5-oz. You’ll have to use a storage sack for the stove, since the included plastic hardcase won’t fit in even the 450 mug (storage sack not shown for clarity). There is enough wiggle room for a small 35mm teaball and a reclosable bag of loose leaf tea in the 220 with the stove, and enough headspace above the mugs to fit a packet of instant soup under the Trek 700 cover. Continue reading ‘Snow Peak Trek 700 Nesting’
Packy!
Here’s a patch of Botasky from Cat Shit One 80.  Mojo Dave says Perkins is arriving next week! The woven detail is nice. Like the unit patch, I’m not sure if this one passes copyright muster…
Get your 7.62 on!
Recommended
$8 USD at Mojo Tactical
I can’t recall the name of the udon restaurant that occupied the space across Ke’eaumoku Street from HMSA, but after it unfortunately closed and the space went through various unsuccessful iterations, it is now Menchanko-tei. I seem to recall the resident food reviewer at the local newspaper doing a review and going through the history and heritage of Menchanko-tei, so I won’t bother searching for it and just reiterating it here, but if you’re interested, I’m sure this information is a couple of clicks away. Suffice it to say that they specialize in menchanko – a thick noodle ramen, motsu – innards (in this case beef), and tonkatsu – Japanese-style breaded pork cutlets. The two staff members we encountered were both native Nihongo speakers, so this isn’t one of those “Japanese-themed†Korean or Chinese-run establishments where the food looks somewhat right, but doesn’t taste right – this is the real deal. Continue reading ‘Menchanko-tei’
フゥ～!!!
The shiny black packaging and product name totally channels Sumitani Masaki’s Haado Gei.  Regular Salux Japanese nylon washcloths and this “hard” version were on sale at Don Quijote, so I spun by after work to pick one up as a replacement for my tattered, perforated one. The “hard” ones came in more muted colors instead of the pastels of the standard version, so I grabbed one and an extra for a spare, even if they were a dollar more each. Busting it out immediately for a shower when I got home, I noticed that it was a lot bigger than my old standard Salux “body towel” (that’s what they call it in katakana on the packaging). The package says 28cm by 100cm, but I don’t recall what the standard one is supposed to measure. It feels around 10-20cm longer and 5-10cm wider. Definitely easier on the shoulder joints when washing the back.  Continue reading ‘Salux Super Hard’
Not a bad HI5-0 episode… except for the bizarre plot-convenience redundant “safety” devices on the Hadji vest.
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I picked up something different from Mamaya at Shirokiya’s food level – a onigiri made from rice mixed with tarako (cod roe) and thinly cut konbu (prepared kelp). Overall flavor was very good. Rice was a little on the softish side, and the same was true for the salmon onigiri I got, so the rice was either overcooked, or not allowed to cool properly after steaming. The nori (seaweed laver) was all limp since there was no JDM-style wrapper that kept the nori separate from the rice until you opened it. I didn’t see any of the ha-togarashi onigiri available, so maybe this one replaced it as a rotating flavor. Continue reading ‘Mamaya Yaki Tarako Konbu Onigiri’
Tuned by P? Anyway this is a kit to mount your license plate to the front tow hitch, application listed for this part # is for the FR-S/BRZ. 
This avoids having screws jammed into your front bumper. Pictured is the base kit that consist of machined steel rod that threads into the cars tow loop fitting, aluminum back plate that your license bolts to with the provided stainless cap screws, and a steel joint that goes between the plate and the steel rod. The join is curved in one plane so allows tilting, it’s not a ball joint though, so if you need to tilt the plate other than strictly horizontally or vertically, you’ll need to get creative with rotating the piece. The aluminum plate has a myriad of slots so it can be mounted off center at just about any desired position.
There are other similar kits available, but one of the reasons  I went with this one is it features some add on options. Continue reading ‘PTuning License Plate Relocation Kit’
Ugh, Crunchy Roll just started streaming this movie featuring karate cutie Rina Takeda. I’ve seen two other films featuring her, the recently reviewed Dead Sushi, and the one that brought her to attention, High Kick Girl. High Kick Girl suffered from many problems, the worst of which was the gratuitous monstrous overuse of slo-mo playbacks. Karate Girl suffers from as many problems, the only one not is overusing slo-mo. The worst offense is the story is plodding, totally unimaginative, played out. All the characters are shallow and uninteresting. Continue reading ‘Karate Girl – Yes the head minion is gaijin’