Japanese Food in St Paul

Seems like Sushi resturants are popping up everywhere in the Twin Cities. Recently a new one named Giapponese opened in Woodbury near our home and I'm told another one named Akita Sushi and Hibachi is on the way. These two join Sushi Tango which opened last Summer in Woodbury. What is going on?

For the last year Linda and I have been very happy with Murasaki in Stillwater, MN or would make the trip into downtown St Paul to Sakura or the St Paul location of the long time favorite, Fujiya. I don't really consider myself a huge sushi lover. I'd rather have a bowl Japanese noodles or Tempura if given the choice. But I will also happily eat sushi from Target for a fast lunch so I'm no sushi snob.

We've already eliminated Sushi Tango from our list. The service was terrible 2 of the 3 times we've been there. There was nothing spectacular about the sushi or the courses like tempura to over come the apathy of the wait staff. Too bad as it's the closest to our house.

As I said before we really like Murasaki. It's a no thrills restaurant with a good selection of Japanese dishes and good sushi. It reminds me a lot of typical family owned restaurants in Japan. Although I'm pretty sure no one there is Japanese. Hey, that's ok.

The new kid on the block is Giapponese. We went there a week ago and have already been back. I love this place already! It's a hip place with a mod decor. They don't have a big selection of Japanese hot dishes (not as in Minnesota hotdish silly!) but the sushi is excellent. Monday we sat at the sushi bar which is something we never do. I guess we like to look at each other when we eat. Well this time we sat at the bar and got to interact with the sushi chef who, yes, is actually Japanese! But the best part about Giapponese is that they serve Japanese beers on tap! I've never seen that anywhere in North America let alone Minnesota. BTW they also have Fat Tire on tap which is also something you don't find around here. I'm really pulling for Giapponese to make it.

Although technically in Minneapolis there is also a new sushi spot just north of the U of M campus called Obento ya. I met a few friends there for dinner. The unagi was cold and they had no beer license. That place is dead to me.

If you haven't been to a sushi resturant you may want to learn a little from this video before you go. If you've every been to a real Japanese restaurant you will find it very funny.

Japanese Language Proficiency Test: RESULTS

I passed! やった！

I'm really really amazed. As I wrote in my previous post, I didn't think I had a very good chance at passing this test. 50/50 at best. But I ended up doing exactly what was needed to pass. As suspected the listening part was my worst of the 3 at 50%. But the writing/vocab was totally shocking - 93%!! The grammer part was also good enough at around 80%. Overall I got a 70% and needed only 60% to pass. I'm very proud of this test because it's so official. This is the Japanese governments indication of skill. Now for the humbling part, this is by far the easiest of the 4 tests. It's kindergarten. The next step, level 3, is not just a little harder but is probably more like 2-3 times more difficult.

The scan is of the test results but I also got a very nice certificate, suitable for framing.

Japanese Language Proficiency Test

For about a year I have been taking a class in Japanese once a week at work. That plus the 10+ years of dabbling in study lead to me deciding that I should take the JLPT this year.
The test is give once a year at various locations around the world. All on the same day mind you. As luck would have it, they give the test in Chicago not far from where Linda is pursuing her MBA. So it was really easy to drive down to Chicago and stay with her. While she was studying I was cramming for the test. The one snag in the plan was a snow storm in Chicago that forced us to leave quickly Thursday evening instead of the planned Friday departure.

There are actually 4 tests given depending on the takers skill level. I took the easiest one; 4. The test was 3 hours long and had three sections, vocabulary, listening, and grammar and was 100% in Japanese - no English. I knew going in that the listening would be very difficult and would be my worst section. So I really had to do well in the other 2 to compensate. My prediction came true, out of 16 question in the listening portion I completely understood 3 and partially understand half of the rest of them. But that was not unexpected so it didn't throw me off. I thought I did near perfectly on the vocabulary which also includes reading the kanji characters. At the beginner level we are expected to know about 100. I easily pass that part. The grammar part was more difficult but I only guessed on a few.

The results won't be in till March which is totally ridiculous. We answered on those computer score cards with the 'fill in the dot with 2H pencil' format. They should have been able to scan them at the door instead of waiting 3 months. Weird! A passing grade (which all anyone is looking for) is 60%. I feel I have about a 50/50 change of just barely passing due to the listening part. I did the math. If I get 85% or greater in BOTH the other sections I will pass.

So the fair question to as is; why? Why take the test. No, there's no true need at work, though I have worked with Guidant's marketing department in Tokyo. It IS considered an official test so there is some value on a resume. That is if I apply to a Japanese company that even knows with the JLPT is. No, mostly I just want to see where I'm at with the language and to motivate my study. If I don't pass I won't be totally disappointed - or surprised for that matter. I always assumed it was a long shot to pass.

Either way, I'll post the results in March.

Tokyo #14; Shinjuku Alley

This shot was taken in a narrow back alley of Shinjuku, Tokyo. There were many restaurants crammed in along the way. Roy pointed out one that is famous (or infamous) for serving all sorts of gross things. I wanted to stop in but I was overwelmingly out voted. I didn't notice at the time, but I love that the obasan (old lady) stuck her head out the door as I snapped the shot.

Tokyo #13: Station of the Future

This subway station looks like it could have been a set for 2001; A Space Odyssey. It's obviously quite new. The walls are glossy and signs are all very graphic and high tech looking. Like the movie it shows a hopeful future - for public transportation.

Tokyo #12: Big Buddha

Ok, so I've been a little light on the tourist attractions. Here is one of the big ones - literally. We traveled about an hour south of Tokyo to the seaside city of Kamakura to see the 37 foot bronze statue of Buddha as well of some large temples and shines. We once again walked way to much. We bought a map of the area and figured it was an easy walk from one place to another however we found out it was drastically not to scale.
After Kamakura I decided to take us a like farther south to the island of Enoshima. The weather started to get kinda rainy so we only stayed of a short time before making our way back to Tokyo. A long day.

Tokyo #11: Miss Okinawa

While walking about in Shinjuku we came across Miss Okinawa. She was very pretty. So were the other 3 Miss Okinawas which made us wonder if they were really pageant winners or just hired beauties there to promote the island. Actually there was a lot of Okinawa things going on in Shinjuku that day.

Tokyo #10: Dinner

After one long hot day of walking around Tokyo, Linda and I dragged our sore feet back to our neighborhood to look for a nice place to have an ice cold beer. We ended up peeking into a nice looking izakaya called Umisen Yamasen which I believe means ocean spirit mountain spirit. Before we knew it the restaurant obasan (old lady) was seating us. We were the only people in the place of about 8 tables. Each table had a charcoal grill on it with large vents overhead to carry away the smoke and, more importantly, the massive amounts of heat coming from the habachi. We ordered up the combo platter of beef, fish, and vegetables - all uncooked. We then grilled everything ourselves. The fish were a bit disconcerning because they were whole, although they were completely gutted and looked very fresh. The problem was that we could not determine when they were cooked enough to eat. The beef and sausages were more familiar. Everything was delicious and the whole experience was novel and fun. FYI, I have a couple free beer coupons to the place if you're ever in the Shibuya/Shinsen area.

Tokyo #9: Toilet Part 2

As promised in a previous post, here is our second bathroom experience. This was in Shinagawa train station. As we were getting off the Yamanote train, I read a sign in Japanese saying 'Shinagawa Tip Toilet' in Katakana. That was enough to get me curious. It turned out that it was a restroom with an honor box to throw money into. But that was only the 'tip' of the iceberg with this restroom. The men's room was what I would expect to find on the starship Enterprise. It was all maple wood, white, chrome, and loads of back lit panels. It was so cool. The hand air dryers were such that you would stick you hands into a slot then slowly withdrawn them so that the water squeeged off. Just like coming out of a car wash dryer. It worked so slick! I tried to linger so I could get a picture but every time it vacated someone would walk in.

When I finally left Linda was waiting for me and was excited to tell me how cool the ladies room was! She said that there was a display panel that indicated which stalls were vacate or occupied so that a women would know which one to go to. I bet the Enterprise doesn't even have that one.

It's no wonder that they needed to ask for tips to use the bathroom. The station must have spent a fortune on it. I now realize that we were so in awe that we forgot to throw in a tip. Gomenasai!

Tokyo #8: ranKing ranQueen

In Shibuya station Linda and I found ranKing ranQueen. The premise of the store is that everything is ranked by it's popularity in it's category. So for instants you can pick up the #2 mineral water or the #4 book, etc... But they took it well beyond the popularity of popular things like water, books, DVDs, etc. I picked up the #1 callous remover and Linda picked up the #1 makeup remover. It was unclear to me (and others in the blogesphere) what the ranking is based on. Are they really polling people each day on their favorite ramen noodles? My guess would be that they put up 5 products in a catagory then monitor the sales to generate the ranking the following week. Just a guess. I would gave ranKing ranQueen my #2 shopping experiences during the trip. According to this CNN article, this particular shop gets 20,000 visitors a day. On this day Linda was the #1 customer .

Tokyo #7: Crotches

As Linda and I were resting our weary feet along Omotesando Dori (street) in Harajuku, I spotted this photographer and subject. Why is this man taking a picture of the guy's crotch? Usually I would chalk it up to a bad coincidence of angle and timing but he brought over another person to the same spot and took the same photo. Weird. But that's Harajuku for you.

Tokyo #6; Brides and Goths

While we were looking around Yoyogi Park and the beautiful Meiji Shine, we got to see a couple weddings taking place in the Shine. Or at least the wedding photos because that's all we saw going on. The bride and groom were in very tranditional kimonos that were amazing. Note the subtle pattern in her white robe. It was really warm that day so the bride was often shuffled to the shade and the waiting portable air conditioner. We felt very bad for her because she looked miserable. Plus, because Meiji Shrine is such a tourist attraction, there were quite a few people gawking and taking photos - including us. But the couple had to know that there would be such attention at the shine and probably liked it. It's their 15 minutes of fame so I didn't feel that bad. Linda and I were trying to decide if her hair was completely a wig or if it was her own. Linda thought it was a combination. I thought it was a wig.



In stark contrast to the bride in a traditional weddding kimono were the young girls just outside Meiji Shine dressed up in maid outfits and other fetish wear. Dressing in costumes has been a fad in Japan for a long time and Harajuku has always been a gathering point. In fact, these girls (and occasionally boys) were the inspiration for the Gwen Stafani song 'Harajuku Girls'. This area is probably one of the more bizarre examples of the old world and new world of Tokyo coming together. It's also my favorite spot in Tokyo.

Tokyo #5: Loco Roco

One of the things on my shopping list for Japan was the PSP video game, Loco Roco. It's only available in Japan although I've since learned that it's coming to the US Sept 5th. I still like having the Japanese version - it's more authentic and it makes me practice reading Japanese!
The game has become one of my all time favorites. Not that the game itself is so great, its ok. It's the combination of game, graphics, and music that make so perfect. The style is very simple and graphic but it fit the quirky gameplay. You only use the right and left buttons to tilt the world and make Loco Roco roll right or left. But it's the music and sound effects that really shine. I've had the songs on my mind ever since I first played it. They're wonderfully annoying. I'm not the only one that is so effected. My friend Roy in Tokyo blogged about the infectious music as well. At first I thought they were singing in Japanese but actually it's all made up.
The follow YouTube video will show you what I'm talking about. Warning! If you play it more then once you will be humming it for the rest of the day!

Tokyo Trip #4: Tsukiji

Tsukiji Fish Market is one of the big tourist spots in Tokyo. What says Japan more then tons and tons of fresh fish as well as every other imaginable (and unimaginable) sea animal. Tsukiji is the largest fish market in Japan - it's huge. All the guide books say that you have to be there by 6am or it will be all over, especially the tuna auctions. It's a real working market so the tourists have to be constantly aware of the men on their motorized carts buzzing around at high speeds. The man in the photo is inspecting the fish. He and the others would walk up and down the rows, flip up a flap of tuna flesh, shine a flashlight on it, then move on. It seems to me that they were doing more 'busy work' then actually inspecting.

The second photo is of an ice block making machine. It really caught my eye because, by the look of it, it's been faithfully churning out ice blocks for probably 100 years. I believe the sign on front is the pricing.

After the market we had tempura soba (noodles) at a nearby stall along the street. Usually people go for the freshest sushi on Earth in the resturants surrounding Tsukiji, but neither of us were up for raw fish for breakfast at 7am.

Tsukiji on Wikipedia
My photos on Flickr

Tokyo Trip #3: Toilet, Part 1

Home bath rooms and toilets are far more high tech then anything in the US and our apartment was no different. Please note that I said bathroom and toilet separately because in Japan they are their own rooms. They may not even be close to each other.
Most all Japanese home toilets have a hand washing bowl on top of the tank as you can see in the photo. With each flush, new water first goes through the top where you can rinse your hands, then is collected in the main tank as normal . This way there is no wasted water. Why isn't this used here in America? The flush handle has a large flush and a small flush for either solid or liquid flushes - you with me? Again, ingenious!

Our apartment toilet also had the high tech option of a build in bidet complete with a Captain Kirk control pad on the side. There were not one but 2 different stream options as can be seen in the icons - with the stop button on the left. It was a first for both of us. Linda is a convert, I am not.




The separate bath area was no less high tech. It had a typical Japanese bath, or furu, and a shower head with the entire room being water proof. The bath is really deep but only big enough to sit in, no stretching out here. The bath was filled once for the week and because we showered before entering, it was always clean. Again, in the hopes of saving water. The contol planel on the wall could control the temp of the bath and the shower separately and the black panel on the top was the LCD TV. There was also a duplicate control panel in the kitchen so that we could warm up the bath when we got up in the morning. Great for those cold winter mornings! Once again Linda was totally sold on the Japanese style bath however I stuck to just the shower. We both liked the bath TV.


Yes, the title says part 1 because I will be posting more about toilets.

Tokyo Trip #2: Apartment

Our friend Dan's Japanese cousin, Harumi, graciously helped us get an apartment for the week in the trending area of Shibuya. The apartment was a short 4 minute walk from Shinsen subway stations but it also ended up being only about 10 minutes by foot to the much larger and better connected Shibuya station. Chances are that if you've seen a photo of a bustling Tokyo street it might have been right outside Shibuya station. We ending up using the closer Shinsen station only twice. Shinsen would be a great area to live. Every day we walked by many nice resturants and bars (more on those later) and there was also a good sized market.










Our apartment was small but quite comfortable. Actually it was small by US standards but fairly typical of a Tokyo apartment. As a general rule, it's important to distinguish Tokyo from the rest of Japan just like New York standards of living must be distinguished from the rest of America. It was far better then either of the previous places I had lived in while working in Japan. We even had our own clothes washer.
It was such a bonus to have an apartment instead of a hotel room because it allowed Linda to get a feel for how it is to live in Japan. She's been in hundreds of hotel rooms so that experience would have been about the same as everywhere else. The apartment also ended up being far cheaper then a Tokyo hotel would have been. We were extremely lucky to have Harumi san find it for us.

Tokyo Trip #1: Portland Layover

Before we got to Tokyo, we did a layover in Porland, OR to visit my high school friends Jeff and Lisa Steffl. We arrived Saturday afternoon and after a few hours at their home we headed out onto the Columbia River on their beautiful boat. Their 3 kids joined us as well. We cruised up the river a ways and beached on a sand bar with
50 or so other boaters. It was a great afternoon and we enjoyed cracking a few beers and talking with old friends. The next morning we were off for Tokyo. An all to short stop but so worth the little extra effort to get there. Jeff has bug me for 20 year about when I was going to visit. I'm slow but I eventually come through.

Tokyo Trip

On July 24 Linda and I took a trip to Tokyo. For me it was a return trip. 12 years ago I taught English in Japan and have not been back since. Linda had never been to Japan. We walked all over Tokyo for 6 days to look at things really old and super modern. That is the great thing about Japan and Tokyo, they embrace the future while holding on to the past.

Instead of the typical cronological travel log, I've decided to instead post some of the more interesting things we saw in no particular order. They will probably not be very 'touristy' and at times might not even seem relevent, but hopely it will be an insight into what I find fascinating about the city I call my third home. It was most definitely be visual. I've got 4 gigbits of photos!