☺︎Restaurant Review 1☺︎

        On December 17th, I went to a Italian restaurant 'GRIP ORGANIC' with my friend. It located in Minato-mirai, the 1st floor in Red Brick. As the outside are popular as its christmas market, the restaurant was also decorated with christmas trees. Actually we had no plan where we ate in, but this restaurant attracted us by its great location and cute sign board. 

           It had its shop for take-out drinks, like smoothie and waffles with cute toppings next to the eat-in restaurant. When we entered into there, a staff came and asked our name without greeting:( We went around 20 o'clock and it was on week day, so probably it was relatively less crowded. There are many tables both inside and outside, we seated outside table, with all transparent wall, after waiting about 15 minutes. There, we could enjoy both interiors of the restaurant and the christmas tree outside. Of course it was kept with comfortable temperature. The atmosphere was so good with christmas songs, but it was a little bit dark for me. Almost all of the tables were for 2 or 3 people, so it was not suit for groups to seat together. 

           The staff who brought us to the table recommended some drink menu, especially wines, just after we seated. He showed us those recommended drink menu (handwritten!) as well as ordinary one. 

      

Drink menu

Recommended drink menu

            But my friend chose Mango juice (¥500), and I choose espresso (¥400) for after the dished. I thought drinks were little bit expensive. After we ordered drinks, a staff brought dinner menu. Both drink and dinner menu are colorful and divided into some categories, so they were easy to see. I thought that it was better to combine drinks and dinners menu so that we could choose drinks suited for dinners. 

Mango juice

          There were no particular recommendation in dinner menu. I chose vongole rosso (¥1,400) as usual, and my friend chose pasta with fully ripe tomato and two kinds of cheese (¥1,500). Dishes were served in about 15 minutes, I didn't think it was too long because we enjoyed talking, so probably it could be felt too long time if I was alone. The dishes looked very delicious! My friend said that they used selected plates which suited for the dishes. For example, my vongole rosso was on the plate that shaped like a shell. The taste was good with the best temperature! But the taste of tomato was too deep, so I wanted to taste clam much more. Overall, both the quality and the quantity were good, and suited for the price. 

Dinner menu

Vongole Rosso 

Tomato and cheese pasta

          This restaurant didn't have bathroom, so I went to that of Red Brick.Unfortunately it was not so clean, but there are many stocks of paper. I hope that was because of the time we went. After 21 o'clock, shops were closed except restaurants in Red Brick. 

 ☺︎GRIP ORGANIC☺︎

 YOKOHAMA RED BRICK Bldg.2 1F

1-1-2 SHINKO NAKA-KU YOKOHAMA KANAGAWA

official site : http://dining-grip.com/griporganic/

Organization to diminish food waste☺︎

　There are many organization against food waste. Today, I compare two of them, Food For All and Second Harvest Japan. Which do you think is better???☺︎

☺︎Main activity

 ☆Food for all

    • Offer dishes for homeless people, disadvantage people, and struggling students

    • Food bank

    • Eco garden

    Their main activity is providing food for those who cannot have enough food like homeless people. 

 ☆Second Harvest Japan

    • Correct foods loss and give them to those who have no food to eat

    • Distribute meals at Ueno park

    • Provide emergency groceries

    • Advocacy and Development

    Second Harvest Japan is the very first organization to start Food Bank activity in Japan. And they develop it.

☺︎How to deal with the problem of food waste

 ☆Food for all

    They makes Food bank activity the solution for food waste. and they give them homeless, disadvantage people and struggling students.

 ⭐︎Second Harvest Japan

    Food bank activity is their solution for food waste.

    

☺︎How to help this org

 ☆Food for all

    monetary donation or donation for their charity shop. We can do both on the website.

 ⭐︎Second Harvest Japan

    • monetary donation

    • volunteer

    • support as a company

    • food donation

☺︎Which is better org?

    I think Second Harvest Japan is better organization because they develop Food bank activity as well as Food bank activity. 

FOOD FOR ALL

　→http://foodforall.org.uk

SECOND HARVEST JAPAN

　→http://2hj.org

News Paper Article about obesity pets☺︎

     Recently, I read an article about pet's obesity.  Pets like dogs and cats have serious problem in eating habits because of their owners. A lot of pets' owners tend to feed their pets human dish, even sweets. Especially on holiday, for instance thanksgiving, owners give them turkey, green beans, sweet potatoes or pumpkin. One of the reason for this is the spread of SNS. Pets' owners take photos of their pet with dishes for twitter or Instagram. Those accounts have followers much more than their owners'. As a solution of this tendency, pets' obesity, there are canine boot camps and website about healthy food for pets. Fortunately, some pets succeed in their diet, so it's not impossible to lose their weight. Almost pets' owners don't know that their pets are obesity. It is important to see their health carefully.

     As the word 'Debuneko' is popular, many people loves overweight animals look cute. I think it is also a kind of reasons for obesity. Like cosmetic surgery for pets, feeding not-for-animal food is not ethical. To keep their pets healthy is owners' obligation. It is necessary to check whether they can take care well or not before have pets.☺︎

'For Pets, It's Fat Thursday With Pies, Dressing Under the Table' from THE WALLSTREET JOURNAL [A7] (Nov 26, 2015)

RESULT OF QUIZ

I got 18 point. It's 72% correct.




It was really difficult for me. I didn't know how many words there are about food I didn't know.

• What is Allspice?
  →one of spices. It named after its smell. It smells like the mixture of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.

• What is grits?
  →porridge made from corn. It is eaten mainly in Southern area of U.S.

PASTA⭐︎

Last Tuesday, I went to Pasta shop, Jolly Pasta, with my lovely classmates!
We could reach there directly from Sangen-jaya station.

From a lot of pasta menu, I ate Tomato and cheese pasta because my friends recommended me it♪
It had much cheese, but thanks to a little red pepper, it taste refreshing!!
I loved it☺︎♡


                                      



                                     




And I ate espresso and cookie ice-cream.
It tasted bitterer than I expected. I finished the lunch with light taste!

I want to try soup pasta with crabs next time!

Thanks my friends♡

a short funny animation about ancient Roman life

This is very funny video about ancient Roman life. This was made by BBC, and this series have a lot of video about 10-year-old boy's life in various regions.

It specialize not only food, but also their life. So I think that it is suit for my book's theme.

My recent Italian dish♡

Last week, I went to Italian restaurant, PONTE VECCHIO, near the Aoyama Gakuin with my friend.
I ate vongole rosso because I love Asari so much!
Unfortunately I did't take any photo of the shop but it had really good atmosphere and was very quiet.
Actually this shop is on the basement floor, so I felt a little difficulty to find out it.
For the lunch, we can eat about 10 kinds of pasta with ¥1,000 ~ ¥1,500.
BUT! I recommend you vongole rosso for all of you guys♪

If you wanna know more, click here!

Culinary History of Rome

I read the first chapter of my book. So I'd like to summarize it and share with you!
In the first chapter, I learned about Roman Culinary History, divided into 3 parts.



The first part is about its culinary in The Age of King(753-509BC)

Roman food culture In this era was highly depend on Roman soldiers. After soldiers became the leader of Rome instead of herdsman, citizens in Rome came to eat soldiers food, which was less quality than herdsman's food. In peacetime, they concentrated on agriculture, and in ear time, they ate better food to lead themselves to the trump. But soon later, since some of soldiers became to give weight on agriculture than war, conflicts between them often broke out.

The second part is The  Republic era(509-7 BC)

As the agriculture developed, Roma began the war between Greece. After defeated Greece, Rome invaded around itself. Fertile farmlands like Sicily made Rome richer and richer with grain, olive trees and grape vines.

The third part is about during The Empire era(7BC-AD476)

Rome became one of the biggest metropolis in the world. Roman table used various kind of foods from wide spread its colonies. But Roman domestic production didn't grow so high because of the climate. So for the Roman farmers, irrigation system was very important. In the era, most of farmers were colonies and slaves.

Throughout reading this chapter, I learned how it was important that who ruled Rome and also, how different their food were depended on the ruler.

About my Book

Book name : AROUND THE ROMAN TABLE

Author : PATRIC FAAS

Publisher : The University of Chicago Press

This book is divided in two parts and about Roman food culture and history. 

The first part is about Roman table history with some quotes of story in the era and some general menus for courses from ordinary meal to special.

And in the second part, we can see some simple recipes of those dishes shown in the first part and they are arranged to somehow contemporary.

Actually, I don’t know about ‘Roman Foods’ so much, but this book seems really interesting for the recipes and some quotes of story. I want to understand what is ‘Roman Foods’ and introduce some interesting informations here for you.