Fire Down Below, and an Unexpected Taste Sensation

Our last act in the Yokohama Chinatown was to pick up some badly needed toilet paper. Our apartment had been thoughtfully stocked with a bag prior to our arrival, and we haven't needed to buy TP on our own until now. We found a pretty good deal at a pharmacy by the train station, but didn't look at the name until after our purchase.

See for yourself:



Now, let's not jump to conclusions. The first entry for anemone in the dictionary refers to a kind of flower--no doubt the very flowers depicted on the TP bag.

So the people at HOXY Japan who chose this name probably failed to realize that the average English speaker tends to associate the word "anemone" not with pretty flowers, but rather with the sea creature known chiefly for its tentacles covered by stinging, poisonous nematocysts.

Not exactly the sort of thing you want to be rubbing you know where.

In other news, today we had a burger at Becker's. Some of my coworkers recommended this place to me, and in the words of Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction, "That is one tasty burger!" (We just watched PF the other day. Kate had never seen it before--scandalous!)

But that's not the best part of Becker's. After I'd eaten that tasty burger, I looked up at the menu posted on the wall, and discovered to my surprise and joy that it advertised, none other than, that great staple of Canadian cuisine....



Oh yes, I have discovered the poutine in Japan.

Now, how is this Japanese poutine? A bit expensive, and smaller than the stuff back home, of course. But the taste?

The cheese is just normal mozzarella (I believe), and of course they didn't use cheese curds (but so few places do even in Canada).

The gravy was on the thin side, and I felt it was too heavily flavoured with spices. In my opinion, real poutine gravy should be distilled essence of dead animal--pure, unadulterated unhealthiness.

The best thing about this poutine, however, and a consideration which outweighs all the negative points, is that the cheese and gravy are evenly distributed throughout the poutine, covering all the fries equally. In Canada, no matter where you get it (even the Belgian Fries on Commercial Drive), poutine comes with the cheese and gravy dumped unceremoniously on top of the fries, and as a result eating potato, gravy, and cheese in an even manner becomes a difficult and uncertain art. There is no such stress when consuming the Japanese poutine.