Twentythree

And one more cooking hack will make your dashimaki tamago fluffier still.

In terms of ingredients, dashimaki tamago is an incredibly simple dish. A type of Japanese omelet, you can make it with just three ingredients: eggs, water, and dashi (a stock made from fish and kelp that’s found in all sorts of Japanese dishes). The cooking process is also pretty straightforward, or maybe paradoxically straightforward, since dashimaki tamago is basically an omelet that you wrap (maku) back over itself multiple times, using a rectangular frying pan if you want the traditional squared-off shape.

But just because dashimaki tamago is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy to make. The process can be surprisingly delicate, and while anyone with minimal cooking skills will be able to make dashimaki tamago that’s edible, it takes a deft hand to make dashimaki tamago with a wonderfully fluffy texture throughout its layers. So when we heard rumors of an unexpected ingredient substitution that’s supposed to make dashimaki tamago extra fluffy, we were all attentive ears and growling stomachs.

First, let’s run through the basics of how to make dashimaki tamago. You’ll need:
● 3 eggs
● 1 tablespoon of dashi (we used the type called shirodashi)
● 3 tablespoons of water

Mix them all up in a bowl, and also heat up an oiled frying pan on medium heat. Pour 1/3 of the mixture into the pan, give it a little mix with cooking chopsticks, and once it’s half-cooked, roll it to the front half of the pan. Reoil the now vacant part of the pan, add half of the ingredient mixture, and repeat the cooking and rolling process, then do it all again for the remainder of the mixture.

So what’s the cooking hack substitution we’re trying today? Using sparkling/carbonated water instead of regular water.

We heard about this idea through Asahi TV’s news/talk program Tantei! Knight Scoop, and then our reporter Natsuki Gojo headed into the SoraKitchen to test it out. Aside from the water swap, there’s only one other change to make, which is that when using the sparkling water, you mix the egg and dashi together first, and then add in the sparkling water right before cooking.

OK, let’s see if this sparkling water swap really is such a bright idea!

▼ Regular water (left) and sparkling water (right)

Starting with how the mixture of the three ingredients looked prior to cooking, as you can see in the above photo there’s a noticeable amount of fizz introduced by the sparkling water…at least initially. After stirring, though, the bubbles died down, and the regular and sparkling mixtures were equally calm.

Once Natsuki poured them into the pan, though, the bubbles came back to the sparkling mix in a big way.

Once both dashimaki tamago were done cooking, we laid them out side by side on a plate, and sure enough, the sparkling version had cooked up bigger and plumper, despite both versions having the exact same volume of ingredients.

Next we sliced off a piece from each to examine their cross-sections, and were happy to see that the sparkling water substitution had produced exactly the sort of results we’d been hoping for!

The regular-water version had congealed towards the bottom of the roll, but the sparkling dashimaki tamago had maintained a nice network of little air pockets while cooking, and those had made it fluffier. It wasn’t just the texture that had been enhanced, either. The sparkling dashimaki tamago was juicier too.

Emboldened by this success, Natsuki decided to whip up one more batch of dashimaki tamago to test out another rumor she’d heard for further fluffiness. This time, instead of using three tablespoons of sparkling water, she used 175 milliliters (5.9 ounces), or roughly 10 tablespoons.

Unsurprisingly, this resulted in even more bubbles at the pre-mix and cooking stages, and Natsuki found herself worried that the mixture might be too watery to cook up properly.

But those fears turned out to be unnecessary, and this high-volume sparkling water version was the fluffiest and juiciest of all three she cooked.

▼ Sparkling water dashimaki tamago (left) and high-volume sparkling water dashimaki tamago (right)

Natsuki herself is quick to point out that she doesn’t have a ton of experience cooking her own dashimaki tamago, so we’re not saying that using sparkling water is a must for good results. At the same time, her relative inexperience proves that you don’t have to be an expert to benefit from this simple ingredient swap, so if you’re looking to make your Japanese-style omelets as fluffy as you can, this is definitely worth giving a shot.

Reference: Asahi TV, Ninben
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Alk Road finds a way to turn a negative into a positive.

There are a lot of curry restaurants to choose from in Tokyo, but Spice Curry Alk Road stands out from many of its rice-and-roux rivals by virtue of its outstanding customer reviews. Diners are so satisfied that they’ve made Alk Road one of the top 100 curry restaurants in Tokyo based on average review scores on Tabelog, Japan’s most popular user-submitted restaurant site.

Alk Road is just a one-minute walk from Iidabashi Station, so you could say that it has a great location…but as we found out on our visit, you could also make an argument that it has the worst location for a curry restaurant in Tokyo. If you head to the restaurant’s address, you’ll find yourself in front of this building.

And yes, you will see the word “curry,” written in Japanese as カレー, on the signage.

But the writing in front of “curry,” 上等? They’re the characters for “Joto,” as in “Joto Curry,” a curry restaurant chain that is not the independent Alk Road.

So if you were to amble up here, you might think that Alk Road has gone out of business and been replaced by a Joto branch. A restaurant closing down and then a different one with the same specialty moving into the same spot isn’t all that unusual in Japan, since it lowers the renovation costs that you might have with, say, converting a yakiniku restaurant into a conveyor belt sushi joint.

However, if you look down at the entrance to Joto Curry, you’ll see that Alk Road’s name is written next to the door…

…and both Joto Curry’s and Alk Road’s names are written on the noren (cloth banner) hung above the entrance.

Things get even more confusing when you step inside, since the first floor is clearly a Joto Curry branch. If you want to find Alk Road, what you have to do is turn to your right…

…and follow the arrows pointing you up the stairs to the second floor…

…and then, finally, you’ll have arrived at Alk Road!

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Yes, Alk Road has the confusing misfortune of being a curry restaurant that you can only access by first passing part-way through a different curry restaurant, and one that’s part of a famous chain to boot.

This might seem like a recipe for constant animosity between the upstairs/downstairs neighbors, but it turns out that Joto Curry and Alk Road aren’t exactly direct competitors. Whereas Joto’s specialty is Japanese-style curry, Alk Road’s focus is on Indian-style curry, which the second-floor restaurant’s chef makes from scratch every day.

While they’re both variations on the same basic concept (curry and rice), they use different kinds of roux, and different kinds of rice too – long-grain Indian rice for Alkroad’s curry, and short-grain Japanese rice for Joto Curry’s. So among diners in Japan, these two restaurants’ offerings are scratching different culinary itches, and even if you are in a perfectly 50-50 mood as to which type of curry they were craving, Alk Road actually offers a way to enjoy both in the same meal.

One of Alk Road’s menu items is the Special Combination, a plate of curry rice in which one half is Joto’s roux and a pork cutlet, and the other is your choice of one of Alk Road’s house-specialty spice curries.

▼ Our 1,400-yen (US$8.80) Special Combination of Johto katsu curry and Alk Road chicken spice curry

You also choose between Indian and Japanese rice for the Special Combination. We asked for the Indian rice, which made for a unique mixture of flavors and textures when paired with the Japanese roux. Both curries were excellent on their own, with Alk Road’s giving us a complex mixture of spices and seasonings and Joto’s being a more straightforward spiciness with a hint of sweetness in its flavor profile, and at the center of the plate where it flowed into one another we got yet another intriguingly fresh flavor.

Should you want even more variety, Alk Road’s counter has an array of spices that you can shake onto your curry at your discretion, such as Cayenne pepper, roasted cumin, garam masala, and ajwain chili powder.

This one-of-a-kind collaborative curry combination is something that’s only possible by nature of having two different curry restaurants operating so close to one another, and through it Alk Road has cleverly turned a negative aspect of its location into a positive. So while the search for Alk Road might be a little confusing, it’s well worth going to the trouble to find, just like with a certain soft serve ice cream specialist elsewhere in Tokyo.

Restaurant information
Spice Curry Alk Road / Spice Curry アルクロード
Address: Tokyo-to, Chiyoda-ku, Iidabashi 4-8-11 2nd floor
住所　東京都千代田区飯田橋4丁目8−11 2F
Open 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. (weekdays), 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 530 p.m.-8 p.m. (weekends, holidays)

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Our favorite kind wasn’t even the one we expected, but they were all the baum-dot-com.

It takes a lot to surprise us when it comes to Japanese vending machines, considering we’ve seen everything from Sriracha to sushi meals being sold in them. While the latter might sound a bit dubious, we’ve had relatively good results with the weird and wacky, and we’re always keeping our eyes peeled for new discoveries.

The latest unusual vending machine we spotted was right outside of the ticket gates at Bashamichi Station on Yokohama’s Minatomirai Line. It was actually attracting a lot of curious glances from passersby, most likely because it was filled with Baumkuchen, the German spit cake that’s incredibly popular in Japan and usually goes by just “baum.”

▼ Cake from a vending machine somehow feels a lot safer than sushi.

A closer look at the sign revealed that this particular baum was produced by Cocotomo Farm, which makes a 100-percent gluten-free cake using homemade rice flour from Aichi Prefecture. According to the sign, its brown rice-based hard baum is even given as a welcome gift on the luxury Asuka III cruise ship–Japan’s largest passenger ship–and was being sold in this machine at a discounted price to reduce food waste.

Apparently there’s an Asuka III Meets 47 Prefectures Project, and this brand was selected as a representative for the Aichi Prefecture Room. As for why it’s being sold at this particular nondescript station in Yokohama, well, that part’s still a mystery–but perhaps it’s because there are several international cruise ship terminals in the area.

There were plenty of baum options in the vending machine, but none of the selections were for the brown rice-based hard baum variety alone. Therefore, we opted for a combo pack with a slice of that one along with a slice of the white rice-based soft baum for 650 yen (US$4.14), as well as a pack of hard baum edges for 500 yen.

▼ The machine takes cash or a variety of payment apps.

All of the baum in this machine are frozen to preserve their freshness, so our prizes were quite chilly when they first came out. Luckily, the weather was relatively warm on this particular day, and the slices of cake had thawed out well by the time we got home. Here they were in their simple, unpretentious packaging.

We were journalistically obligated to then immediately sample the slices of the soft and hard varieties, which were individually packaged.

▼ Soft baum (top) and hard baum (bottom)

The soft baum was true to its name and had a refined, moist texture. We would have never known that it was gluten-free if the packaging didn’t alert us. Meanwhile, the hard baum had the exact opposite kind of feel. It was densely packed and required some force to bite down on, being chewy at the same time. It also carried the distinctive almost nut-like flavor of brown rice. We had always assumed that all baum tasted more or less the same, but this sampling threw that notion far out the window.

Next, we broke out the hard baum edges. There were six individual pieces of slightly varying sizes packed into one bag.

The hard baum edges were, if anything, even more densely packed with flavor and texture than the soft baum and regular hard baum alike. Sure, they were rough-looking on the outside, but they hid an intense surprise on the inside.

In fact, they ended up being our favorite of the whole bunch. The value of six pieces for that price was also hard to beat.

We have no idea how long the Cocotomo Farm vending machine is going to be stationed at Bashamichi Station–but we suppose that whenever it goes away, we’ll just have to get our baum fix from the ample varieties sold at at Muji instead.

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Xuankong Si is surprisingly both extremely out of the way and extremely crowded.

Our writer Seiji recently visited China, where he got a haircut on the side of the road and did some sightseeing. One of these sights was none other than Xuankong Si, or “The Hanging Temple” in English. Its name says it all really, in that it’s a temple clinging for dear life to the side of a sheer cliff.

This temple is located in the Jinxia Gorge at the foot of Mt. Heng, known as one of China’s five great mountains. Of course, getting to a mystical temple like this was never meant to be easy and required Seiji to take a high-speed train from Beijing to Datong South Station, then drive from there into the mountains for about an hour.

▼ Seiji with his new haircut modeled after World Cup sensation Erling Haaland

It was quite a haul, but Seiji was completely enamored with the Chinese countryside. The winding mountain roads reminded him perfectly of the area where Goku first met Bulma in Dragon Ball. There was a pulse of exotic adventure everywhere he looked.

Little did he know, however, that his true battle still lay ahead. The visitor center leading into the temple area was far less mystical than other parts of his journey.

The ticket counter opens at 7:30 a.m., and Seiji arrived at 8:40. However, he was told that the tickets had already sold out. As luck would have it, tickets are sold in two batches, with 600 in the morning and another 600 in the afternoon. This meant he’d have to wait until noon to try again.

By 10 a.m.,  a significant lineup was already forming, and Seiji watched with amazement as it just got bigger…

…and bigger…

…and bigger…

…and bigger with time. By noon, it looked exactly like the line to get into Comiket.

It’s actually possible to book tickets in advance, but only for Chinese residents. This meant Seiji had no choice but to wait in line, but as he listened to two old ladies shouting at each other, he wondered why all these other people didn’t just make reservations.

Luckily, this time he could get tickets. Two types are sold: a general admission to the area for 15 yuan (US$2.25) and access to the temple itself for 100 yuan ($15). Considering how much effort it took to get this far, there was no way he was going to skip entering The Hanging Temple.

From this point, a bus ride was required, but it only took eight minutes and cost 20 yuan. But after all that traveling and waiting, he was happy to see that it was all worth it for this spectacular scenery.

This temple was mentioned on Time Magazine’s Top 10 Precarious Buildings, and since it was the only temple on the list, Seiji figures it’s safe to call it the world’s most precarious temple.

In this case, the word “precarious” doesn’t suggest poor construction or actual hazards, but a certain tilt that gives the feeling of precariousness.

This place certainly had that feeling in spades. As he walked along narrow paths jutting out from sheer cliffs that seemed to tower over him, the ground spread out far, far below him.

Seiji was never especially afraid of heights, but here he occasionally felt a little woozy and had to brace himself against the wall.

This structure was around 1,500 years old, and as is often the case with older buildings, everything feels a little smaller than usual. The railings everywhere were only about waist-height, adding to a sense that he was walking through the air.

▼ No problem there.

It truly felt like a temple in the sky, giving our writer a sensation he often felt during dreams where he was flying but then suddenly forgot how to fly and plummeted back to Earth. 

It was a one-of-a-kind experience and well-steeped in Chinese culture.

Seiji felt a sense of awe beyond most other places he’s been in his life, and would highly recommend a visit to anyone.

His only advice is to purchase the ticket to enter the temple, because it’d be a waste to travel all that way and not climb up to it. Also, make sure you arrive early because the lineup for tickets is no joke, and it’d be an even bigger waste to travel all that way and not even be able to get near Xuankong Si.

Temple information
The Hanging Temple / 懸空寺
Hanging Temple, Jinlong Gorge, Mount Heng, Hunyuan County, Datong, Shanxi Province, China
中国山西省大同市渾源県 恒山金龍峡西側翠屏峰
Ticket Sales Begin: 7:30 a.m. and Noon
Holidays: None

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