#fried rice is my specialty

[tozettastone]

Re: my Naruto OC [x, x]

Here she is, in an unedited version of how she learns to hate Uchiha Itachi

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She had no name. The illusory shape she was currently inhabiting was a man called "Ryouta," who was a missing-nin of middling skill. He was tall enough and symmetrical enough to look sort of attractive if he cleaned up, but average enough to drop off the radar for most people. He was a kenjutsu master, which would pose an issue for her if she was required to actually engage in combat as him... but since her entire repertoire of skills was built up around the central pillar of avoiding combat, she felt that was pretty unlikely.

The real Ryouta was also off living his own life some hundred and ten miles away, deep in Wind Country, where his negotiations with clients formed data points for her research. His image was simply on... temporary loan.

Here and now, this image of Ryouta was following up on her favourite and very long term pet project: the outlier missing-nin, Kakuzu.

She strolled through the market that had popped up on the industrial outskirts of Rain. It was damp—it was always damp—and the place had been set up on a flat, hard-packed area that had gotten absolutely annihilated during the war by what looked like, perhaps, a lava flow? At its edges, aging electrical wires sagged, and hastily patched up buildings loomed, and on the far side the road went straight out to the river and apparently endless rice paddies.

Despite the setting, the little market was cheerful and bright. People called out to Ryouta as she passed through, calling for him to try their deep fried water bugs on sticks, buy their herbs, or marvel at their machine-woven cloth. Two children, under the watchful eye of an older lady selling jars of hot red chillies, were playing with sticks in the mud, stirring the water in their hand-dug hole as if it were a pot of soup.

Rain as a village was... interesting, from Ryouta's perspective. It operated under a system of benign neglect. That the governing body was presided over by an undead missing-nin and his angelic partner was kind of an open secret among the people who'd lived there long enough. And, historically, those two had chosen to address only violent foreign shinobi, two plague outbreaks, a food crisis, and actual invasions. They rarely intervened to regulate or support the population otherwise. Instead, the village had mostly divided itself into small neighbourhoods of ten or twenty families, and those families typically bartered and supported one another.

Such systems, Ryouta knew, only functioned because their communities were small enough that everyone knew everyone else's business: they kept their own informal tallies of what was polite and who owed what assistance to whom. This was also how such small communities managed crime so efficiently... for a value of "crime," that was defined very casually by whether or not most people found something acceptable, and "management," that stood for vigilante justice, of course.

Such societies became more and more alienated from the causes and effects of crime as they grew larger, until you had something like the Grand Court over in Fire Country, where people who barely knew each other committed crimes against one another and were given sanctions that held no relevance to the victims whatsoever. At that point, all crime was basically against the state, not really your neighbours...

It was a fascinating area of study, although it was not her specialty. Her area of study was more elusive, more secretive, and a lot more dangerous.

There was a shinobi walking through this market, and he was the real focus of her attention.

Hidan was an idiot, so she didn't have to try very hard to evade his senses as she tracked him. She just had to be careful she didn't get too close. Occasionally, he stopped to examine something, and then she stopped, too. Simple, right?

Really, her distance was more of a precaution against his personality than it was against his senses. He would never pick her out of a crowd, but he excelled at pointless, aimless violence, so it was possible that he wouldn't need to pick her out of a crowd. Would he act that way in Rain, where Pein and Konan watched over the population with a view to eradicating shinobi threats? Well. Ryouta wouldn't have chanced it... but Hidan rarely shared her risk aversion.

"That's so cool," she said, leaning over some of the ugliest jewellery in the world. Mostly it was insects trapped in amber, fancifully tied up in bright string to form bracelets. "Do you think my girlfriend will like it, Auntie?"

The lady's babble—of course she would, why, any woman would love a juvenile sand scorpion stuck in a fossil!—washed over her. She was paying more attention to Hidan, who'd stopped to buy a bug on a stick.

The shopkeeper gave him a second one for free. From this distance it was hard to say if he knew who Hidan was and was attempting to ward off death with food, or if Hidan was just kind of reaping the rewards of being beautiful in public. Either way, he looked at it, shrugged, and took it too, twirling the stick deftly between his fingers as he moved on. The fried water bug's legs wagged stiffly with its momentum.

"Ah, I think I should check with her before I spend money on it," Ryouta said regretfully. "What if she doesn't like it, and I can't get her something else because I spent all my money?" The stall lady did not, she noticed, hasten to offer a returns policy. "Thanks for your time, Auntie!"

It became harder to follow Hidan innocuously when he passed the edge of the market. There was no longer a crowd in which to immerse herself. Ryouta wasn't sure how they did it exactly, but she knew that she'd be heavily surveilled if she seemed suspicious. She could hide her identity easily, but it was harder to hide a developed chakra system... and someone might show up to chase her off. She'd been chased off once, as Chiriko, and it wasn't lost on her that the real Chiriko (a genin missing-nin from Sand who'd been part of her pay grading study) had died pretty shortly after. She didn't want that.

Luckily, being chased off once gave her plenty information to come back with a work around. She couldn't hide that she was somewhere in Rain—whatever surveillance technique they used was simply too good, or too large, or... she didn't know. But she could cast a broad enough genjutsu to confuse it. For several hours, she could be everywhere in Rain, all at once.

It was still risky, which was why she also paired it with an illusion that layered over her Ryouta mask. She was Ryouta, and over that, she was a relatively wealthy civilian lady she'd copied from the market, and over that, she was wearing a little seal carved into the back of an amulet, a low level genjutsu for hiding skin blemishes.

If someone—Kakuzu, obviously, because it wouldn't be Hidan—managed to sense her genjutsu, she could surrender the amulet, and that distraction would allow her to drop a little illusion over him, a veil so delicate he'd never even see it.

For anyone else, holding onto four separate genjutsu techniques all at once might be a challenge. But Ryouta had been a missing-nin, and, more importantly, a freelance criminologist specialising in missing-nin, for almost thirty years now. She would never attain half her data if she'd been unable to observe and record her subjects. And her subjects hated to be observed.

She'd been the best genjutsu master in Waterfall by the time she was twelve, and she had only improved since leaving that village.

She flicked a senbon at an urn of hot water to cause a little distraction. A child yelped in startled pain as the ceramic broke, and she took the opportunity to lift a cute brooch off a woman's lapel, because why not? And then she became the civilian lady as she passed through a narrow walkway between stalls, just as everyone was distracted by the broken urn.

She emerged from the market a foot shorter and much less threatening, clutching her bag to her side as she went. Her footsteps were quick and her eyes were cast downwards.

Hidan, ahead of her by two hundred paces, did not notice. He was gnawing a deep fried water bug leg, rolling the snath of his giant scythe on one shoulder so the blades twirled dizzily against the black and red cloud design of his Akatsuki cloak, and strolling along as though he hadn't a concern in the world.

A few years ago, she would have thought that he seemed not to notice and that he was playing a long game whose central goal was to drive her paranoid. But time and experience had given her more insight. Hidan really, truly, did not know when he was being followed.

She had, occasionally, seen Kakuzu point out other followers to him—not her, obviously—and usually with an air of faintly murderous exasperation. Hidan never cared. He was... extremely confident in his immortality.

She followed him through the dreary rundown village of Rain, keeping her distance and tracking him mostly by chakra instead of by actually watching him. His eventual stopping point took her, as she expected, directly to Kakuzu. He was an unmistakable character in the grey weather: tall, with powerful shoulders, bare arms shamelessly displaying Waterfall's old prison tattoos, and the most hostile chakra on the planet.

She knew pair would almost certainly end up in a nearby teahouse, because Hidan was a grade-a whiner and he couldn't be stopped by the paltry forces of death.

Ryouta—in her disguise as a civilian whose name she didn't know—gave the missing-nin a wide berth and ducked her head as she walked straight past the pair. If she predicted them well enough, and went into the teahouse before both of them, she would allay most concerns that they might be being followed.

Outside, the pair were having their usual reunion: Kakuzu a murderous little cloud of angry chakra, Hidan a loud, running commentary of his own exploits.

"Oh, here, I got free shrimp," Hidan offered.

"That's not a shrimp," Kakuzu growled.

She couldn't actually see Kakuzu's face as she was moving towards the back of the store, but his tone wasn't very promising.

"They're all just bugs," shrugged Hidan, slouching into his own seat and cramming it into his face instead. "Fried water bug, shrimp. Fried scorpion, shrimp. Fried yabby, shrimp."

Without any indication that this riveting conversation drifting in from outside concerned her, she flagged down the server for a pot of tea and settled inside the teahouse's main room with her notebook and pen, writing down the details of the date and time and location, was well as a little context from her prior observations.

Kakuzu was at least eighty six years old, by the records of his own village (which was once her village, so she came by the information honestly), so there was a lot to contextualise her notes. His career was really what had set her teenaged self on the path to a criminological study of missing-nin.

The thing about missing-nin was that they lived and died by their professional networks. They needed to form trustworthy interpersonal bonds to ensure they kept up to date with vital industry intelligence (gossip), to hear about new jobs, and to ensure they were negotiating their work at a reasonable market price. The stereotype of the lone missing-nin who trusted nobody was based on a real phenomenon, but rarely did it apply to successful missing-nin, where success was measured by longevity and professional achievements.

Missing-nin who lived like aggressive, paranoid hermits actually experienced lower life expectancies and poor mission outcomes, even compared to other missing-nin. She knew because she'd completed several rounds of observation, data collection and analysis to come up with the theory.

Her study had involved tracking and following thirty two missing-nin, careening across the continent at a breakneck pace, over a gruelling five year period. She would have loved to have expanded her cohort but she was, unfortunately, just one researcher doing extremely difficult and dangerous field work, and tracking thirty two people who had been trained to evade pursuit had been a massive outlay of effort on her behalf. Ten of them had been killed in the first year of her study (which was probably lucky for her), and then five had died over the subsequent four years. As far as it went, her social networking theory had held true for basically all of them. Missing-nin like Orochimaru and Momochi Zabuza, who displayed even inconsistently prosocial attitudes towards other missing-nin, were almost always better off over the five year period of her study.

Except Kakuzu.

Kakuzu was a really significant outlier. She'd been watching him for a long, long time.

He was successful, he had lived a long time, and he showed very little prosocial behaviour. A personal professional network had built up around him like the nacre of a pearl, with him the grit at its centre.

She had her theories about that, too. Kakuzu had got to be so old by borrowing time and chakra from others' hearts and becoming virtually indestructible by way of his kinjutsu, and it allowed him to outlive every one of his contemporaries. She had not been studying missing-nin back when he had become one, but the world had been quite different at that time—hidden villages had been only lately established in a much less stable professional landscape. It was possible that different traits had been more valuable in missing-nin at that time, accounting for his ability to establish himself in that era.

Then again, possibly they had valued exactly the same things. Perhaps if you only doggedly killed everyone who got close to you, and worked very hard to become functionally immortal, you would eventually build up a professional reputation regardless of your character.

She didn't know.

She did know that Kakuzu was within the top two per cent of earners across her study (assuming some room for error), and enjoyed a strong professional reputation among missing-nin and bounty collectors while going virtually unnoticed by the big five villages—even by Leaf, whose Shodaime Hokage he had once tried to assassinate. A clerk had simply decided at some point that Kakuzu must have been dead and removed him from their active records, was the working theory.

She tapped her notebook, outwardly preoccupied, as Kakuzu and Hidan finally came into the teashop. They didn't look at her, although they surely knew she was there. If they really wanted to talk about something secret, probably they would just tell her to leave. Akatsuki were in the employ of Rain, after all... technically. They could do that.

It may not have appeared likely to a casual observer, but Hidan was the person with whom Kakuzu was friendliest. His ability to bounce back from drownings, stabbings and decapitations gave him real staying power.

At first she hadn't liked Hidan. She'd been following Kakuzu for thirty years, keeping track of his absolutely absurd shinobi career, and initially Hidan had represented an intrusion into the private lifestyle she shared with Kakuzu. But he was not obstructive, and once she realised Kakuzu quite liked him, she'd come around on him a bit.

It was selfish of her, she later decided, to resent Kakuzu's young man. Besides, Kakuzu didn't know he was sharing his life with her—perhaps he was lonely.

They were a delight to watch from her quiet corner of the teahouse, really. Kakuzu acted so cold, leaning against the back wall, sipping hot water and grunting a disinterested counterpoint to Hidan's wild gestures and loud commentary. But she felt he was unusually tolerant and engaged, comparatively.

The pair appeared to be waiting for another pair of missing-nin. That was interesting, and lent further credence to the idea that the Akatsuki were centrally organised in Rain. Perhaps they even were Rain? She wasn't sure about the mysterious undead leader, but Konan would have fit right in with the rest of them...

Her observations really went pear shaped when the other two missing-nin walked into the tea house. Hoshigaki Kisame she was pretty familiar with, and he wasn't the problem. It was the other guy.

Uchiha Itachi swept the cloth covering the doorway out of the way with one hand, ducked into the teahouse, and immediately looked straight at her in her corner.

The worst part was, it wasn't as if he actually broke her genjutsu. There was no flaw in it, no place to apply pressure. Her genjutsu was good. Itachi just saw straight through all the visual elements of it with his unholy burning eyes.

He paused in the doorway and said, "I think you are not meant to be here," and then she looked him full in the face and fainted.

--

"What's your name?" said Uchiha Itachi, the moment she regained consciousness.

She recognised Kakuzu immediately, looking fierce over his shoulder. Hidan next, then Kisame. Really, Uchiha Itachi took her the longest to put a name to, of all of them. He had not been on her radar at all—as missing-nin, the Uchiha bloodline had seemed, unfortunately, too dangerous to include in her studies. And then he'd gone and killed them all anyway, which had seemed to make it a bit of a moot point in a representative sample...

She swallowed. He was waiting for an answer.

Who was she today? Where was she? She blinked rapidly. Teahouse. Sprawled on the table. Lying on her back, surrounded by looming missing-nin. Tea cooling on her belly, not yet cold. No sounds from the staff. Memory rose like bubbles in water.

"Ryouta," she said, finally.

Someone grabbed her by the hair—her REAL hair!—and shook her. "That's not a girl's name."

"Don't touch my fucking hair," she snarled, wrenching her head around. It was Hidan's hand buried in her glossy red curls. Of course it was Hidan. She snapped her teeth at his offending hand, close enough that he yanked his fingers back.

Itachi looked at Hidan, and for just a moment he seemed unable to hide his expression of profound disdain. That was interesting, she thought. Itachi clearly thought he was better than Hidan. Fair enough. So did she. But she would bet Hidan didn't agree with that assessment. She wondered if he knew?

He probably did know. Hidan was oblivious to his surroundings but he had strong interpersonal skills. He picked up on nuances in Kakuzu's behaviour that honestly shocked her.

She glanced between the two, thoughts racing, and then settled her gaze on Itachi. He was the most dangerous to her. She needed to pay attention to him, to be compliant with him, to flatter his ego.

"I haven't had a name in decades."

"I don't recognise her," Kakuzu interjected. She wished this was an opportunity to interview him. What he must remember! But it pretty clearly wasn't the time. "We'll get nothing for her head."

"Waterfall isn't shy about posting bounties. She must not be very important. A small fry, huh...?" Kisame mused. "Well, everyone likes to make a reputation somehow." This idea seemed to amuse him greatly. He showed all his sharp teeth when he smiled.

She knew quite a bit about Kisame, as he was another of her study participants. She had watched his missions and negotiations several times, following quietly in his wake of his large-scale destruction.

But Kakuzu's eyes had narrowed. "No. I didn't sense your genjutsu." He looked towards Kisame, who also shook his head.

If Kisame had sensed her genjutsu she would have had to quit her job. He had so much chakra she could have walked by his side, right in step, and hidden herself beneath its friendly shadow. He would never have known she was there.

Except, well, of course he would have, because now he was travelling with Uchiha Itachi, apparently.

Itachi had taken her amulet, the one inscribed with a vanity seal to hide skin blemishes. He peered at it for a few seconds, and then he looked up at her face again. The sharingan really were demonic to look at, black pinwheels spinning lazily against a red so bright it seemed to glow. The sky probably turned that colour at dawn on the apocalypse.

"I doubt she's a small fry," he said. He had one of those deep voices, the kind that didn't so much 'say,' as 'intone.' Each sentence a gonglike proclamation. Ugh. "What's in this?" He waved her notebook.

She clicked her tongue. "Notes. For my research."

"People who are lying—even shinobi—tend to have certain tells. Humans are naturally afraid of being caught telling falsehoods. Their sweat changes. Their pulse beats faster. They blink more rapidly. They change their rate of eye contact. My eyes can capture all these things. But you..." He tapped the notebook against his palm. "...do not have those tells."

"I'm telling the truth."

"Were you telling the truth when you said your name was Ryouta?"

She shrugged. "A truth."

Hidan scoffed loudly.

"What's the key?" Itachi looked down at her. "You can tell me, or we will discover it on our own eventually."

They would. It wasn't a very hard code. Her notes weren't really that secret. She published her work eventually. She just didn't want to get caught writing them, so she coded them, and then they could have been anything. Mission report. Love notes. Who knew?

With a deep sigh, she told him.

He thumbed through the book. At his level, it really only took him a few minutes to piece together whole sentences. Slowly, his expression changed from confusion to understanding to confusion again. This book wasn't especially important. It had only a few notes about the really big outliers from her most recent five year study, and the tally of negotiations at the back. She always tallied negotiations she saw—because every two years, she produced a record of mission prices for missing-nin, copied them by hand and pamphleteered in dive bars across the continent. Industry research was to be shared, after all.

"You observe a great many missing-nin," Itachi said slowly. He flipped back. Paused. "...A great many. A greater number than I would expect."

He handed her notebook off to Kakuzu, who buried his face in it immediately.

"Everyone needs a hobby..?"

Kisame snorted. "Some hobby."

"This might be the most boring thing I've ever heard," Hidan said, in a worrying tone of mounting dissatisfaction.

"She's been watching you, too, fool," said Kakuzu. That was kind of unfair: she only paid attention to Hidan because he was attached at the hip to Kakuzu. Otherwise, Hidan was another dime-a-dozen missing-nin, distinguished only by his little immortality trick. You got ninja like that, sometimes—incredible combatants who were really one trick ponies, but won all the time anyway because it was one hell of a trick.

"What!" Hidan yelped. "Show me."

"...What makes you think Orochimaru is pretending to be the Yondaime Kazekage?" Itachi asked then, distracting her.

"Ah... Well, he was part of the five year study. I'm just following up on outliers right now. He definitely killed Rasa, but I'm honestly not sure why he's pretending to be him. I theorise he's enjoying bonding moments with the Kazekage's children while wearing their dad's skin."

The bonding moments were genuinely pretty wholesome. That was part of the joyous cruelty of it, probably: Orochimaru didn't mind playing the long game, and he just loved to get a reaction.

"The five year study," Itachi repeated.

"I haven't published it yet. My recent work has been tracking the correlation between prosocial behaviour in missing-nin and professional success and longevity across five years. Orochimaru in particular has proven... erratic."

Kisame, who had stood back to loom behind Itachi, gave a rusty laugh. "Erratic, huh."

Kakuzu, though, had gotten to the back of the book—where her notes on pricing were.

"You," he snarled. He jabbed a finger towards her. "You write the cost list."

His chakra leeched like poison into the air, flooding them all with killing intent.

I am in danger, she thought, with every last squealing cell in her body.

"Ohh," said Kisame. "That."

"Who cares about that," said Hidan, scowling furiously. "She wrote that I'm an idiot!"

She probably wasn't going get a better opening than that. She flexed her own chakra.

"It's not like I'm alone in that opinion. Uchiha Itachi has been looking at you like you're an idiot for the last ten minutes."

Hidan sneered. "Nice try."

"She's right," intoned Itachi's deep voice.

His head snapped up. "What did you say?"

"That's a scary face," Itachi's voice mused. His red eyes spun faster. "Do you think you can beat me with just your skills, Hidan?"

Of course, Itachi himself actually did none of these things. But Hidan obviously did know what Itachi thought of him, after all, because he believed them totally.

Thank god.

She manufactured a sniffing noise from Kakuzu, which was as close as she'd ever heard him get to actually laughing. Hidan, she knew, valued Kakuzu's regard, and he was as close to having it as anyone ever had been. If she was right, thinking that Itachi had insulted him and Kakuzu was amused by it was going to hit all of Hidan's berserk buttons.

She was right.

Hidan lunged—and not at her, but at Itachi.

Which meant that the only person who was a real threat to her genjutsu skills was suddenly very occupied. Phew!

The room exploded into noise as everyone reacted to Hidan's sudden attack.

She pulled layer upon layer of illusions over herself as she rolled off the table, and then she hugged one of the walls, camouflaged like a chameleon, and darted away.

Getting out of Rain was her first priority. Then, she'd fix whatever Hidan had done to her hair—her scalp was still sore where he'd yanked on it, ugh. And then she guessed she'd write down what she remembered of her notes.

It certainly wasn't worth going back for them.

[isaksbestpillow]

Our dining table interview translation

I translated a short interview with Inukai Atsuhiro and Iijima Hiroki about Bokura no shokutaku/Our dining table. Original is in the source with pictures. Please don't repost to Tiktok or Twitter without credit.

Inukai Atsuhiro and Iijima Hiroki are the stars of the drama Bokura no shokutaku/Our dining table that starts airing on April 6. Adapted from Mita Ori’s comic of the same title, this heartfelt drama depicts people bonding through food. Salaryman Yutaka is estranged from his family and struggles to eat around others when one day in a park he meets Minoru and Tane, two brothers many years apart, and ends up teaching them how to make rice balls. As the trio start having meals together, Yutaka and Minoru begin to get closer.

What were your first impressions after getting cast?

Inukai: I read the comic first and found it a heartwarming story. The script then possessed that same quality which made me excited to start filming.

Iijima: I too read the comic and found it a heartwarming story about people connecting through food. I couldn’t wait to play Minoru.

How do you see your respective characters?

Iijima: Minoru looks like a troublemaker, but he’s really family-oriented, he cares about his family so much that he can’t put himself first. In my performance I felt the growth that Yutaka gradually ignites in him.

Inukai: Yutaka is also essentially a person who is too nice to others, neglecting himself. He has a lot of baggage which I thought should reflect in my performance.

What was the first thing you did you did to get into character?

Inukai: I cooked rice in a clay pot like Yutaka. The rice turned out well. I felt like I understood my character after experiencing how he eats every day.

Iijima: I made it a point to appear like I don’t know my way around the kitchen. In my private life I do cook. Not that I’m any good at it.

Do you have any specialties?

Iijima: Not really. Maybe fried rice. Yesterday I made stuffed bell peppers. They were good.

That’s so fancy. The show also comes with lots of delicious looking food.

Iijima: They’re all delicious for real.

What did you like the best?

Inukai: The hot pot with kimchi, tomato and cheese. It was so good I couldn’t stop eating it.

Iijima: It was amazing. It’s the hot pot you see in the opening credits.

Inukai: Tane-kun doesn’t tolerate spicy foods very well yet, but even he ate it with a good appetite, it was that good.

Tane’s innocence is so charming on screen. How was it like to work with Kuuga-kun?

Iijima: He was the epitome of Tane-kun. I thought it could be intimidating for him to be surrounded by so many adults at his age, but he’d really boost the mood on set. He treated us like his actual brothers, and I was also chatting with him to establish that brotherly vibe.

What did you talk about?

Iijima: What’s popular these days and so on. We’d mostly talk about anime since I also watch it. We’d talk about what merch I’d get him etc. He likes Pokemon.

Inukai: Tane-kun is so cute and energetic, he brings the natural energy he has off camera into his performance. He was friendly since the first day of filming, his presence really helped me do my job. Thanks to him there were no gloomy moments on set.

What was your impression of each other starring together?

Iijima: He was the same Inukai-san he’s always been. He marches to his own drum both at work and in private. He’s totally different from me, he’s just himself.

Inukai: Iijima-kun was cute and cool in his early 20s, but now he has that mature sex appeal to him.

Iijima: Thanks. I’m excited to get older and expand the range of my acting.

How was it to act with each other?

Inukai: The directors wanted performances that feel realistic instead of entertainment, so we were able to work organically. There were elements that wouldn’t have transpired otherwise.

Iijima: It was easy to work with Inukai-san. Neither of our characters is a macho, so we were able to bring warmth into our performances. I also enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere in Mima, Tokushima Prefecture where we were filming. Saw huge mantises and stuff, it was laid-back.

Inukai-san, you hail from Tokushima Prefecture.

Inukai: It’s where I spent my formative years. I felt right back at home, which made me able to be even more true to myself.

The drama also depicts a love story between your characters. What was your experience portraying it?

Inukai: Iijima-kun and I can understand each other even without words, so the experience was very comfortable.

Iijima: After reading the script I thought trying to intentionally set up a romantic mood would feel out of place here, so I went about it without overthinking it, digesting those romantic feelings that arose as the filming progressed.

Were there any scenes that you found particularly memorable?

Iijima: For me it’s one of the early scenes where I feed Yutaka the rice ball. It was one of the first scenes we filmed. It’s when Yutaka and Minoru begin to get closer, and I felt like were able to establish an emotional connection there so I feel sentimental about it.

Inukai: It has to be the scenes of us all eating together. We’d continue to eat even after the cameras stopped rolling, sometimes that’d be my lunch for that day. It was a happy time in my life.

Just hearing about it makes me hungry. Sounds like the show is going to be food porn.

Iijima: The vibe of the show may make you feel less guilty about eating.

Inukai: If it makes you happy, who cares.

Iijima: Most of the dishes are easy to make, so I’d like everyone to try them at home.

Inukai: I want to make rice balls as I watch the show.

Last but not least, please leave a message for the viewers.

Inukai: The story is sprinkled with small daily observations. Sometimes we forget to appreciate food, but this show will remind you how wonderful it is to share food with others. Whether you’re a fan of the manga or a new viewer, I hope you’ll enjoy the story.

Iijima: We have to eat to stay alive, but food also connects us to other people. What we offer may not be big, but I’d like everyone to enjoy these small moments of happiness.

[mechanicalboots]

I haven’t watched/read Dungeon Meshi but everyone I know and love has so I just wanna say

This is my dad now. I think of him whenever I put off eating or am tempted to skip a meal and then I don’t. I think his name is Senshi? I wanna hug him. I have the distinct impression that if I made him my specialty, mediocre fried rice, he would eat it happily and then kindly give me pointers on making it better.

[buffetlicious]

I have shown you the Reunion Dinner (团圆饭) we had two weeks earlier due to my brother having to go oversea for his company’s training trip. Behold, here is another of our reunion dinner, albeit the home-cooked version. You saw the char siu, roasted chicken and roasted pork mum bought for the prayer earlier in the day so naturally those appeared on the dinner table. As one of my brother and his family plus my sister’s friend will be coming over, mum added extra dishes to the menu. It is not as luscious as the feast we had at the restaurant but nonetheless, it is still a scrumptious and delectable meal.

A simple Cabbage Stir-Fry with premium ingredients of canned baby abalones and scallops. Sis-in-law was commenting on the cabbage being sweet tasting. Ended up this dish emptied of the food saved for a few pieces of the abalones.

Sis was saying mum sliced the Char Siu too thickly but I on the other hand found them just nice as it offered a better texture. Sweet, charred with a smoky taste and just fatty enough to make it a wonderful eat. The Roasted Chicken (deep-fried actually) was well seasoned and succulent to go with the steamed white rice.

These extra-large Steamed Tiger Prawns were bought in Batam and delivered to our house. As the prawns were fresh, mum just steamed it without any condiment. After deshelling, we added some minced ginger sauce before sending it straight into the mouth.

Another seafood that brother order for us from Batam is this large Red Snapper which is done in a spicy style. Mum only made used of the tail portion as the fish is too big to cook properly in the wok she is using. Fresh and sweet tasting with a little spiciness made this a good dish.

Mum also prepared one of her specialties, Braised Five-Spice Pork Belly with shiitake mushrooms and hardboiled eggs. For the soup, it is Pork Ribs Soup with fried pig tendons, fish balls, corn, lettuces and dried scallops to sweeten it.

The side dishes are Pickled Daikon and spicy Nyonya Achar which is a South Asian pickled food made from a variety of vegetables and fruits preserved in brine, vinegar, edible oils and various South Asian spices.

Even though I took a little of everything, I still ended up with a Full Plate. As I slowly tucked into my meal, are you also enjoying your reunion dinner?

[narafeedee]

What’s your go to fast food meal?

this is a fun question, thank you!! i always order the same things at places once i find something i like, so this turned into an absurdly detailed response very quickly

i think my most-eaten meal lately is two double cheeseburgers and a large diet coke because the burgers are BOGO for 29c. if i’m feeling particularly frisky and fat-walleted i’ll get the bakers dozen cookie tote.

in an alternate timeline where budgets don’t exist, i’d be getting a large DQPC meal mayo and pickles only, with a large diet coke, two mcchickens add mustard no lettuce, and either a cookie tote or two of whatever the specialty pies are

i eat McDonalds every day so naturally that’s where my mind went, my go-to orders elsewhere (in order from most to least frequent visits) are:

Tim Horton’s: XL coffee 3 creams, 2 sugars, 1 caramel and a sausage egg and cheese sandwich on a biscuit, every day with very few exceptions. once every couple months i’ll do McDonalds instead and get whatever breakfast sandwich deal they have - usually $2 sausage egg and cheese mcgriddle - and a large vanilla iced coffee

i eat at one of the places listed below maybe once every couple weeks:

BK: 3 to 6 rodeo burgers add mayo add fresh onion, large diet coke, sometimes a hershey pie

Wendy’s: $5 Biggie Bag - which is a double stack, 4 nuggets, small fry, small diet coke; if i wanna splurge i’ll get a large Dave’s Double combo no lettuce no ketchup, large diet coke, medium frosty

Taco Bell: i checked the app to be able to use the actual names of the things i usually order from Taco Hell but i just learned the chicken things i used to get every time are no longer on the fucking menu so i don’t know what i like at Taco Bell anymore and i’m a little salty rn. first they took away my grilled shredded chicken burritos with extra avocado ranch away from me, now this? what the fuck

KFC: two famous bowls and at least 8 hot sauce packets for each bowl, then stop at McDonalds for a large diet coke

Popeyes: blackened chicken tenders (whatever the best meal promo is), red beans and rice, blackened ranch for dipping, something sweet but i change it up every time, large sweet tea from Popeyes or a large diet coke from McDonalds

Checker’s: two large orders of mozzarella sticks, big buford no lettuce, large diet coke, large fries, funnel cake fries or brookie

everything else i eat in a day is normally freezer food - pizza rolls, waffles, uncrustables - or ubereats delivery. i also order the exact same things from the same 3 places on rotation when i order delivery. i don’t have an adequate kitchen to cook how i want to where i live right now but it gives me something to look forward to having someday 🤷🏻‍♀️

[golatcxr]

“How about you cook for yourself?” [Heizou x F!Reader]

 

Having heard enough rants about how bad the Police Station’s food was, you challenged Heizou to make a meal himself. The funky detective threw a confident smirk and immediately accepted it.

Genre: fluff, sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightly suggestive

<3

 

“Small bean, I’ll make you the best dish you have ever tasted.”

.

Heizou threw his head back on the top rail of his office chair, another case was successfully cracked - along with his exhaustion. He let out a long sigh, not wanting to have dinner at the police station. They were always reheated, obviously, if not then served cold. Sometimes bean soup with a sausage inside or onigiri with lavender melon, absolutely unfit the detective’s taste. He loved deep-fried food, whether it’s meat or veggies but Heizou was fully awared that they were not so healthy to consume.

 

Nevertheless, some cheat days should be allowed right?

 

He would be on cloud nine if you showed up with some katsu sandwiches for him after such a long day. As he wished, he heard your voice outside. Rushing out like a child anticipating its candy, Heizou finally saw his lovely girlfriend.

 

“(Y/N)!” He waved with his whole arm, still jogging a little.

 

“Hi, how’s your day honey?” You extended your arms to pull him into your embrace. The smell of papers indicated that he had been in his office for quite a while.

 

“Case: solved, detective: tired.” He joked, his giggle sent a smile up to your face. “But you know, I soon gotta have that boring-as-always dinner here. Ah I miss your cooking.”  He rubbed his head on your shoulder like a kid.

 

“Come on, how about you make your own meal then?”

 

Heizou jolted, feeling as if a blast of energy had come back to him. He sure to be that type that loves winning.

 

“Well, why not?”

 

He grabbed your wrist and dragged you to run with him. “Imma make you the best meal you have ever tasted in your life, if it’s not delicious then I won’t charge you a penny.”

 

Your destination was Uyuu restaurant, it was then that you freaked out of your realization.

 

Was he gonna borrow the restaurant’s kitchen? Where are the ingrdients?

 

“Heizou, we don’t have anything at hand.”

 

“They owe me one, which was that very case I solved earlier today so we don’t need to worry about that.”

At some points, you felt like he had planned it all along – rather than just a mere coincidence. However, you decided to not think about the matter anymore.

Unskeptical, you believed.

------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Heizou had completely forgotten about his exhaustion and hunger. He appoached Okazaki and booked a private room upstair for two, whilst whispering something into the old man’s ear. You couldn’t make out what he said, though you were pretty sure it wouldn’t just be a simple kitchen borrow.

Heizou escorted you to the second floor and told you to wait there.

“I’ll be quick and you’ll soon be amazed by my ultimate speciality.”

You smiled and nodded it off.

.

He came back just minutes later, tray on his right palm.

To your expectation, it was indeed a deep-fried dish. Crispy katsu with the Kujou clan symbol neatly draw with mayonnaise on top, over a thin layer of omelet with onions and steamy hot rice underneath. The smell alone could trigger one’s appetite to its fullest, and you had to admit, he had impressive cooking skills to have made something like that on his own.

“Behold, my specialty: ‘The Only Truth’!” Heizou placed the bowl on the table before you, mimicking what waiters do. “Enjoy your meal.” He flashed a proud smile at you, oh the full combo of what are best.

You noticed that he also brought a small bottle of sake, looked like he had snuck that from the kitchen.

Heizou plopped down on the zabuton and scooted to sit next to you instead of sitting across the table. He nudged you slightly.

“The dish won’t finish itself, will it?”  

You turned to his side just to find Heizou holding up a cutlet slice with chopstick, bringing it to your mouth.

“A-“

“A”

It was briny and crunchy, yet soft and juicy inside. The very first bite made you melt into ecstasy. You covered your mouth, still chewing the food with your eyes widen.

“Told ya it’s gonna be that good.” He threw a victorious smirk, which you found cute anyways.

"It's beyond good." You shrugged, wanting to improve his mood for a bit.

If Heizou were a puppy right there you would definitely see his tail wag

"Well then I'll count this as a huge success, cheers"

You both raised your cup and downed them in one go. It had been forever since you last had any hearty meal like this.

.

.

.

The rice was all gone and you were already feeling tipsy at that moment, simply too caught up with the satisfaction. Without looking, you felt Heizou's gaze on you, a gaze that was immersing in love and warmth.

"Thank you for the meal." You smiled.

"Now that you've mentioned it, I haven't eaten anything properly for dinner today."

It then came to you, right, all he had were some bites of cutlets and egg.

"Oh yeah- Let me order something for you."

Just when you were about to stand up, he grabbed your wrist and dragged you down onto his lap.

"That's not what I mean, sweetheart."

You could feel his lips on your cheek, peppering down your neck. Only able to sit there as heat rushed to your face.

"I did tell you that if my dish was not delicious then I wouldn't charge you a penny." He nibbled at your ear. "Now I'm just getting my payment."

Was it because of the sake or did he really sound extra sexy today?

"Wait- Heizou, not here." You turned around and covered his mouth, just for it to be pushed away and he leaned forward to kiss you.

"I'm just kidding, but if you insist then we'll save it for another day." He winked and left a quick peck on your nose.

He then grabbed your hand and stood up, leading you downstairs.

"Thank you for the treat, sir Okazaki!" Heizou waved at the restaurant owner at the counter.

"Can't believe I'd be able to taste such a fancy delight without paying anything, though I do feel a little guilty now." You fiddled your fingers.

"Nah it's fine, told you they owed me some."

.

Guess you would never know that sake bottle had never been free.

--------------------------------------

Author's notes: ah yes it's a bit late by now but anyways here are your Heizou crumbs <3 his birthday is coming up too and I'm hoping I could finish both a drawing and a quick fanfic for it

[shoku-and-awe]

A really memorable fancy meal: the tofu course at a Kyoto specialty restaurant! Everything was delicious and I loved all the little ceramics. Also, because of pandemic (fall 2020), they seated us in a private room deep, deep in the bowels of their labyrinthine basement—I got lost two or three different ways on my way back from the bathroom and by the time I finally found our table, I had contracted an uncontrollable fit of the giggles that lasted the rest of the night.

For hotpot, we chose yudofu, which is a simple Kyoto specialty of tofu cooked in kombu dashi (but a very sophisticated version)! The maguro was the first time I'd had tofu-yam sauce on sashimi. I also loved the two dumplings: a juicy tofu shumai (one of their specialties) and a lotus root manju, crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside.

The long skinny plate had fried yuba tofu skin (one of my favorite things) and two types of tofu dengaku. The adorable fan-shaped bowl was a gooey cheesy tofu gratin, and then they brought us rice and clear soup with yuba to finish, plus dessert: soymilk ice cream with brown sugar syrup and a bit of azuki bean "tofu." It was a really special experience, definitely recommended!

[mintjeru]

in honor of us being blessed w/ more gaming leaks today: i've been contemplating his favorite dim sum dish for a while and finally decided on one >:D

cw for mentions of game leaks and food under the cut!

there are so many dim sum dishes to choose from so i basically had to hone in on one by ruling out categories

also i'm assigning him a fav dim sum dessert bc i feel like desserts deserve their own category ><

first of all, i intentionally did not consider larger dishes, such as salted fish fried rice, crispy soy sauce fried noodles, etc., bc technically you can get those at any chinese restaurant, not just a dim sum one

second, i'm excluding expensive dishes you'd typically only see at banquets, such as crab, lobster, etc., bc i'm trying to hc a dish he'd be able to order often when he goes out in a party of 4

third, since canto food is generally light and mild, i think he'd prefer this type of cuisine over food w/ strong spices or flavors. that isn't to say he can't handle or doesn't enjoy stronger tasting food, but i think milder dishes are what he'd go for if he wanted comfort food

now. since he has to stay in shape for his guard duty and performances, i don't think he'd like having fried food often. i think he'd prefer smth lighter so he wouldn't feel sluggish. this would exclude fried calamari, xo sauce stir fried cheung fun, fried pumpkin w/ salted egg yolk, etc.

i'm gonna rule out vegetable dishes too (sorry vegetables!!) bc even though they're good, they're typically not the highlight of dim sum

moving on to other dishes, i'm ruling out har gow and siu mai (don't come at me for this) bc of the fact that they're standard dim sum dishes. yes, they're yummy and are telling of the quality of the dim sum restaurant, but i don't think he'd say they're his Favorite dish out of all the options. i have nothing against har gow and siu mai ok, it's just that i don't think he'd pick one of those as his top favorite bc it's standard to order them every time you get dim sum anyway.

even after ruling all these dishes out, there are still a lot left at this point. so, to make my life easier and bc i felt like it, i decided to hc that gaming likes sweet food. you may ask why and my answer is 1. bc i can, 2. bc it would be gap moe of him to have an energetic, fiery personality while preferring gentle sweets, and 3. bc i can. again bc it's canto cuisine, it's mild sweetness he's looking for.

after deciding on this, the two dishes that came to mind were char siu bao and phoenix claws. it's really funny that i thought of char siu bao bc judging by the look of gaming's recently leaked specialty dish, it's steamed char siu bao.

additional hc: i think he really likes char siu bao, and if he had to pick he'd go for the steamed kind rather than the baked kind bc it's soft and fluffy. interestingly enough, i decided on this prior to the leaks about his specialty dish, the description of which says it's steamed. mhy and i are on the same wavelength fr.

that being said. i'm gonna rule out char siu bao specifically because it's food you can eat on the go. because the story blurb in gaming's drip marketing says he spends his leisure time at the dim sum restaurant, i think he'd want to order smth he doesn't usually get to eat and smth he can take his time enjoying.

in conclusion, i think his favorite dim sum dish would be phoenix claws, which fits those two criteria. it's sweet, a dish that you can only get at dim sum restaurants, and he can take his time savoring it.

as for his favorite dim sum dessert, i had an easier time deciding bc i decided on the steamed char siu bao preference hc beforehand. i'm gonna go with the steamed custard buns bc they have a gentle sweetness and are also soft and fluffy. do you see my vision here? it's all coming together.

thank you for coming to my ted talk, i love him a lot as you can see

[lunasilvis]

My specialty is fried egg rice

[feargender]

Tagged by Ariel @iwilleatyourenglish 🥰🥰

Last song: I’m Your Man by Mitski

Favorite color: purble 💜

Last movie/tv show: it’s been weeks since I’ve watched something. Derry Girls, maybe?

Sweet/spicy/savory: I think maybe savory

Relationship status: engaged transsexual style

Last thing I googled: Montana (I wanted to know why it had a Spanish name)

Current obsession: Baldur’s Gate 3 and cooking with my new wok

Last Book: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. I have the Raven Tower by Ann Leckie on my bedside table, I just haven’t started it yet.

Looking forward to: next week my new class module starts! I just finished prerequisite courses so I’m excited to actually begin learning things specific to the specialty I signed up for. And tonight I’m making chicken fried rice.

Tagging: @campgender @friendofafriendofanoutcast @henbased @necro-hamster

[threadsun]

Anonymous Asks: "What do you think are Jack's, Joseph's, Shaun's, Ian's, Nick's, and Jean's favorite foods and drinks?"

Ooooh I’m gonna do these a lil out of order for Headcanon Reasons~

Content: Food and drink talk

Joseph:

Okay so I know everyone headcanons him as Italian-American, but like… my little Jewish heart likes to think he’s Jewish

Some of his favourite foods are ones he remembers his bubbe making for him before she passed away and he ran away

Her brisket is the thing he misses the most, so soft with just a hint of hot sauce and horseradish. Sandwiched between two slices of freshly baked challah…

The slightly gross bagels and lox she used to buy for him on a Sunday morning

But also he’s a sucker for a greasy burger and slightly soggy fries, a strawberry milkshake on the side

Shitty boxed wine (or manischewitz lmao)

Jack:

So, Sunny Day Jack was meant to be an all-American guy, but this Jack is a weird amalgamation of Jack and Joseph

So, uh, he’s Jewish too now. It’s my house I get to make the rules, and the rules are I project onto characters

Apples may be his favourite snack, but for a meal? Matzo ball soup. It’s got vegetables, protein, carbs… if you make it the day before, you can skim off the schmaltz!

He also loves fruit salads and regular salads, and—no surprise here—blueberry pancakes

Any sort of fruit juice is good for him! He’ll freshly squeeze it himself to make sure there’s not too much sugar

Man loves milk

Shaun:

Shaun is an accomplished man in many respects, but uhhhh… cooking is not one of them

He’s not the worst at it, he can make himself ready meals or boxed mac and cheese or simple dishes

But generally, he kinda prefers to just get food in. Chinese, Thai, and Indian are absolutely his favourites, but he does also like to try new places when he can

He’s a big fan of sandwiches! Any filling, he just loves something he can hold in one hand while he works

As for drinks, he loves a good smoothie. Especially those super healthy green ones full of like kale and spinach and stuff

Shaun’s alcoholic drink of choice is vodka

Ian:

Ian’s a pretty good cook! Not like… professional chef level, but he likes to watch cooking shows

He’s picked up a few things, and he’s learned to cook all of his favourite foods

He makes an absolutely delicious ramen, a very good full English breakfast, and he’s also a decent baker. Pies, cookies, cinnamon rolls of course

Breakfasts are definitely his specialty, especially things that are good for breakfast in bed

He loves strawberry milk, it’s almost silly how excited he gets about it (but also so cute)

He’s a big fan of all types of tea!

Nick:

Now, Ian may be a good cook, but Nick is almost a professional level cook. He’s practiced for years

He’s good enough to make his own new recipes if he knows the basic ingredients needed

He specializes in all types of rice and pasta and bread, all made by hand. Fried rice, coconut rice, carbonara, bolognese, naan, pizza, anything like that

He does love a good pain au chocolat, especially with a hot coffee. It’s his ideal breakfast

When it comes to drinks, he mostly sticks with water and coffee, but sometimes he’ll drink soda

He’s a sucker for lemonade

Jean:

Look, Jean never wanted to be an actor. He wanted to be a baker. It’s why he stuck with the Rory role for so long.

He’s not like… the best at it, just cause he doesn’t have much time to practice

But he definitely loves to eat sweets! Cakes and cookies, macrons and meringues, parfaits and puddings. Anything sweet, he has a major sweet tooth!

Cafe foods and drinks in general are his favourites. Croissants, doughnuts, coffee, tea

He loves a good cup of hot chocolate, with marshmallows and whipped cream

This man loves baileys

[pinnacle-pixel]

MY IKEMEN VILLAIN OC!

Image credit - Ai image generator

Name - Kairavi Parvati Woods

Birthday - 27 September

Affiliation - Under the queen (formerly) The Crown (Current)

Fairy tail Curse - The Jungle Book - Kaa the snake

Hobbies - Art, Reading

Talents - Has a good reflex and Cooking

Favorite Food - Stir-fried Indian rice

Hates Food - Food that takes too much effort to eat

Dislikes - Too much complications

Weapon - Knives or Short swords

Occupation - Manager at her family's business

______________________________________________________________

"A woman who is an excellent assassin, with a bright smile and charming personality. She is the only female who has joined The Crown as a 'cursed' individual due to her gender. Initially, she worked under the queen as an assassin until Victor offered her a position within the crown, complete with a good salary and accommodations, of course. She possesses a charismatic personality that captivates many, using it to charm and lure her targets. Due to her curse, she possesses the power of hypnotism and silent movement, which makes her an exceptional assassin. Additionally, she is immune to many toxins.

Her tragic end would come from being killed by her own schemes.

She has half Indian Royal blood and half English heritage. Her mother hails from India, having married her father for political reasons. She also has an older brother who holds a noble title and is acquainted with William and Elbert."

"She gets along with almost everyone, but she has managed to annoy Jude by calling him many names and teasing him, especially about his weak lungs. She and Harrison share the common interest of mystery and thriller books. She is not a morning person and really needs coffee, so Victor always makes sure she gets her coffee when she arrives for breakfast (where she has to be dragged out of bed).

She has been teaching Victor about Indian dishes, which are her specialty."

[niteshade925]

Shaobingliji/烧饼里脊, basically one of the many styles of (breakfast) sandwiches in China. Shaobingliji apparently appeared first in Bengbu/蚌埠 in Anhui/安徽 province, and then spread to other regions. This particular version I made is the Tianjin/天津 version. Liji/里脊 means tenderloins but actually implies *pork* tenderloins in common vernacular, however because Tianjin is home to a sizeable population of Hui people (Hui people are Muslims and cannot eat pork), the pork tenderloins are replaced by chicken breast in the Tianjin version to make it Halal. The name remained the same, however.

The Tianjin version of shaobingliji has marinated, dyed (with a natural food dye called red yeast rice/红曲米), and sautéed chicken breasts, fried egg, and fried tianmian sauce/甜面酱, all sandwiched or stuffed into a shaobing/烧饼 flatbread. If anyone ever visits Tianjin, there are many streetside breakfast vendors selling the Tianjin version of shaobingliji, in my experience almost as many as the number of vendors selling the Tianjin specialty breakfast wrap jianbingguozi/煎饼果子.

The video below is the recipe I followed. There are no Eng subs btw, but since the recipe is fairly easy (for people living outside of China the only hard part is getting some of the ingredients), if anyone wants to know, comment and I will post a translation.

[vivi-theakuneko]

My art for @ilikepearszine​

I tried using the food & Vietnamese traditional clothes as inspiration for their clothing ^^

Here are the close ups:

f

[Image description] Good Omens characters in clothing inspired by Vietnamese Food, accompanied by descriptions of the food.

Bánh Cuốn, known in English as Steamed Rice Rolls, is a breakfast dish originating from Northern Vietnam. The outside is made by mixing rice flour with water, and the inside is a stir-fried mixture of pork, chopped onions, jicama, mushrooms, and seasonings. It is ideally paired with herbs, bean sprouts, or fish sauce for dipping. Toppings includes slices of pork bologna and fermented pork rolls.

The middle region of Vietnam is famous for extra spicy dishes. One of the most popular ones is Bún Bò Huế (Huế's Beef Noodle), which came from Vietnam's old capital city of Huế, back in the 16th century.A typical bowl contains rice noodles, boiled beef, crab cakes, herbs, and hot broth. The broth is made by simmering marrowbone, hot pepper, shrimp paste, and lemongrass.  Before eating, shacha sauce may be added.

Nicknamed "Shrimps of the Mountains", Sâu Muồng is a specialty  that came from the E-De people living in the mountainous region of Vietnam. The dish is a simple stir-fried caterpillar or chrysalis collected from the senna siamea trees. It is said to have a slightly crunchy texture and a light, fatty taste. They believes it can aid malaria treatments. The E-De people are also famous for their unique way of drinking wine made from fermented grains: they drink from long bamboo straws, as depicted in the drawing.

If you are looking for something sweet and vegan-friendly to snack on, you can't go wrong in Southern Vietnam! If you want something soft, there are bánh bò (steamed rice cakes made from rice flour, sugar, yeast, and water) or bánh da lợn ("pig-skin cake" - not actually made with pig skin, mind you - which is made by steaming mashed yam/green beans, rice flour, sugar). If you are looking for something crunchier, there are bánh tai yến (a fried mixture of sticky-rice flour and coconut milk that looks like a mini sombrero), bánh cam (fried green bean balls with sesame), and a wide assortment of others. With the diverse cuisine of Vietnam, you're sure to find something to please your palate!

[hungryhistory]

Testing? Testing? 1,2,3?

For my first post, I wanted to do something kind of off the path of history! I also love breaking down food categories and this is kind of an “all rounder” food blog! So for today, I’ll be talking about Sushi, starting with Makizushi!

Makizushi

Maki is the type most people are familiar with! There’s Hosomaki, Futomaki, and Uramaki! Uramaki is what is most common in Americanized sushi, it’s sushi where the rice is on the outside, and the seaweed is on the inside!

futomaki means “fat roll”! It has multiple ingredients, and can be difficult to eat in one bite! Specialty rolls at American restaurants tend to be of this variety!

Hosomaki means “thin roll”! It will typically only have 1 ingredient, the fish. However, veggie rolls like cucumber rolls and avocado rolls also fall into this category!

maki is a very approachable form of sushi. Mostly because the rice can overpower the fish if it is raw, and there’s a variety of cooked rolls and even deep fried for those who like that idea! Maki is a great beginner sushi. Here are some rolls you might see on your menu!

California roll - this roll is famous! It’s crab, cucumber, and avocado. Most people lean to this roll because the crab is imitation and a safe bet!

Spicy tuna/salmon/crab/shrimp roll - with these rolls, the fish may be chopped finely and mixed with spicy mayo! Or it might be the normal piece!

crunchy ___ roll - Crunchy rolls will either have crispy fried onions or toasted panko breadcrumbs on the inside!

philadelphia roll - smoked salmon, cream cheese, and cucumber! It may also be regular salmon!

Alaska roll - take the california roll and sub the crab for salmon!

Avocado rolls, cucumber rolls, etc - these are veggie rolls! They won’t have fish, just what they’re named! Veggie rolls tend to be the most inexpensive on the menu, so they’re a great way to get fuller on a budget!

Specialty rolls will vary on area, there tends to be themes of dragon rolls (which typically include eel), caterpillar rolls (which have avocado on the outside), rainbow rolls (which are covered in the fish), and namesake rolls! These will cost the most money. This is because of the use of multiple ingredients (normally upscale ingredients), and it’s somewhat of a scam, in my opinion! It’s much harder to taste the fish or any of the ingredients individually in these rolls, so it’s more of a cash grab than anything! However, their strength is in novelty and extravagance!

This is all for Maki rolls! Next, I’ll be covering Nigiri, Temari, and gunkanmaki types!

[whumpshaped]

6 What do you use to keep your place when you’re reading a book?

11 Do you wear glasses or contacts?

26 Can you cook or bake? If so, what are some of your specialties?

33 Headphones or earbuds?

42 Do you have any games on your phone? If so, which one(s) is/are your favorite?

6. i either memorise it or use a bookmark! i have a bunch of pretty bookmarks, i love to use them. though i mostly read online now :(

11. glasses all the way, i've never tried contacts and i don't think i will

26. i can cook whatever i need to sustain myself. which means pasta and that rice/bulgur thing i usually make. it's just a bunch of bulgur/rice, fries, chickpeas, onions and corn. it's Amazing. i can also make breaded cheese. and uhh... what else... i can make a good mac n cheese from scratch! i mean the sauce from scratch. store bought macaroni. and ummmmmm. hm. that's all i can remember now.

and actually i just baked two kinds of cakes! the depression cake duo, choccy and vanilla. they turned out good i think :)

i also baked a sacher cake sometime back. it was good too i think

33. earbuds if anything at all. but it's a little annoying, for some reason they keep falling out of my ear. that's why i'd never get wireless.

42. i use duolingo as a game. other than that, paper.io. sometimes i take it out and try to beat a level and then i put it away for another month lol