Eric Ward
[00:21:54] All right so this is the part of the podcast that might make you a little bit hungry. You have been warned. Much is all about the food porn the foodie destinations and the best of where to eat around the world. Get ready for your mouth to water because mine definitely is. I'm about to speak to Eric Ward from the Japan Center who will tell us some weird and wonderful foods we need to try in Japan after sushi now Eric what are the top foods to try.
[00:22:22] After eating sushi in Japan because I was in Japan last May and I was there for three weeks I kind of went and traveled as much as I could and I ate sushi everyday.
[00:22:34] The number one on my list that I would say is to actually as weird as it sounds is non Japanese foods so Western foods in Japan Indian food and Chinese and even Italian food.
[00:22:45] I've heard that KFC is a big thing in Japan.
[00:22:49] Is that true. Yes. Throughout most of the year it's probably the same as any other fried chicken place but during Christmas in particular Japanese don't eat turkeys for Christmas they chicken. What you actually have to do is you have to preorder your dinner sets or your fried chicken bucket. I know that sounds a little strange. I had to preorder KFC but the demand is very high during that year and then you got your meal your chicken and then you would also get a Christmas cake as well. Japanese Christmas cake is a little bit different. It's basically a sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries.
[00:23:19] I would not have known that what would be the next food to try and the list.
[00:23:22] Anything that ends in yucky or has yucky in its name yucky basically means grilled or cooked. I'm sure a lot of people are at least aware of something that has and they're probably like teriyaki chicken actually have some teriyaki chicken right here in the office.
[00:23:35] I want to give a go well while you continue talking about some yucky.
[00:23:39] So teriyaki chicken yucky soba which probably most people are familiar with fried stir fried noodles and another variant of that is yucky udon which is a little bit thicker noodles.

[00:23:50] The other main ones would be Oklahoma Yankee which is a savory pancake of sort. They tend to use cabbage as the base mix it with egg and batter and then they top it with basically whatever you like.
[00:24:01] You would have it with bacon or pork belly is the main thing that they top it with it's everything with yucky yucky.
[00:24:08] You have to try it.
[00:24:09] Yeah. And then the other more well-known is that Taco Yorkie which is octopus balls.
[00:24:13] I have a little nice turkey yucky right here in front of me. So I see all the flakes and everything. So what's all in it again.
[00:24:20] Not normally taco refers to octopus. So you gonna put little bits of octopus in there grow them up and then cut them with a special Japanese brown sauce.
[00:24:28] Then with Japanese mayonnaise topped with ginger fish flakes and seaweed powder.
[00:24:34] Now what's really funny is like just eating right now that actually is really really good. I'm not the biggest branch into seafood territory like I would have calamari but I wouldn't really taste it because I would just dip in lots of sauce. But this I don't taste the octopus at all. I definitely taste the mustard as a very nice soft texture. It's not it's not like crispy or anything.
[00:24:53] It's actually really good though like I have six of them and I probably to get them. That's good. Yes.
[00:24:58] One
[00:24:59] of the things that I realized when I went to Japan is because the person who I went to with was vegetarian and he had a lot of trouble actually trying to be vegetarian and Japan. What. And as we actually went through kind of this list there is a lot of kind of like meat centric foods. Why would be kind of like an option for someone who want to go to Japan and was like but I don't eat meat.
[00:25:21] Well I do sympathize and fortunately the Japanese concept of meat is very varied and meat in most traditional Japanese cooking takes only the role of flavoring. But my take would be temporary cocky I guess. So it's basically just thinly sliced vegetables like onions and carrots sort of scrambled up into very thin breads and it's kind of like makes a nest. They dipped into the powder and they deep fry it. If anybody's familiar with onion rings I would be a similar taste of that but not so bad because it's a carrot and vegetable.
[00:25:52] Yeah. Thank you so much Mr. Eric. It's really good to hear this because I actually do want to get to Japan again. So I think there is payme foods out there to try plenty more Yankees out there to taste. Yes there show.
[00:26:07] That's it for this episode of out of office. Powered by Con TV. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. I'm going to be catching up with legendary explorer and environmental activist Salley Cousteau on how we can make trouble matter by traveling more sustainably. That's it for me. David Calderon. I'll see you soon.