[UNTITLED KYOTO FOOD DIARY]

Diary Day 10 - ビーフスツローガノフ

2026-08-28T00:00:00Z

Meal 10.1 - Commuter breakfast

Banana, single
Family Mart sanshoku dango

Finally got out early enough to grab something to have with breakfast before work, though it didn't go too well with the banana.

The colour and portability on the dango caught my eye, and it was certainly pleasant to look at, but to eat it left a little to be desired. The flavours were just a little too slight for me, and while the gooey rice texture was a lot of fun to chew on, it kind of matched poorly with the slightness of taste such that the gumminess was almost all there was. I'd be interested to try some fresh dango at a festival sometime, but this didn't really do it for me. It's a 2.

Verdict: 2

Meal 10.2 - Work lunch

Beef and mushroom stroganoff w/ rice and small salad

Today we were recommended a Japanese-Polish fusion restaurant near work that seemed more like someone's front room with bar seating than a restaurant, really lovely vibe. The meal also started with the very kind and friendly server knocking a glass of ice cold water all over my leg, so we all had a good laugh about that. The menu had such classic names as pierogi and kielbasa, but ultimately I opted for the beef stroganoff.

This was nice, earthy and peppery as you'd want, and the rice carried it well. The beef and the mushroom were well-cooked, a good textural pair and of course ideal with the creaminess of the thing. The side salad was certainly nicely presented, and made for a fun distraction from the richness of the rest of the plate, but ultimately didn't amount to too much.

It seems the restaurant was born from the six years the proprietor and chef had spent living in Poland when he was researching as a professor, and it's the kind of place that makes me think I should be writing more about the restaurants than about the food, but I guess I need to know a bit more Japanese for that. Also it's probably not so kind to write in depth about the personal stories of the people who make food for you then end with "this was medium, 3/5" but it was, I can't compromise here.

Verdict: 3

Meal 10.3 - Restaurant supper

Dan-dan noodles w/ rice bowl side dish
Gyoza

The first time I'd tried this place it was closed, then yesterday I discovered they only took small cash and I was too hungry to go somewhere else to break a bigger note and come back (and to be fair the Taresoba was excellent so happy accident), so I had been thinking about Dan-dan noodles for a few days now. Let me tell you, they were worth every second.

I had already become somewhat obsessed with this dish previously, having spent a lot of time trying to make it a few years ago. The mix of salty, fried pork, Sichuan pepper peanut seasoning and dark, almost caramelised Zhenjiang vinegar has so much potential, and while what I made was definitely tasty I knew it wasn't quite living up to all that. This showed me just how far short of the mark I had been falling, and I've scarcely been happier to be humbled.

I was immediately struck by how sweet the whole thing was. I'm never confident adding sugar to savoury dishes, and clearly I need to work on that because the effect here was phenomenal. The best thing about this humble pile of meat, veg and noodles is that the whole thing evolves in stages.

Early bites are almost delicate, dominated by that freshly fried, crispy and fragrant pork. Then, as you keep eating and the bowl gets more heavily incorporated, all the fat and seasoning coating the meat starts emulsifying in the broth, taking something bold and warming and making it rich, creamy and multilayered in its taste. Finally, if you're like me and can't help fishing all the solids out of a noodle soup so you have a big pot of broth to drink at the end, you get a side dish of rice to mix up with your leftover soup, maximising the time you get to spend savouring that sweet, salty and Sichuan spicy mixture.

I knew a few bites in that if I hadn't instituted it already this dish would have moved me to create the pole position, and while it doesn't knock the top spot off its perch, it's a strong 4 and I think probably ties last week's ramen. Man, I want some more.

Verdict: Strong 4, tied pole position

Diary Day 9 - Small Ideas, Big Ideas

2026-08-27T00:00:00Z

Meal 9.1 - Commuter breakfast

Banana, single

Back at it. Still a low 4.

Verdict: Low 4

Meal 9.2 - Grocery store lunch

Fried cutlet and rice bento
Botamochi, single

Downstairs grocery store lunch again today, and I should probably have guessed by looking but today's was pretty slight. I'm still trying to develop a sense of which of these bento meals is punching at the right weight for a serviceable and price-conscious office lunch. Today's was lat about sustenance level and maybe a bit more satisfying in pure volume than yesterday's, but in terms of flavour it fell fairly far short.

The rice was nice enough and filling once microwaved, but the cutlets were alas fairly bland, an disappointing downgrade over yesterday's chicken sandwich. In some ways this thing was more striking for what it suggests than what's actually in it. I found myself wondering what was meant by the tiny salad at the top of the tray, or the extremely small bed of noodles hidden under the cutlets. The noodles in particular I didn't even see when I picked up the bento, and they were gone so quickly after I noticed them it's as if they were barely there at all. I'm hoping to do better than this, low 2.

On the other hand I'm becoming fond of this botamochi stuff, I'm upgrading it to a low 3. I'd be interested to see if I can get a better one than the one from this grocery store, I don't really know enough about the actual production modes of all these gooey rice products to have a good sense of how much variation I can expect in taste and texture. More on this as it develops. In any case, I'll try something else next time.

Verdict: Bento - low 2, Botamochi - low 3

Meal 9.3 - Ticket diner supper

Taresoba noodles with sliced pork, bamboo shoots
Boiled dumplings
Rice

I'd been nursing a craving for gyoza over the last couple of days, but the place I always walk past on the way home from work was way too busy, then my second choice only took small notes and I didn't have any on me. I wandered for a little bit until I found something that technically fit the bill, though ultimately I would discover the gyoza were not the main event here.

This was an excellent find. Initially presented as a fairly typical-looking bowl of noodles, meat and vegetables, with a side plate of boiled dumplings and rice, the server explained that the restaurant's concept was such that the noodles came pre-dressed with a sort of starter-sauce that each diner was encouraged to adjust to taste with a mild white vinegar, a chilli oil, and a wide range of dry seasonings and accoutrements.

Maybe the effect was enhanced by the bowl looking like it wouldn't taste of much, but I found this very compelling. The base sauce had a surprisingly complex umami taste, and the effect of mixing in the white vinegar and the chili oil made the bowl really start to coalesce. The pork and the bamboo shoots were nice, the pork especially made for a good interlude between acidic bites of sauced noodles, but I never took too long a break because they were really that good. The first bite of dumpling was great, exactly the desired eruption of brightness, saltiness and other good dumpling flavours, but they didn't really live up to that afterward. Unsure if they sat in the hot water for too long.

As-is, this was an unassuming dish that punched well above its weight and tasted excellent, but the dumplings slightly underdelivered and in the main bowl the core noodles were really the star of the show, so I'm going to start at a low 4. I'll be coming back, however, because the noodles were easily memorable enough on their own that I'm keen to see if there's some combination of accoutrements that can punch this up any further, I think it has the potential.

Verdict: Low 4 with growth potential

Diary Day 8 - The Spectre of England

2026-08-26T00:00:00Z

Meal 8.1 - Grocery store lunch

Katsu sando

I was going to visit the lab with the team lead after lunch so he suggested we get something from the grocery store beneath the office, and my English Sensibilties compelled me toward a cold sandwich, but damn, Japanese-sized sandwiches are not very big.

I guess it did have both bread and panko fried chicken in it, so maybe it's not so surprising that it was weirdly substantial for its size. Some nice moments of crunch, saltiness and chicken flavour, but nothing really rising above the level of noise. In the end it was pretty English, because this kept me going until supper but was more or less disappointing. It's a 2.

Verdict: 2

8.2

Spicy roast pork ramen

The place I had eyed for this evening was closed when I got there, so I bailed and went for a revisit of Sunday's ramen. I had spotted a spicy broth on the menu when I was there last, so I was keen to see if it could live up to its rich and hearty cousin's prestige.

Alas, not quite. Certainly still tasty, but even built in the same sort of way I felt it was lacking a few of the key elements that made the pork broth really resonate. For one, I was definitely missing that wonderful chashu, even though the highlight last time was the sliced pork. The broth was definitely nice, with a moreish sour tang to it, though I'd say more warming than really spicy, something of a trend with Japanese food.

I think the central problem was that losing the rich fullness of the pork broth had a rippling effect throughout the whole dish. The noodle-y and plain soup mouthfuls didn't have that invigorating feel of a truly unctuous soup, the darkness of the sliced pork wasn't a counterpoint to that rich taste but instead kind of lost in the sourness, and the broth was sharp enough to give some warmth and depart from the meaty flavour you'd expect of the broth itself, but not sharply enough to make good contrast with the fatty and carb-y ingredients. Still a good bowl of food, but a significant step down from last time. High 3.

Verdict: High 3

Diary Day 7 - Curiosities

2026-08-25T00:00:00Z

Cutting the Gordion knot of finding a more interesting breakfast to eat - wasn't hungry so no breakfast this morning.

7.1 - Work lunch

Pork ramen
Curry rice

Lunch was had in kind of a rush today, we got turned away from three different restaurants because they were full so we just went for the first thing we could get, ending up in a cheap and cheerful (but apparently century-old?) ramen place. The food was nice, a hearty and filling lunch, and you could say the cooking was more or less unremarkable except it was the cheapest meal I've had so far by a lot. At 900 yen for both plates it's almost like everything as twice as good. I'm sure I'll get over this price shock at some point, but it won't be today.

The ramen was definitely the superior element here, really filling and wholesome broth which the noodles carried very well, even if it was only minimally garnished. It wasn't as deep and layered in flavours as the ramen I'd had the other day, but at this price it was plenty good enough.

The curry rice was tasty and nicely dark but I can't lie it didn't occur to me that it would literally just be rice with curry sauce and nothing else. Lesson learned I guess, I'll need something to mop up the rest of the gravy if I get it as a side in future, the ratios were a little off for something I could comfortably balance without just licking it off the plate (I could probably be convinced). I'm going to give this an impressive 3 just for getting such tasty food in this volume at that price, even if I'm not in a big hurry to eat here again.

Verdict: Impressive 3

7.2 - Fast food supper

Taco double patty burger
Large fries
Melon soda

I saw this place on day 1, and was kind of hypnotised by the construction of the thing on the signs outside, so imagine my shock when I got in there and saw they had a burger with not only salsa but avocado! Unfortunately I wasn't brave enough to get that and honestly after this one I likely won't go back to close the loop.

The burger composition was just bizarre. Obviously there's the puck of tomato so formidable it's front and centre in the marketing, but special mention needs to go to the burger cheese parked in the middle of the burger,where it has absolutely no chance of melting even a little bit. Oddly enough though, the salsa was actually quite tasty and spicier than I was expecting. The patties had a gesture at good seasoning but they're just too thin and mealy to really inspire anything.

The fries were decently cooked, if slightly overseasoned. I'm not normally one for sweet soft drinks but the radiant green of the melon soda compelled me. Alas, I should have stuck to my guns. The first sip kind of gave me everything I was looking for, and after that I'd have been better off with water.

Glad I satisfied my curiosity but would not really recommend beyond curiosity value, on the higher end of 2.

Verdict: On the higher end of 2

Diary Day 6 - Week 2

2026-08-24T00:00:00Z

6.1: Commuter breakfast

Banana, single

The blog is bearing down on my diet again, going to need to find something more interesting to have for breakfast. More fruit as an accompaniment, and maybe some kind of crunchy snack too.

Verdict: Low 4

6.2: Work lunch

Hamburg steak with broccoli, roast potatoes and rice, served with demi-glace

This had also been mentioned a couple of times as a possible when we went out for lunch, and though for me the concept is pretty unusual, the execution was a lot nicer than I was expecting. This is probably the inspiration for the mystery flight meal that I had on my way here because it was indeed a patty of beef among various carbs and flavour accoutrements.

The beef was a cut above what I'd had in the air, though. It was a little weird to eat a slab of beef with chopsticks like this and it has to be a slightly odd texture to allow for that, but it was really strikingly well-seasoned. It kind of lived and died on that, so I'm glad it went well. I ordered mine with the demi-glace gravy, which was pretty nice, and the potatoes were a good bit better than they had any business being. My expectations were pretty rock-bottom for ostensible roast potatoes so far from my ancestral home, but these were actually nice.

The broccoli was kind of whatever but with the rice it provided a nice break from the richness of the meat and gravy. Far from the best meal I've eaten while I'm here but quite possibly the most pleasantly surprising, unfortunately only enough to secure a 3, but I think it's worth a high one.

Verdict: High 3

6.3: Convenience store supper

Yakisoba with mayo
Chocolate cake, half

I had a japanese lesson late in the evening today, so spent most of the time after work on the vocabulary flahcard grind. Since I didn't want to think about timing a trip out to eat with the lesson, I decided to have another convenience store meal. I'm glad these are in here but let's see if we can keep them down to one a week.

Over the weekend I'd grabbed one of the slightly intimidating massive noodle packs from a Family Mart so I'd have something in case of emergency, then on my way home from work today I also grabbed a little cake to have a dessert to go with it.

The noodles were sort of what you'd expect from a packet yakisoba in the UK, only they had a surprisingly dark and smoky edge to them. Uncommonly for packet noodles, the aromatics didn't feel like they did really did anything, but maybe I'd miss them if they weren't there. This also came with a mayonnaise sachet and while I couldn't get the aperture small enough for the full criss-cross pattern they had on the box, I've always loved a little mayonnaise in a rich salty dish like this or an egg fried rice. Gives some nice variation to that dark smokiness.

The cake was nicely flavoured but a bit on the light side for my preference, tough that did make it easy to eat with chopsticks. All in all this was near enough to what I was expecting with some elements rising above that, but nothing really transforming the experience or giving it too much to recommend it. I'd say it's a high 2, but mostly from a nice packet yakisoba.

Verdict: High 2

Diary Day 5 - Pole Position

2026-08-23T00:00:00Z

Another big sleeper, but this time when I dashed out the door it was only to grab laundry detergent because this was a household jobs day. Big sleep, slow day, only really one big meal. Too big, actually.

Meal 5.1: Chores breakfast

Banana, single

Binned off the onigiri this time, which I think was probably a mistake because I ended up snacking a bit more than I'd have liked over the course of the day, but oh well. The banana is still what it is, a 4.

Verdict: 4

Meal 5.2: Ticket diner supper

Fukuchian ramen w/ sliced roast pork
Chicken karaage

Oh man. This was some seriously good food. This was so good I'm adding a new accolade, since I think we're gonna have several more 4s before we're done here, this one is getting the Pole Position award for the best thing I've eaten so far, new record to beat.

The pork broth was hearty and creamy, and the pork chashu was perfectly seasoned and cooked right up to the point that it melted in your mouth without drying out, dropping a couple of globs of rendered fat into the broth to make it even richer and deeper. Possibly the most compelling part for me was that the sliced roast pork had this wicked dark caramelisation running along the edges that made each bite really linger on your tongue while you sipped more of that broth. It was everything I wanted from a hot bowl of ramen, and more. Really impressive stuff.

You can tell I was too hungry when I was looking at the menu because in addition to this stacked bowl of ramen I also got some chicken karaage which I definitely did not need, but it was also really good. Light batter, nice moist on the inside, a sweet sauce to dip in and covered in spring onions for a little bit of bite against the tide of rich, fatty salt. Great stuff.

That's the strongest 4 yet, the first pole position of the month, and I will be back here to try everything else they have.

Also: the novelty of being able to get a pint with your supper for £2 is really dangerous for me, I might have to limit this to one day a week or I might be in trouble.

Verdict: Strong 4, pole position

Diary Day 4 - Out and About

2026-08-22T00:00:00Z

For reasons not fully clear to me I slept like an absolute rock last night, clean through my alarm and almost into the afternoon. I wanted to get out and enjoy Kyoto a bit with my first weekend off, so I pretty much just grabbed some food and headed out the door. I remembered I had wanted a bit more than just a banana, so on my way past the Family Mart outside my hotel I decided to swing in and revisit my old friend the onigiri.

4.1: Walking brunch

Chicken and mayonnaise onigiri
Banana

Sadly it wasn't a winner. While certainly better than the chicken and vegetable, it was unfortunately one of the worst things a packaged food could be: a worse something else. I should probably have seen this coming from the name, but it really did strike me as just the same as the prawn and mayo onigiri but with a worse bite and a slghtly blander taste. Ultimately it wasn't what I was looking for to punch up my banana breakfast, so I'll have to look elsewhere.

This one's a bit loose, ratings-wise, because it's two quite different things that don't really add up to more than the sum of their parts and are quite far apart in quality, so I'll just rate them separately. There wasn't really an ensemble to give its own rating.

Verdict: Banana - Low 4, Chicken and mayo onigiri - 2

4.2: Restaurant supper

Seafood mix okonomiyaki

On my way back from town I had my eye out for restaurants and walking around sweating all day can often nurture a craving for something rich and bold, so when I saw a compelling looking okonomiyaki bar I knew exactly where I'd be eating.

It's sort of the whole thing with okonomiyaki, but with this one it bears mention: this dish was really remarkably gorgeous. Not only that, but basically every ingredient cashed the cheque it was writing with how pretty it looked, the seafood was all tender and well seasoned - no unpleasant rubbery or chewy bites. It was great fun to chop this thing up with the accompanying trowel, too.

This dish kind of collapses some of the variety and range of the set menu type meals I've had so far by just cramming them all into a pancake, and it worked perfectly. Well sauced, well seasoned, perfectly cooked, and beautiful - it's an easy 4.

Verdict: Easy 4

Diary Day 3 - グリーンカレ

2026-08-21T00:00:00Z

Meal 3.1 - Commuter breakfast

Banana, single

It's a banana! I love bananas.

This was good, and I'm not sure if I'm imagining it, but this one seemed sweeter than I'm used to. It's possible I'm just being activated by the branding and its historical attachment to the SEGA corporation, but that's one of the remarkable things about food: you can never really now how much what you're seeing influences what you're tasting. Much better than a rice ball, but I could do with a little more than just a banana for breakfast, low 4.

Verdict: Low 4

Meal 3.2 - Work lunch

Thai green curry
Nam sup side
Sweetened tapioca pudding

Thai was floated as a possible option both yesterday and the day before, and honestly I was a little bit concerned that it would just be medium, because I could get medium Thai food pretty easily where I'd come from.

These fears turned out to be unwarranted, because this was a really excellent green curry. A nicely warming and fragrant gravy, and excellently cooked, tender veggies that carried that flavour perfectly and made the whole thing quite a pleasure to eat. Back in the UK I would usually use green curry as a sort of litmus test for a Thai place, something you try once and then if it's good enough you feel happy to come again and try something else, but honestly I'd happily get this again.

I forgot that I'd got a hearty broth side with my curry and rice, so by the time I'd finished both I didn't have the appetite left for my tapioca. In the end I gave this to someone else at the table who was suffering a bit from the spicy Tom Yum he'd ordered, but rest assured if it crosses my path again I will be sure to bring a suitable review of it to any enquiring minds reading this. As-is, this was a solid 4.

Also: this was a funny meal because the table was me, a non-Japanese speaker, one of the non-English speakers from HR, and then two fluent bilinguals, so the table operated in a kind of modal fashion for who was talking about what at any given time. Guess I'd better hurry up and learn some more Japanese.

Verdict: Solid 4

Meal 3.3 - Ticket diner supper

Egg and pork rice bowl
Cold soba noodles w/ soy-dashi dipping sauce

Once again I got home and tripped and fell into bed and slept for several hours, so I had to dash out to the ticket diner at the end of my street again for emergency sustenance. The menu had made a big song and dance about cold soba noodles last time, so this time I went for those.

This was a heavy meal. Not in a bad way by any means, it was just a great deal of food, which I probably ought to have expected. The egg and pork rice bowl was nicely sauced, and the egg itself was fried omelette style, but still pretty tender and pleasant to eat. The pork was solid, about what I would expect from this kind of dish.

I think if it was just that, it would have been tasty but quite unbalanced, and the cold soba noodles were a fun complication to the thing. I didn't really know what I was to make of them, but it quickly became clear that the thing to do is to pick up a mouthful at a time and dip them into the accompanying bowl of soy-dashi sauce, and in this way they actually worked very well in concert with this huge bowl of rich, dense pork, egg and rice.

I'd look out for them again because I found them quite compelling, I think they could easily be a great companion to some rich and hearty dish with higher ambitions. While I did appreciate the little dish of diced spring onions that came with this, I think the ideal dish that uses these soba noodles to cut through something really rich and unctuous needs a little more support than just them. It's a 3, but a respectable one.

Verdict: 3, respectable

Diary Day 2 - Teething

2026-08-20T00:00:00Z

Meal 2.1: Commuter breakfast

Prawn and mayonnaise onigiri, single

After yesterday's solid but unremarkable performance, I was interested to see if there was any room for upward movement from the Family Mart onigiri selection. I had been disappointed that the chicken and vegetable had not really come through in the last rice ball, so I went for one whose namesake was visibly protruding from the rice ensemble.

Whether that made any sense or not I think it basically worked, there was an identifiable bite and taste of prawn in this one. The mayonnaise too also gave it a nice gooey centre which was a fun textural contrast to the differently-gooey rice layer. It was still kind of nothing, but it was a significantly better kind of nothing than yesterday's. I think I'm going to say low 3, but I could easily see an argument for high 2. I should get some fruit for tomorrow.

Verdict: Low 3

Meal 2.2: Team lunch

Fish set lunch w/ sea breem, sashimi, miso, dressed rice, pickles

Having been properly orientated by HR, today I met the head of my department at the company, and he introduced me to the rest of the team. Once I had been briefed on what they were going to want me to do, we all went to lunch at the restaurant that had been HR's first choice the day before. Turns out it was a good one! Someone else on the team recommended the fish set menu, so I got that.

This is pretty much everything you could want from a work lunch. The fish was all bright and fresh, and like the sushi bento from a couple of nights ago, the broad variety of stuff really worked in its favour. The sea bream was well-crisped on the outside and nice and perfectly delicate on the inside, and the sashimi was really wonderfully textured. I could really get used to meals coming with a warm bowl of miso soup.

I did make the classic mistake of selecting a fish with bones in it, that I then had to eat with chopsticks, but in the end I think I got away with it. Great meal, it's a 4.

Verdict: 4

Meal 2.3: Microwave supper

Microwave beef tendon curry rice
Sesame spinach and carrot side salad
Botamochi for dessert

Let nobody accuse me of not being thorough in my food quest. The pursuit of trying many different things is necessarily sometimes unglamorous. The idea for this one struck me as, on the way out of the office, I was caught in a sudden and intense shower (reported in the news as a 'guerilla downpour'). The office is just above a supermarket, so when I dashed in there for shelter I thought: why not see what kind of meal I could throw together from in there?

This blog is already influencing the food I decide to eat because the thought of posting a picture of this curry totally unaccompanied was so mortifying that I was compelled to find a side-salad for it. Then, since I was already buying extras, I thought it would be fun to grab one of these botamochi for dessert, so I did that.

This was honestly better than expected. The curry sauce was dark and rich in exactly the way I like, and the beef tendon was an interesting new texture I've not had before. The side-salad was actually pretty good too, but then since it was so heavily dressed that's not super surprising I don't think. The two made a decent pair, though I could probably have done with something a little brighter to balance the richness of the curry and sesame.

The botamochi was nice too - texturally it was a bit odd but I think it worked out in the end. Once I was getting good bites of both the coarser red bean paste exterior and the gooey white rice interior I think it made for a solid dessert snack. I'm gonna give this meal a low 3 for now, it wasn't much, but it didn't aspire to very much either.

Verdict: Low 3

Diary Day 1 - Language barriers

2026-08-19T00:00:00Z

Having conked out somewhere between 8 and 9PM the night before, today was characterised primarily by being the day after I spent 20 hours on planes. In total I think it was a 30-hour day, and there isn't really a playbook for how much or how often you should eat when you're awake for that length of time. All of which is to say that, this morning, breakfast was at 2AM.

Meal 1.1: Midnight breakfast

Chicken and vegetable onigiri, single

I got this while stocking up on essential supplies on my way back from the department store where I got yesterday's supper, and honestly you could do worse. The whole thing has the exact kind of gooey texture you might expect for a convenience store rice ball, and the I guess the rice is cooked in chicken stock to give it a little more flavour and that colour it has.

Unfortunately while there were definitely bits of both chicken and vegetables in it, you only know them very faintly by their texture, they didn't taste much at all, which was a bit of a shame. Kind of nothing, but a functional midnight snack that saw me through to lunch ten hours later, you could do a lot worse for like 70p. 2.

Verdict: 2

Meal 1.2: Company lunch

Roasted spiced chicken with fries, ratatouille(?), julienned carrots, green salad

I had my company orientation with HR today after which they very kindly took me out to lunch. Funnily enough their first choice was closed, then it turned out the open door we'd just walked past to see that the first choice was closed was the second choice, which then promptly also closed when we turned back toward it.

Undeterred, though, we went for the third choice, which was this slightly peculiar but ultimately pretty tasty spiced chicken affair. I was immediately struck by how tender and moist the chicken cutlet was, and delciously seasoned throughout, which I guess must be the result of some very robust brining procedure. It's hard to describe, but it had the taste of something very tightly controlled, that you might get ten of these and have them all taste precisely that good.

The rest of the dish was nice enough, if a bit oddly composed. Green salad and carrots were appreciated, and the ratatouille was a well-intentioned counterpoint to the rich saltiness of the chicken and fries, but it was a bit too bland to really rise above the level of noise. Still, ultimately solid meal, a 3 with aspirations. I think you could easily build a 4 in the shape of this dish by starting with that chicken then punching up the other elements.

Verdict: 3 with aspirations

1.3: Ticket diner supper

Nanban chicken and prawn set, rice, miso soup, 'tartare sauce'

This one came after I was discharged from the orientation and they said I should go home and get some sleep, which I laughed off, then went home and fell asleep for four hours.

After I had a quick look online and saw that some places had already started to close for the evening, I decided that in the interest of actually getting anything to eat I should avoid overcomplicating things and just go to the restaurant right at the end of the road my hotel was on. Thus: the chicken nanban and prawn set.

This was great, delicious fried chicken in a sweet honey-like sauce, perfectly tender deep fried prawns, miso, and what I now know is typically called 'tartare sauce', though I wouldn't really recognise it as such. More of an egg mayonnaise, quite mild overall, no capers or pickles or anything. Still good, though.

While I definitely really enjoyed this, as it was the first meal I'd procured and paid for under my own steam it's hard to divorce how I feel about it from how bewilderingly cheap it was. This whole set cost me about £5.50, and I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say a meal like this would probably set you back fully three times as much where I'd just come from. I'm giving it a low 4 for now because that chicken and sweet sauce was really tasty, but it's possible it won't seem as much like one after I've lived here a month.

Also: I spent about fifteen minutes psyching myself up to do restaurant dialogue in Japanese before setting off to this place, and just before my mouth could form the words メニユーください？, the server very politely shushed me and pointed me to the electronic kiosk that had been neatly obscured on my way in. Oops.

Verdict: Low 4

Diary Day 0 - 6,000 Miles

2026-08-18T00:00:00Z

Dear diary, earlier today I moved to Japan.

Communicating the reality of this fact poses two immediate and significant problems. First, it's such an impossibly massive change to nearly every circumstance of my life that it feels like there is literally too much information to relay. It doesn't even really fit into my brain, honestly, so any way to filter and compartmentalise the news is going to be well worth the effort at the moment.

Second, I just moved eight hours into the future, so I now have much less time to talk to most of the people who would want to hear whatever I could manage to say. I'm working on this one, but I should probably take some steps to optimise the communication time I do still have.

One part of my proposed solution to this conundrum is the blog you're reading right now. I haven't written on the internet in a pretty long time and it's hard to say whether I'll have enough bandwidth to narrate the full experience of moving my whole life to the other side of the world, but I have an idea for a decent compromise.

Whatever else I get up to, however tired I find myself at the end of a given day, one thing is for certain - I will always have strong opinions about the food I'm eating. Some of you will have had the misfortune to learn this personally. If you haven't, prepare to learn it in a lot of detail, I guess:

A 30-day food diary

This will probably be the longest of these posts because it's about the day where I spent 20 hours in transit, but at minimum I'm going to aim to have a post up on each day's main meals. You too can taste your way through the streets of Kyoto, or something.

All meals will be rated according to the proper rubric, the five-point scale. A key advantage of this is that most readers have a decent idea what the ratings mean already, but I leave below a brief explainer of what each point on the scale really means, for the reader's interest:

-5-

A dish that reaches a 5 is some of the best food you have eaten. A 5 will buoy your mood and take hold of your heart, and it will move you to suggest others go out of their way specifically to try it. You may even become obsessed with making it. The right roast beef dinner, good tacos birria, and a dipped Italian Beef sandwich with cheese are all 5s.

-4-

This is food you're glad to have eaten, that you'll want to share with people and that you're quietly confident will get them to tell you what good taste you have. In the pursuit of great food, the largest category will likely be the one reserved for merely very good food, and as such it covers a broad range from invigorating soul food to elevated fast food to even just extremely fresh food. While 5s are what dreams are made of, a life with many 4s is a life well-lived indeed.

-3-

At the threshold between good and bad comes the unremarkably adequate. In the end we must eat to live, and along the arcs of our lives we will all eat many meals which are simply alright. Maybe there will be good elements, or choice ingredients that liven up the affair and bring highlights to the dish, but they won't be enough to bring a 3 out of the realm of mediocrity.

-2-

Sadly we've all fallen short even of a 3-tier meal at some time in our lives. A 2 will often have the shape of something average or better, but a few critical flaws mean you spend the whole time wanting something more. Not outright bad, but being characterised mainly by disappointment means you'll usually spend a little longer looking rather than willingly go for a 2 a second time.

-1-

The bottom of the scale is reserved for meals you'd rather forget. Poorly conceived, badly prepared or insufficiently palatable to even finish, a 1 is so bad that you leave it thinking perhaps it would have been better not to eat at all. Hopefully we can make it through the month without any of these.

The world is full of foods that need rating, and as such not all dishes at the same number are created equal. Some 4s will be high without being 5s, some 3s will be low without being 2s, and these will be noted accordingly. This does not make it a fifteen-point scale.

Meal 0.1: Breakfast

Braeburn Apple, single

I headed to the airport pretty early and was expecting a long while before I could eat real food again, so a fruit breakfast seemed like the ideal combination of nutritious and handheld. Thus, the diary begins with the humble Braeburn apple.

Something that you may or may not know about me is that for much of my life I was a very picky eater, and spending years holding grudges against certain foods has a way of leaving you with powerful sense memories that end up not really reflecting reality.

I made it out of childhood with the unshakeable belief that a green apple would always be sharp, crisp and slightly sour, and while a red apple was milder and sweeter, it was guaranteed to be a mealy textural disaster. The Braeburn apple challenges this idea.

London's been pretty crazy hot for the last few weeks so one of these out of the fridge was pretty much the perfect breakfast for my situation. Refreshing, crisp, light and with a gentle sweetness, it's a pretty great fruit breakfast. Polishing off the ends starts to get closer to that more mealy texture I remember so vividly, keeping this just barely out of solid 4 territory, but a perfectly respectable showing and a pretty great start to things.

Verdict: Low 4

Meal 0.2: Airport lunch

Breakfast Burrito, London's Pride Heathrow

I had a croissant while I sat in the Caffé Nero saying a tearful "smell-ya-later" to my family, but basically as soon as I got through security I knew I was going to need something a little more substantial before I began my long journey toward the sun.

I remembered I'd had a more-or-less passable burger and chips at this Fuller's pub on my last trip through Heathrow so I figured why not chance it, ending up with their breakfast burrito. It has most of what you'd want from one of those, densely-packed meat and carbs etc., but the execution leaves a little to be desired.

By far the biggest thing holding this back is that the eggs just are not good. They're clearly important enough to the affair that they make up the bulk of the interior, but while they're hearty and decently seasoned, they're too far over, turning a classic burrito filling into something grainy and not very pleasant.

As I'll complain to anyone who'll listen (or who won't move away quickly enough) back bacon is just not up to this task either. In a hot, wet environment like a burrito it just becomes like a leathery puck, making it awkward to bite through whatever good stuff you've got in there.

All that aside, though, this was okay. The chorizo was the kind of passable I was hoping for going into this and brought a nice, gentle heat to the proceedings. The melting cheese around the outermost layer of the filling did a good job bringing back some of the creaminess that the eggs were lacking, and the little hash brown coins were honestly kind of charming.

I'm willing to put the dish's shortcomings down to the fact that it's something of an outlier on the pub kitchen breakfast menu. The problems with the eggs and the bacon seem like a probable result of needing to use the same eggs and bacon as the Heathrow pubgoer expects in a full English. Sufficiently well-built that whoever made it could likely serve 4s, but in this case was held back by circumstance. It's a 3.

Verdict: 3

Meal 0.3: In-flight supper

Light Thai red curry platter
Side 'slaw salad w/ luncheon meat slice
Chocolate and caramel pudding
Cheese and crackers

I was determined to go into the in-flight meals with an open mind, with some mixed results. Things started okay, though.

About 3 hours into the flight to Bangkok we were asked to contend with a very light Thai red curry, populated with egg, chicken and potato. Accoutrements included a colourful sort of 'slaw side-salad, a light and mousse-y chocolate pudding, and cheese and crackers for after.

The curry was sort of okay. The egg was actually of a surprisingly good texture, and the chicken was probably more tender than it had any business being. Unfortunately it couldn't really rise above the fact that the gravy was so mild it just did not taste of anything at all. Sort of barely warming and savoury but otherwise totally unmemorable. The potatoes also were under, retaining some of that raw bite you never want to feel between your teeth. On the lesser side of pleasant overall, but still edible.

As for the side salad, while it looked very much the part, it was completely flavourless - did not finish. The pudding, on the other hand, was actually quite a bit better than expected. I had to get a bite with both some mousse and the more solid cake-y base but once I did they worked well together, even if ultimately I think it would have been improved by a ratio closer to half-and-half. It was slight enough that the little caramel sauce drizzle actually had a significant impact too, even the little tiny bits of wafer or whatever brought some nice contrast. Cheese and biscuits were slightly bizarre but whatever, basically edible.

This meal probably suffered in comparison to the actively nice paneer curry I had when I flew to Combo Breaker in 2024. In the real world this was a 2, but for airline food I'd say low 3.

Verdict: Low 3 (37,000 ft) / 2 (Sea Level)

Meal 0.4: Midnight in-flight breakfast

"Omelette" w/ mozzarella and cheese sauce and tomatoes and spinach and hash brown and sausage(??)

This is where I felt things start to turn. Even opening the film on this meal was confusing, I saw it was listed as an 'omelette with mozzarella', but it had no structure of the sort and mozzarella did not even seem to be the second most noticeable ingredient.

As in the description, this tray was absolutely packed with ingredients, but they all shared that none of them really tasted of anything. I guess being steamed in the tray while submerged in an undifferentiated egg/cheese goo isn't the best start for tomatoes, spinach, sausage and hash brown, but every bite of this was just weird. I guess the fruit cup was refreshing, at least.

I honestly don't really know why my notes have this as a 2 because my main memory of it is how confusing it was to eat, but I did eat it all, so I'm going just going to say it was a very bad 2, and I was on an aeroplane so I deserve a little compassion.

Verdict: Very low 2

Meal 0.5: In-flight supper, again

Beef steak patty with soy-like sauce, minimal salad and rice

By the time this meal was served I was some 16 hours into my journey, and I had been so strongly psychologically affected by the sun starting to come up over Bangkok while I was drifting off at my connection gate that I was forcing myself to do something like sleep, even though I was sitting up straight and the cabin lights were on full daylight mode.

I have very little memory of this meal at all. I just sort of desperately chewed it down to top up my energy reserves, and immediately put a blanket back over my head to try and sleep some more, not even stopping to take a picture. I think it was decently-seasoned? Maybe the sauce was kind of nice, or something? Don't know, weird vibe, kind of don't want to think about it any more.

Verdict: 2? Maybe?

Meal 0.6: Takeaway supper at hotel

Inari sushi bento w/ rice and pickled maki roll selection

Fortunately, waiting for me at the end of my trial was more or less the ideal first-night meal. I picked up something I was recommended on my way out of Kyoto central station and ended up with a gorgeously-packaged sushi bento that managed to fit an impressive array of foods into a tight package.

Everything was pretty good, the prawns, the rice, the inari all tasted great, but the thing that really elevated this one was the sheer range and diversity of fun little pickles to eat. As it's made to be eaten cold, you're never going to get those huge, rich flavour bursts that you might from freshly fried prawns or even freshly cut raw fish, but when you can clean your palette after every bite with an exciting new pickle, that's not a limitation.

Combined with the excellent presentation I thought this box was a real pleasure to eat, and I'm going to keep an eye out for more like it. Saving me from the torments of the good people at Thai Airways, was my first solid 4.