Most of the Random Japan posts here are about food, because (more often than not) food was a sort of in-between thing when I was travelling. My visits to Akihabara were punctuated by a stop for Ramen, a stop for McDonalds, and a stop for Curry, but none of those three things really has much to offer by way of commentary on Akihabara… at least so far as the contents of this blog are concerned. But they’re a fascinating glimpse into day-to-day life in Japan, so I documented as much of that stuff as I could.
Case in point: Lotteria. One of Japan’s big fast-food chains, coming up alongside McDonalds, and Mos Burger. Where McDonald’s is all about its brand, and Mos Burger is all about ‘freshness’, Lotteria seems to be all about making as many random burgers as possible. Lotteria is a cross between food manufacturer “Lotte” (they make lots of kinds of candies and snack foods amongst other things) and “cafeteria”, which is a delightfully Japanese mash-up. Case-in-point on the weirdness front btw, that to the right is a burger with two patties, a fried egg, and teriyaki sauce. It was delicious.
I really dug Lotteria, their particular brand of fast food was just this side of obscene (seriously, check out their website – anything with melted cheese on it looks like a heart attack). But one of their best menu items is also one of their simplest and most straightforward: The Lotteria Potato. The potato comes inside this cute, branded box, alongside a rather generous helping of sea-salt in a little packet.
This particular Lotteria Potato was purchased from inside Sapporo JR Station, at the last possible minute before I’d miss my train and be stuck in Sapporo for another 12 hours. You can see it alongside our drink-of-choice on the trip, Kirin Lemon Chi-hi.
Opening the box reveals the potato. So far as we can tell, it’s a whole potato that’s been par-boiled and then sliced. It is then deep-fried to order, resulting in a very crispy skin and as the potato blooms in the friar, crispy and delicious insides. It sort of fans out, and is attached at the bottom. It’s sort of like a blooming-onion, but less unhealthy.
The delicious sea salt is then sprinkled in-and-on the potato. If the Potato is fresh enough, the salt will adhere to the bits where there’s still cooking oil on the exterior. At this point the potato is really, really hot, btw. So despite the fact that it looks and smells delicious and the salt is melting on top of it, consuming it at this point will burn your mouth.
Instead, you just take arty pictures of the potato, waiting for it to cool, wondering how you’re ever going to get a blog post out of pictures of a potato. And yet, here we are.
Andrew estimates he had three of these in three weeks, I think it was closer to five. For those of you travelling to Japan, I heartily recommend the Lotteria Potato.
Actually, we just learned something. I had my friend Dave translate this for me, the menu item listing for the Lotteria Potato. Apparently, in the lower-left corner there, it lists additional sauces for your potato for a small extra charge. They are “butter” and “caramel sauce”. Seriously. So in closing, I guess I’d like to apologize to all of you for not being able to tell you what a salty fried potato with caramel dipping sauce tastes like, as I wasn’t able to read the signage at the time. Should I have occasion to return to Japan, I promise you a full run-down.
– Chris
So we’re on page 258, Gestalt publishing has “Changing Ways” by a fella named Justin Randall. It looks alright, but I almost 0’d out my order for it. Why? Because the solicit information is a plot synopsis. It doesn’t tell me anything about why I should order a 120 page book for $18. I’d never heard of it before page 258 of the previews catalogue. I googled the author, and his homepage is the first search result for his name (good for him). It’s a photo-ref’d work, looks a little Ben Templesmithy in a good way. It turns out this creator has pro credits on: “30 Days of Night, Silent Hill, The Executioner, Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday, 24Seven, Popgun, and Flinch” amongst other stuff, and he’s a University lecturer and commercial illustrator. All of that would’ve been a lot more helpful to me, when it came to ordering this book, than a sort-of interesting plot synopsis. That “volume 1” on the cover is a piss-off too, because it implies that this 120 pages for $18 isn’t even a complete story.
5:46pm: And IDW closes out their section with one of my picks for book-of-the-month with SWORD OF MY MOUTH, the new graphic novel from Jim Munroe and Shanon Gerard. Set in the same world as Munroe’s hit graphic novel THEREFORE, REPENT! the book follows survivors of what some people believe to be “The Rapture” to the burned out hollow of Detroit. Munroe’s first graphic novel (with Salgood Sam on art duties) is a great read, and I’m expecting similarly great things from this new sci-fi/fantasy entry. Don’t let the religious tagline of the series, A POST-RAPTURE GRAPHIC NOVEL, fool you. This isn’t about religion so much as it’s about humanity and belief, and it’s great.
6:28pm: As we reach the end of the Comics section, we happen upon the nice folks at Vertical who are bringing Osaum Tezuka’s ODE TO KIRIHITO back into print in two volumes ($14.95, about 400 pages each), which is lovely.
I am a comic book retailer in Toronto, Canada. I do lots of my ordering from Diamond Comics Distributors’ PREVIEWS catalogue, which solicits products coming 2 months (or more) down the road. This month’s order, the February catalogue for items beginning to ship in April, is due in a little more than 24 hours. I have not yet cracked the spine of the catalogue, despite my orders being due. Join me now for my rushed, off-the-cuff reactions to what the comics industry has to offer this April.
6:55pm: The Covers this month are… well the Iron Man one is nice, the Brightest Day one is meh, but at least they’re both tied to salable product. And have no doubt, both of those products will sell well.
7:09pm: Still on DH, page 35: 600 page omnibus featuring ALL of Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ MARTHA WASHINGTON? For $30? Sounds like a plan. THE LIFE TIMES OF MARTHA WASHINGTON IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY drops June 30th.
Seriously, one of the best books in the catalogue this month! Pick this one up, or at check out the single issues still available from better comic book stores everywhere…
7:46pm: So the FIRST WAVE stuff. I dug that Batman/Doc Savage crossover from a while back, I thought Phil Noto’s art was a nice fit for Azzarello’s script. It updated the characters but didn’t pull things too far away from what people like about them… But the cover for DOC SAVAGE #1 by JG Jones just looks… Stiff? Old? I dunno. I think about how John Cassaday updated the character in Planetary, and that really worked. This… I’m not feeling it.
That said though, THE SPIRIT #1 with a cover by Ladronn? That looks great, really contemporary but still gritty and energetic, and I absolutely love what Tony Harris did for the variant cover on FIRST WAVE #2. I think paying homage to the pulp past but updating the books is the way to go… I’m just not convinced that Jones’ look suits the new direction. Got my fingers crossed though.
8:29pm: Apparently it’s THE month for long, long delayed projects! NEIL YOUNG’S GREENDALE HC has been in the works since at least 2007, although the rumours extended back even further. While originally Joe The Barbarian artist Sean Murphy was on board for the book, in between concept and execution the art chores were handed to Cliff Chiang, one of my favourite mainstream comics illustrators. As for the book itself, there’s no previews up online anywhere I could see, but I trust Chiang to deliver a pretty-looking book. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed Dysart’s work, but I’m willing to give it a shot. Either way, it’s going to make a hell of a media splash, particularly here in Canada. We’ll be invested in it. 160 pages of original graphic novel for 20 bucks, drops June 9th.
10:20pm: Oooo! Page 34 has the first issue of Brendan McCarthy’s three-issue Dr. Strange story, cleverly called SPIDER-MAN: FEVER #1 so that people that think they don’t like Dr. Strange will pick it up. McCarthy’s a great artist and has a truly unique voice in comics, it’s frig’n bizarre to see him doing a mainstream marvel book but shit, why not right? Awesome days. Another one of my picks of the month.