Fresh tofu!

There's a little mom and pop tofu shop within walking distance of my house. While my parents were in Japan, my dad insisted everyday that he wanted to go visit the tofu shop. Since the shop is open from about 5am to 10am no one particularly wanted to get up early and make the trip with him.

On the last day they were in town my parents struck out on their own to find the tofu shop. Japan is not set up on a grid system and many roads do not have names. I don't know why the roads aren't named, but the Japanese get around very well by giving directions using visual cues (go 12 stop lights then turn right at the fire hydrant). So my parents got lost and remained lost for a few hours.

After locating them, I took them down to the tofu shop and luckily they had stayed open late that day. We got fresh made tofu (bottom of the picture), ganmodoki (circular things), and fried tofu (rectangle things).

Ganmodoki is tofu fried with scrambled eggs and sesame seasoning. It's absolutely delicious and would make a great breakfast dish. The fried tofu is just flattened tofu lightly fried and has very little flavor. It's meant to be an additive to soup and rice dishes. The fresh tofu was great as well. They don't serve it firm, medium, or soft as we do in the US....you get it one consistency and that's the consistency it was made that day. I eat tofu by pouring soy sauce over it and sprinkling crushed red chili peppers on it.

It was a delicious snack and I'm glad my dad was so insistent otherwise I would've been to intimidated to try this place so soon. They only speak Japanese and sometimes you run into a few places who refuse to serve you because you're not Japanese....they don't have discrimination laws here and yes they can and do discriminate.

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