Moving my Blog

I migrated my wordpress.com blog to wordpress.org

You can now read Foodie Topography at

www.foodietopography.com or www.foodietopography.net

 

 

 

 

Kaeru Coffee Roastery

Kaeru is the word for “frog” in Japanese and it’s also the name of a great little coffee shop in Okayama City. A local English teacher recommended this coffee shop, so I jumped on my bicycle and rode all the way from Kurashiki just to try it.

Bankoku Coffee: a Coffee Roaster in Okayama

I found Bankoku coffee roaster by pure luck.  I parked my car to visit a furniture shop and I saw the bright green coffee sign in the distance.

My curiosity was rewarded by a fragrant and well stocked coffee roasting shop, the type of shop I had been dreaming about since I arrived in Japan.

Chez Papa: French Goodness in Okayama

Chez Papa French restaurant can be found on the outskirt of the “cool Soho like” neighborhood in Okayama city.  From the outside, it looks like hundred of other restaurants, makes you wonder if there is only one sign maker in Japan. In my mind, Chez Papa is an amazing restaurant in Paris which serves amazing South-West food, will this Japanese iteration let me down?

Cha Ca La Vong: Fried Fish on Fish Street

In Vietnamese, cha ca means fried fish. So when I ended up at a place in Hanoi called Cha Ca on Cha Ca street, it felt just right. Yep, a fish restaurant on a fish street, it’s hard to get it wrong.

Lucky Peach #1 and Ivan Ramen

When I heard that David Chang,  the mastermind of Momofuku restaurant,  created a magazine about ramen, I ordered it right away  and awaited my copy of Lucky Peach like a kid waiting for Santa Claus.

Ramen Tomare

We found a ramen shop named 止 by the side of the road just outside of Niimi in Okayama Prefecture. This single kanji means “stop” in Japanese and reads Tomare, a very short name for a great ramen place and one kanji every one should learn since it’s featured on every stop signs in the country.