lucky me

Here are two good lunches and one bland one (again, it was because of my shrimp allergy so I couldn't eat the main part of the meal). I just read an article in the New York Times about the struggling school lunch program in NYC. I realized how good kids have it here: if schools don't cook for themselves, they get food that's been centrally prepared (giant kyuushoku kitchens!) and delivered fresh. In either case they get non-processed, healthy, delicious food made from scratch. So here I am, enjoying delicious meals such as this mābō-dōfu:

[clockwise from rice]

- rice (gohan ご飯)
- Szechuan style tofu and pork stew (mābō-dōfu マーボードーフ)
- orange (orenji オレンジ)
- boiled vegetables (yude yasai ゆで野菜)
- milk (gyuunuu 牛乳)
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This was the bland one, it's lacking some croquettes that happened to contain ground shrimp...it was a nice kiriboshi daikon though:

[clockwise from rice]

- rice (gohan ご飯)
- milk (gyuunuu 牛乳)
- dried daikon strips braised in sesame vinegar dressing (kiriboshi daikon no itameni gomasuae 切干大根の炒め煮ごま酢あえ)
- boiled vegetables (yude yasai ゆで野菜)
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The Korean-style meal below was fucking incredible. I can't quite explain how well the "pari-pari" salad tasted--but it was the sauce that did it. I think it was just simple yuzu dressing (Japanese citrus), but it brought the vegetables into joyous Mozart-like harmonies. On a side note, "pari-pari" is fun Japanese onomatopoeia for "crispy" or "crunchy." I found out later that the fried crispy bits (tofu skins?) I put on top of my rice were actually meant for the salad, to make it more crispy...

[clockwise from rice]

- kimchi fried rice (kimuchi chahan キムチチャハン)
- milk (gyuunuu 牛乳)
- "crispy" salad (paripari sarada パリパリサラダ)
- egg drop soup (tamago sūpu たまごスープ)