Neko to Meoto: Eating What We Have Never Eaten Before...and some other stuff

This post is brought to you by Japanese Food and the letters K, F, and C.

Does anybody know what "choconeri" is? I don't, but I got marshmallows flavored like it...it was between this and 'mallows with Calpis-flavored goo in the middle. This won, but not by much.

Also, green tea chocolates seem like they'd be worth trying.

I'm not going to lie, I got this because of the angry chicken on the front and I'm going to make my husband eat it. I'm not sure what the scheming chef and safari expeditioner are up to, but I bet they are why the chicken is angry.

These are sugoi (awesome). Peanut butter outside, possibly mochi on the inside.

Hershey balls...not sure if they have them in the states or not, but it's more or less your typical cookie covered in chocolate. They made me smile.

On my way to the train station I passed a classy shoe store with a table selling these. I think they're cakes made of Japanese crepes, rolled into a tube about the size of a roll of toilet paper and weighing approximately a thousand pounds. I'm exaggerating about the weight, of course, but it is really dense. But it tastes more or less like regular cake, so I can't be terribly upset about it. On the left is coffee flavored, on the right is melon flavored.

Qoo!
This is apple juice, but they have other flavors. This company also makes pouches of fruit gelatin you drink with a straw. It's good juice, but I like the name just as much as I appreciate a refreshing fruit beverage.

Sweet potato cookies! I was pretty excited about these.

Smoked cheddar in sausage casing...not as excited about this. More trouble than it was worth to remove the casing, but the Husband seemed to like them all right.

These...these had the taste of strawberry Fruit Loops with the consistency of a Rice Krispy treat soaked in frosting. These should come with a warning not to distribute them to minors, or rename them "sugar rush in a pouch."

Group dinner! I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, because I tried a lot of new things that night that were delicious, but we did have some sake served in bamboo.

And the appetizer was octopus tentacles and Japanese radish with a side of boiled potato. Not my favorite dish of the night, a touch slimy for my tastes, but it was worth trying.

It was somebody's birthday, and cake was brought in. This one was all chocolate and strawberries.

This one was sparkly!

Another night, we finally met up with another foreign couple that lives in our neighborhood (both university professors in their 60s that have lived here for about 20 or 30 years, lovely people). We'd been meaning to get together since we met the woman when we first moved in, but didn't get a chance for a while.

We were going to go to our local izakaya (mom and pop bar/restaurant, seating about 12 people), but they were closed, so we went to a great Korean place a block further. I can't remember the style of food this is, but it's ingredients served in a stone bowl so hot that it fries the rice as you stir everything together. Taking the time to snap this photo made the bottom layer of rice burn to the bottom of the bowl and I couldn't get it off, but man, this stuff was good. Don't ask me what's on top, because I haven't the faintest idea, but it wasn't meat because I didn't feel ill afterward. That's all I know. (Edit: It's called bibimbop, thank you Soon!)

Side bar for The Same But Different:
For all of October, Halloween merchandise is all over the place. Store displays, candy, pastries, the sidewalk windows are filled with orange and black, smiling pumpkins and black cats, witches in purple stripes.

But even before Halloween, just like in the US, retailers start thinking about Christmas. How do I know? Because the five foot tall Colonel standing outside the local KFC is dressed like Santa.

I found a new vending machine!
This one is filled entirely with juice boxes...rather, boxes filled with juice, coffee, or whatever else can be packaged in a carton and consumed via cheap plastic straw.