
Couldn't pass up on this titled Otoko Meshi (男飯) that maybe translates to "Dude Meals"?, haha.
Love the phrase "ガッツリいこうぜ!!" ("gattsuri ikouze!!") which is very hard for me to translate but maybe something loosely in the spirit of.. "GET IN MY BELLAY!!"??
On the more warm and cutesy side of Japanese food/lifestyle magazines, I enjoy a copy of ku:nel once in a while. I'm pretty sure the title came from the word (食う:寝る) to eat and to sleep.. Yes the title rocks.

The content is very warm and fuzzy. Recipes and articles usually skewed on very homey meals with a little bit of crafts and sewing thrown in. Yeah I know.. but I'm pretty secure of my guy-hood to care about what the cashier ladies may be thinking, haha.

My favorite part of the magazine is in the back where they do a spread of all the meals the editors had for the season. So cool. Maybe I'll someday evolve my blog to something more day-to-day..
Btw, I should've known but no photography allowed in the bookstore. Since I purchased these I guess they let me off easy.
Sanseido, (in Mitsuwa Market Place), 4240 Kearny Mesa RoadSan Diego, CA 92111
Had an extremely busy early year where my lunches were kind of all over the map in location and choice. Over at Nijiya I noticed they had been experimenting/expanding their bento line the last few months.
I recently found the Katsu Curry packaging change a few times but here the sweet pickles were in their own little compartments. Fyi, they completely reworked their curry recipe last year since the Summer vegetable "Natsu-yasai" series and it now seems to resemble Sakura's version with the finer minced meats and carrots.. Anyhow few things are sadder than the sight of screwing up your Rice-to-Curry ratio while eating and to be left with a lonely portion of white rice in the end. So ration the curry accordingly because shops tend to give you just enough in their bentos. ;)


Mabo Nasu Bento - Savory spicy eggplant with ground pork. I'll admit I was too in a hurry and hungry to even bother to warm this one up. The Mabo Nasu was a little salty at the cold room temperature that I chose to have it but there was definitely enough organic Koshihikari rice to help with. Call it Japanese influenced Chinese or Chinese influenced Japanese.. But when you throw in the potato salad and also sweet pickled daikon Takuan (that I love dearly).. Call it Nijiya's Mabo Nasu Bento. I must have liked this cause I purchased it again for dinner the very next day. Definitely tastes better warmed up. :P


Other temptations were the Okonomiyaki bento and the Buta Tororo Wariko Soba bentos. The soba came with fatty marinated pork and lovely tororo grated yam along with the standard dipping tsuyu.
Also I never got the courage to ask for a photo but if you see a friendly white Amerika-jin man working that you didn't notice before he is the new Nijiya SD manager Graham, freshly transplanted from Los Angeles. When you're there please welcome Graham to San Diego. Welcome to San Diego Mr. Graham! I really enjoy shopping at your store. :)
Nijiya Market, 3860 Convoy Street, San Diego, CA 92111
Hope you all had a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by!