Tuesday's Lunch: Shrimp

Since today is Tuesday, we get bread instead of rice. For about my first year and a half here, the school secretary made onigiri (rice balls) every Tuesday and Thursday so everyone could get their carbohydrates from a more traditionally Japanese source. However, she transferred out last year and we didn't get a replacement so now it's either eat bread or no carbs for you! Some teachers do choose the "no carbs" route on bread day. It's true.

And sometimes I can't blame them. Two pieces of plain white bread and enough jam to cover half of one of them? Yeah, not so great. I think that many Japanese people assume that, since they eat plain white rice, we must eat plain white bread! Take a look at today's bread:
It's like a big hot dog bun, but with no slit in it. Then it comes with a packet of blueberry jam. Where are we supposed to put it? I always tear it open down the side as best as I can and put the jam in it that way. Other teachers tear off a mouthful and put a little jam on each bite before they eat it. Either way, it's kind of goofy. Even still, it's nice to get a break from the rice. And this jam had extra fiber! Anyhow, on to today's lunch...

Main Dish: Ebi Katsu (Fried Shrimp Patties)

"Katsu" is a shortening of the transliteration of the English word "cutlet" (it becomes "katsuretto" and then just "katsu"). The most common kind of katsu is tonkatsu, or pork cutlets. That may just sound like a bit of meat to you, but it includes the meaning of being breaded and deep-fried here. So, tonkatsu is usually translated at "deep-fried pork cutlets". Of course, that doesn't work well for shrimp, since a shrimp cutlet is kind of ridiculous. But since the shrimp is made into a patty and then breaded and fried in basically the same way, and since the vast majority of Japanese people probably have no idea where the word katsu even comes from, we get to have shrimp katsu, or ebi katsu. It was tasty. Nothing to write home about. Actually, it probably could have used a bit of sauce. Still, a nice main dish for the day and not something we see very often.

Side Dish: Chuuka Ae (Chinese Mix)

I was actually surprised when I looked up the name for this after eating it, and to be honest I've had this several times. Nothing about it says "Chinese" to me. But if the Japanese version of Chinese is as accurate as the Japanese version of Italian tends to be, this dish might have originally been roasted lamb sandwiches for all I know. It was actually quite simple. Just a combination of some small strips of roasted ham, bean sprouts, cucumber and some chanpon-men (a kind of thin, clear noodles). Pretty good to be honest. But did we really need more noodles in there considering what the soup is? I wonder if the simple "just mix some stuff together and call it Chinese" methodology here is why we get this one often?

Soup: Miso Ramen

I'm assuming everyone knows what ramen noodles are. Although we tend to associate them with the cheap, instant kind, they are just a type of noodle in Japan and they are infinitely better here. Today's ramen noodle soup was a miso base, at least according to the menu. I couldn't taste it. In with the ramen we also got some boiled pork, cabbage, carrots, onions, corn, scallions and kikurage mushrooms (again, I'm trusting the menu here because I didn't see any mushrooms anywhere). This was pretty good too and not too salty, which the soup tends to be. Ramen tends to be a bit of a treat since it's something people actually want to eat, and not something we see too often. Maybe only a few times a year.

Total Calories: 760

Although the bread was nothing to write home about (and yet I am), today's lunch was another good one. Not a meal I would normally mention, but for school lunch I certainly can't complain.