Rice.

Rice.

And more rice.

Ever since I've lived in Asia it is all about rice. Brown rice now excites me the way a Burger King Whopper, Jr. used to. But the benefits to this dietary shift are many. You really don't get that gutbomb feeling eating out in Japan. In the US I get it all the time. It's not because the food is any tastier; both places have foods that send my salivary glands into sheer epileptic spasms of joy.

The key I think is oil. Japanese food, with a few notable exceptions (deep fried items on skewers and fatty pork cutlet being two) has less oil in it. This is not science, but using a field napkin test that could probably pass as evidence to convinve anyone, as would Japan's utter lack of obese people. The aisles at the supermarket are simply too narrow to accomodate the perversely overweight, and the locals eat accordingly.

Had a tasty fried rice and some spicy tofu for lunch today. The two of us ate for under $7 each, and no real tax (well, just a 5% consuption tax) or tip either. The rice went straight out of the behemoth rice cooker and into the wok. It wasn't oily like American fried rice, because Chinese people chuck oil and uncooked rice onto the wok and heat does the rest.

But the Japanese style fried rice has a nice taste and afterwards you're, as the saying goes, 80% full. And it's enough. And you won't have a need to do test the plumbing immedately afterwards. Delish!

The franchise, Ou Shou, is pictured above. They're all over Kansai (Osaka-Kyoto-Nara-Kobe)