Garfield high school Auction dinner

I attended another auction on 12th of April.

The head chefs of the dinner were the same as WMS’s auction dinner, John P at St. Clouds(1) and Thierry of the chef in the hat of Rover's (2).

I volunteered precooking chickens at St. Clouds restaurant the day before the auction. I got to St. Clouds at 2:30pm. There were still some customers for the brunch. John P showed me to the hot grill which I would be grilling chicken.
Shortly later two parents of a Garfield student came to join us. John P pointed 4 large pots full of chicken breasts marinated and ready to be grilled. I think he told us they were 350 chicken breasts. Chicken was grilled diagonally and turned 90 degree on the same side then turn over do the same to make the nice brown lattice. Two of us, women, took in charge each half of the large grill. We grilled 10 chicken breasts on a half of the grill and 40 total at once. It was very hot standing by the barbecue grill without doing anything. We had to be closer to put the chicken breasts on the grill, move and turn them with the tong. My previous task for WMS auction dinner to prepare bread pudding was easy and cushy compared with this task. My hands were greasy and slippery from moving the meat from the pan to the grill. The Chicken breast was large and heavy. It was a hard work to turn using the tong. My hands and arms were burning hot being close to the grill to do the job. I was very sweaty. We cooked all of the 350 chicken breasts in 2 hours. The husband of my grilling partner moved the grilled chicken to the tray to the cooling room for 10 minutes and he stacked the cooled chickens to several layers into the deep pan. Finally he wrapped the deep pan with plastic wrap several times and they were ready to store in the fridge for the final bake the next day. His task required muscle because the deep pan of chicken was very heavy. We completed our tasks and left St.Cloud about 5:00pm. Three of us will appreciate to the grilling cook for his hard labor when we order grilled meats at the restaurant in the future.
The day of the auction, I was nervous to find out thefinal results of the chicken. The dinner started with greens with goat cheese. Main course came next. Barbecued chicken breasts with rosemary sauce looked good. It had nice smoky taste matched well with the special sauce and the meat inside chicken was moist as expected. Our hard work to pre-grill the chicken paid-off. The side dish was delicious too. It was sweet and white potato gratin. I like this better than the bread pudding at WMS auction dinner. It was a great idea to precook chicken half way on the grill first then cook it in the oven. It prevents juice of chicken coming out and the resulted chicken is moist inside and nice brown barbecued looks outside. When I have a big barbecue party at home, I will use this method to serve delicious chicken.
I realize that this method allows the host to spend time with guests instead of barbecuing meat during the party. What's a great way to cook and serve great chicken barbecue!

I bought Girls' night out ticket at this auction. I will write about it after the party is over.

Website references:

(1) St.Clouds website: http://www.stclouds.com/

(2) Rover's website: http://www.rovers-seattle.com/

The day of WMS auction

(This is Part 2 of the previous article. Please read the previous topic.)

This posting was delayed because my photos of WMS auctions along with my two laptop computers were stolen. I am hoping to create my tapenade and to post the picture soon.

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On the day of Washington Middle school’s(WMS) auction, I arrived at St.Demetrios(1) at 4:00pm, two hours before the auction started. I went to the kitchen and saw Thierry who is the famous chef in Seattle and is the chef in the hat at Rover’s. (2) He was another volunteer chef to cook main dishes for the guests. Thierry brought his own three assistant cooks. JohnP from St. Clouds came soon and assigned tasks to us. My first job was to carry several large pans of bread pudding and other items such as vegetables from his van to a walk-in refrigerated room. Then I sliced fresh bread, wrapped them in cloth napkins and put them in a bread basket. My last task in the kitchen was dish up hors d’oeuvres. WMS parents donated a lot of appetizers.Although they all looked tasty, the containers of appetizers were tin pans and paper plates. They didn’t look fancy enough to serve to paid guests. Jayne who was the organizer of the food preparation team brought nice plates, freshly-cut leaves and flowers. Another volunteer and I dished them up to the plates and decorate with leaves and flowers. The results was remarkable. The hors d’oeuvres looked like ones served at a nice restaurant. The same hors d'oeuvres looked more delicious and appetizing on the nice plates with a flower in the middle. Now my work at the kitchen was over. It’s time for me to go to the other side of the kitchen to be the guest.
Our servers were the students of WMS. JohnP of St. Clouds gave them quick server training. They turned into the nice young waiters and waiteresses instantly. They served the guests politely and very well. I learned later that JohnP used to be a teacher (see St. Clouds’ website 3). He must have been a good teacher.

Hors d’oeuvres were first served on the plates to the guests who was bidding the silence auction items. I learned all of appetizers which had occupied four large kitchen counters were gone quickly.

The auction stated with nice jazz music played by Washington Middle school jazz band. I decided to peek in the kitchen to find out what was going on before live-auction started. I saw soup was simmering in the two huge pots.
After the silent auctions, all the guests were seated to their assigned seats. When the live auction started, our meal began with a glass of wine and a slice of bread. Our waiter brought white cheese in dark pink sauce on the plate. We wondered if it is for bread or for something else. It was for the soup. The waiter brought soup in the small pot and poured in each plate. If they brought soup with everything mixed in, we would not have seen pink and white inside. The nice colorful contrast made us hungry and wonder what would be the next. It was very pretty and the soup was tasty.
The main course was served the next. The roasted salmon covered with tapenade and bread pudding with sautéed green on side were on the plate. I thought tapanade was for the bread dip and this was the surprise. The salmon was bit salty but delicious. My husband who usually doesn’t like pudding loved this bread pudding.


After main meal, time for the Dessert dash. To get a dessert, the guest wrote how much they would pay for their dessert and the total amount of each table was presented to the auctioneer. The dessert bid of each table were compared with other tables'. The guests at the table of Highest bid can select their dessert first, the second highest select theirs the next and so on. We were the third highest bidder. My husband and one other guest brought a large delicious looking 6 layered-chocolate cake to our table. It was very hard to cut with all layers without smashing because some layers were mushy. The most of them were broken into several pieces. My slice didn't look good but it was very luscious. The cake was so large and after 10 of us at the table had our portions, more than a half of the cake was left to share with other tables.
The cake was so tall and was hard to be carried to the neighbouring table. As a matter of the fact one of the guest at our table took it to the teachers' table and part of the cake fell off. He made a big mess on the table. Fortunately nobody got hurt or got messy. I learned that the dessert which looks really great may neither be suitable to carry nor to be sliced into pieces.
These were my experience participating Washington Middle school's auction. I am going to help precooking chicken the day before the Garfield High school's auction soon. So please keep reading my blog.
Unfortunately my WMS auction photos got stolen with my laptop computer. So I cannot post any photos of WMS auction. Please imagine a lot of people in the Greek Church having delicious full course dinner with nice entertainment.
Website of references
(1) St. Demetrios church website: http://www.saintdemetrios.com/

(2) Rover's, Seattle website: http://www.rovers-seattle.com/

(3) St. Clouds, Seattle website : http://www.stclouds.com/

My experience working at a commercial kitchen

I had an opportunity working at a restaurant kitchen for three days by volunteering food preparation for Washington Middle School’s fund raising auction. The restaurant was St. clouds(1). I was very excited working in the commercial kitchen for the first time. John Platt, who is owner and the chef at St. clouds, was very nice to let us use his kitchen and gave us cooking instructions. Our job was mainly peeling, cutting, chopping, and mixing vegetables and other ingredients. Some people may think it is boring and tiring. But I love cooking and loved this task. I brought my Japanese knife and tried it out then borrowed the restaurant's knife. I learned while my Japanese knife may be good to cut large pieces or slicing vegetables, I liked using the restaurant’s knife which was more efficient chopping vegetables into very small pieces than my knife.

One of dishes which I helped cooking was bread pudding. It is interesting coincidence that I helped making the bread pudding after I wrote about the pudding in the British food. I asked JohnP if this pudding was British. He told me we were preparing French pudding not British. According to him, French loved bread and made pudding using day old bread.

At my first day at St. clouds, my job was peeling and slicing onions. Two of us tackled many onions. Amazingly we had no tears in our eyes. Next I chopped and minced fresh thyme. All chopped onions were placed into huge metal pans with melted butter and oil on the bottom and spices and minced fresh thyme and other spices were added to it. I mixed these onions with all sort of spices with my rubber-gloved hands. Onions were ready to be cooked to be caramelized in the oven. Meanwhile, other volunteers were cutting the crust off from day-old bread which the head of food preparation volunteers got free from Essential baking Co.(2). Essential baking Co. is one of the best bakeries in Seattle. The day-old bread was still tasted delicious. I helped cutting crust off bread and non crust part into smaller pieces while I snacked delicious crust which would go to composed bin soon.

At the second day, onions were already caramelized and ready to be used. I spread one layer of chopped bead into 8 large metal pans. Other volunteers were chopping pears into small pieces and cooked them with caramelized onion in a large frying pan. The pears looked like red potatoes. Two of us spread onion-pear mix in the pans. We added another layer of bread pieces. Meanwhile, two ladies were mixing eggs, milk, cream, and blue cheese with spices in the large container. We got this egg and milk mixture and mixed well and pour into the eight pans. Our final task for pudding was pushing bread down to soak into the liquid to prevent being dry. JohnP told me push floating bread pieces down every 20 minutes. While I waited to press bread pieces into liquid, I helped chopping a lot of pickled green olives into paper corn size to prepare Olive Tapanade.

Final day at the restaurant kitchen, I chopped chives for the Tapanade. I washed many pans, knifes, pots, spoons and everything. I was surprised that dish washing machine was not like one at my house. I scrubbed and rinsed to remove any food waste on the pans. The dish washing machine rinses dishes or anything inside twice and sanitizes them. It only took about 5 minutes. The restaurant doesn’t need many plates using this machine. Only it need person pre-washed dishes and insert it to dish washer. The last task was to help rotating 6 bread pudding pans clockwise from bottom to top, left to right every 20 minutes. This will help cooking pudding in the pans evenly. The pan was very heavy. The chef has to have muscle.

These were my three days’ experience working at restaurant’s commercial kitchen.

I enjoyed meeting and talking other volunteers at St. clouds. I was excited going to auction to help final preparation for 2 hours in advance. And I will be the guest to try out the final meal after 3 days of our hard work. Please read my next blog article to find out the meal at the WMS auction night.

References
(1)St. Clouds restaurant website. http://www.stclouds.com/
(2) Essential Baking CO. website: http://www.essentialbaking.com/

Is Breakfast the most important meal of the day?

According to 2007 International Food Information Council foundation survey (http://www.ific.org/research/upload/2007Survey-FINAL.pdf ), 90% of consumers named breakfast as the most important meal of the day and only 49% of consumers eat breakfast 7 days a week. Also recent research found that not having breakfast affect children’s intellectual performance. (http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/nutrition/facts.htm,http://www.mrbreakfast.com/article.asp?articleid=7).
I believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I eat breakfast 7 days a week. I am not sure my intellectual performance is good by eating breakfast. I felt nervous and drove badly when I had to fast to test blood glucose. My family hardly skips breakfast and we are in good health. My family members usually have quick American breakfast such as cereals and Waffle except my older son who has often left over rice. I often have cooked oatmeal with Banana and raisins. Although it is not my favorite breakfast, it contains fibers, lowers my bad cholesterol and supposed to be good for my health. The website (http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/food-and-nutrition/NU00197/METHOD=print ) describes the benefit of healthy breakfast.
Most popular breakfast in US is cereal with Milk. It doesn’t require cooking, and supposedly includes with all necessary nutrients to start the day. The companies who sell cereals have fun sites to attract youngsters (http://games.yahoo.com/free-games/minis-focusizer), and to promote its health benefit (http://new.groups.yahoo.com/allbrangroup ). Disney’s family food webpage (http://family.go.com/food/article-gs-18241-start-with-a-healthy-breakfast-t/ ) includes two recipes, banana peanut butter smoothie and breakfast burritos for children. Burritos seem OK but I don’t think I have smoothie for my breakfast. This site also includes other good breakfast recipes such as some delicious muffins, cinnamon rolls, and scones recipes.
I like eating big American breakfast once a week. My American breakfast contains bread(toast, muffin, pancake, cinnamon rolls, pastry or Croissant), eggs, meat which usually is choice of bacon, sausage, or ham, cooked potatoes, fruit, orange juice, and coffee. It fills my stomach well and I feel warm after eating this although I feel the need of some vegetables. Some people in US including my husband have supplements such as multi-Vitamins, minerals, and fish oils as a part of their breakfast. I don’t like putting many tablets into my half-awake stomach.
I love traditional Japanese breakfast although I grew up having thick slices of toast with butter and Jam and coffee for breakfast. Japanese breakfast contains Cooked white rice, Miso (soy bean paste) soup, cooked eggs, meat (the same as American), or fish(roasted dried fish, cooked salmon, and etc), Nimono(cooked vegetable), Tsukemono (pickled vegetable), Nori (seaweed), and green tea. I often cook this for Saturday lunch instead of the breakfast. After I have this breakfast, I am comfortably full and am satisfied with all nutrients although I think I took too much sodium. My American family love Japanese breakfast.
I seldom eat out breakfast. Breakfast is cheaper than lunch or dinner. However, most of the breakfast items are easy to make including muffins and Cinnamon rolls. I love to order and taste something new and tasty at the restaurant and it is hard to find something new for breakfast except contents of omelet and freshly baked bread.

Authentic Japanese Udon soup for Americans?

Picture right: My Udon soup, Left: Japanese Udon noodle recipe book. I didn't produce noodle itself. I used the soup recipe only.

I love eating Japanese Udon soup(See: http://japanesefood.about.com/od/udon/a/aboutudon.htm. ). I haven’t found a good Udon restaurant around Seattle area.
I saw several English website about Japanese Udon soup recipes. Many of them were American versions of Japanese Udon soup and not authentic Japanese recipes. (See http://www.foodtv.ca/recipes/recipedetails.aspx?dishid=7588, http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/japanese-noodle-soup-recipe.htm) I decided to create a delicious Authentic Japanese soup for Udon and test it.
I applied Udon soup recipes from Japanese Udon cook book (picture above) and websites. (Sorry all in Japanese, http://www.okanoue-udon.com/g/tuyu.html , ttp://nakanoya.net/dashi.html ,
http://allabout.co.jp/gourmet/udon/closeup/CU20020117tuyu/index.htm
Here is how I have been testing my soup.

The first test
My American family was the first testers. I followed the exact seasoning and process from the book(See the picture above). It was too salty and soup color was too dark.

Second trial to improve my recipe
I asked my old Japanese neighbor, who cooks often for events for Japanese temple and Japanese Language school, to test my soup. I created two types of soup for this trial. I used the exact recipe from the cook book for one. I used less seasoning for another. The first soup was too salty but the second was fine. However, my neighbor pointed out something missing in the taste. I used her suggestion to create another soup for the third trial.

Third trial by more native Japanese
It was organized by my friend. 7 Japanese house wives and my American friend were participants. I created three different soups, the first soup which was boiled some ingredients longer than others, the second soup which was cooked short, and the third which replaced one ingredient to another. I created survey asking about each soup if it was too salty, if it required another ingredients or seasoning, and there were any suggestions in order to improve my soup.
I was nervous. My recipe will be tested by Japanese who grew up eating Authentic Udon soup. They all loved my soup. One even commented that she hasn't eaten Udon soup this good since she had came to America. Another mentioned that the aroma of the soup reminded her grandmother's noodle shop in Japan. Success! All of them liked the second soup.

The forth trial and final
How do Americans like my Udon soup? I organized a birthday party for my husband. Since I try to create perfect Udon soup, I added Udon soup taste testing as a part of the event. This is a good opportunity to find out how Americans (Satellite) like Authentic Japanese Udon soup. About 30 people mostly our American friends and neighbors. Few were European, and Asian descendants. I served Udon soup which did the best so far. The result was unexpected. Most of my American friends finished their bowl of Udon soup. I saw only two people left some in the bowl. Two out of 30 was very promising. This authentic Japanese Udon soup seemed to do well to Satellite.

Conclusion of the testing.
This Authentic Japanese Udon soup trial was very interesting. My Japanese Udon soup may become popular for Satellites while many popular trendy Japanese restaurants serve fusion foods. Many Japanese friends asked me to open Udon fast food restaurants where they can visit. I am not ready to do this business yet. There are a lot of problems to solve. Udon soup is not large enough to fill Americans stomach. More menu items were needed to open the restaurant. My Udon Soup was served with green onion and fish cake. More toppings such as Tempura, eggs, meat, and etc need to be added. The restaurant need to meet health department requirements such as food handling permit and use of commercial kitchen. The location of the restaurant, the size, and number of the employees are the other issues. I need the business plan to start it right and to borrow money from bank.
If I overcome these obstacles and will be ready to work very hard to be restaurant owner, cook, waitress, and cash resister, I may open my own Udon restaurant someday.

Authentic Japanese Udon soup recipe website:
You can make Udon soup easily by following this website instruction:
http://www.japan-guide.com/r/e105.html
http://importfood.com/recipes/udon.html.
Ingredients may be bought at Japanese grocery store.
If you have questions about ingredients of Udon soup, please add your comment.

American foods

Before I came to Seattle, my idea of American food was Pizza, Hamburger, Fried Chicken, and beef steak. I am always interested in finding out what is American foods, especially what American think of American food. There are interesting descriptions about Cuisine of United States including histories posted in Wikipedia. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_food).
I got an opportunity going to a dinner party to ask its guests what they think is American food. Their answers were: Fried Chicken, Pizza, Hamburger, corn on the cob, Pork & beans, Chile corn carne, Pumpkin pie, corn bread, barbecued beef steak, Gumbo, Turkey, roasted meats, mashed Potato, Broccoli, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Spam, Potato chips, nachos, peanut, Iced tea, Ice cream, cob salad, scone, Cereals, Cheez Whiz and Spaghetti-Os. Someone pointed out that many foods above originated from somewhere else. I researched a bit to find out the history of some of these foods which are not well known their origin.

• Corn on the cob seems to be American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_corn).


• Fried Chicken is brought by Scottish (http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodmeats.html#friedchicken).


• Pork and beans were invented during Civil War and it is surely American. (http://www.metnews.com/articles/2006/reminiscing072006.htm)


• The recipe similar to Chile corn carne was written by Sister Mary of Spanish in 17th century according to Southern western Indian legend. (http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Chili/ChiliHistory.htm ).


• The original recipe of Pumpkin pie was French. http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/PieHistory/PumpkinPie.htm)


• Spam is definitely American food invented to send to US army during WWII. (http://www.spam.com/)


• Potato chips were invented in US. (http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/potatochips.htm).


• Nachos were first created in Mexico. (http://www.oed.com/learning/word-stories/nachos.html ).


• Peanuts came from Brazil.(http://www.peanut.com/aboutpeanuts.asp)


• Iced tea was invented in US. (http://www.teausa.com/general/icedtea.cfm)


• Cobb salad was created in Hollywood in 1937 and American. ( http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/CobbSalad.htm).


• Gumbo came from Africa and gumbo is term Okura. ( http://www.foodreference.com/html/artgumbo.html ).


• Cheez Whiz is American.( http://www.answers.com/topic/cheez-whiz?cat=health )


• SpagettiO’s is American.( http://www.campbellsoupcompany.com/history_1960.asp ).

Although many foods came from somewhere else, I found foods which were born in U.S. They are Corn on the cob, Spam, potato chips, Iced Tea, Cobb salad, Cheez Whiz and Spagetti-O’s. This is getting interesting!
One friend mentioned that American made unique foods by mixing together the best food of one culture and the best food of another. Another said that if the food is not authentic from other country, then it is American. Some had a hard time to think of any foods as American. I asked him what he had eaten at home when he was a child. I grew up in Japan eating Japanese food mostly and assumed he must have eaten American food at home. He grew up eating Norwegian foods at home. I realized my sons ate a lot of Japanese foods at home. 20.1% of Seattle residents speak other language than English at home. (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/53/5363000.html ) Seattle public school receives students from more than 70 countries and 129 languages are spoken in the schools.( http://www.seattleschools.org/area/bilingual/index.htm) United States are the large melting pot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting_pot ). As someone said, American foods now seem to be the results of multicultural integration.
By searching American food using google, I found an article “10 foods that make America great”.( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8392312/ ) The 10 American foods listed in the article are ‘New England Clam chowder’, ‘Pastrami’, ‘Shoofly pie (Pennsylvania)’, ‘Smithfield Ham (Virginia)’, ‘Po-boy(Louisiana)’, ‘Fajitas(Texas)’, ‘Chicago hot dogs(Illinois)’, ‘Chile Verde (New Mexico)’, ‘San Francisco sourdough (California)’, and ‘Olympia Oyster (Washington)’.

My favorite American foods or restaurants are Dicks Hamburger and Milkshake (http://ddir.com/ ), Ivars Fish and Chips and white clam chowder (http://www.ivars.net/ ), Piecoras Pizza (http://www.piecoras.com/ ) in Seattle. My favorite American cook book is Betty Croker’s picture cook book first edition from old aunt of myhusband.(http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Crockers-Picture-Cookbook-Crocker/dp/0028627717.) I love old American recipes from this book and always the results are delicious.
If you read this, please write comment about your favorite American food.

Japanese food

< -It may not look great but I made one of my typical Japanse menus.

There are many Japanese restaurants in Seattle area. If I include Teriyaki restaurants, there will be even more. I searched Japanese restaurant using Seattle City search. (http://seattle.citysearch.com/find/section/seattle/restaurants.html) I tried to search Japanese restaurant within 1 mile of Seattle downtown neighborhood. The City search found 55 Japanese restaurants. How about another ethnic food which is very popular to American? I tried Italian. I found 50 restaurants 5 less than Japanese using the same criteria. What does it mean? Japanese restaurants must be more popular than Italian? People don’t know how to cook Japanese food by themselves so they go out for Japanese? Or people think Japanese food is healthier than others, such as hamburger with French fries? Or Japanese food is really popular among Seattle residents?
I seldom go out to eat at Japanese restaurants. Being Japanese, I am picky about Japanese food. I am often disappointed after having Japanese dishes at the restaurants. It could be because I go to inexpensive Japanese restaurant. Once a while I found Japanese restaurants which I like their seasoning. I like Tsukushinbo in Chinatown and Haruko at Mercer Island.

I love cooking and my American born family (my husband and two teenagers) prefers my cooking to going out. Some of my American friends asked me what I cook for dinner and if I always cook Japanese. I don’t cook Teriyaki or Sushi often as American people think. I cook American, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, and more. I often have cooked rice though. When I cook Japanese dinner, I serve cooked rice with main dish made of meat or fish, cooked vegetable such as boiled spinach, and salad or fresh vegetable with sometimes Miso soup. If you pay attention what Japanese restaurants serve, you will notice they consist of Meat or fish, vegetables and cooked rice. One thing which I didn’t like about Japanese restaurant's combination plates is that they often include the both Sushi and cooked rice. I prefer one or another not the both. The worst thing is that I will eat the both. I hate waste food especially rice. My mother used to tell me if you waste rice, you will be blind. This is a prejudice remark. It was many years ago in Japan. I was young and ignorant. My mother told me she was very embarrassed that I had seen a blind person and asked her if he wasted his rice.
My older son often eats left-over rice with hot water(Japanese use hot green tea) and Japanese dried seasoning to make Ochazuke for his breakfast. Japanese people may think it is little strange having Ochazuke for breakfast. I grew up in Japan. My breakfast was a thick slice of toast with butter and homemade Jam and a cup of coffee. My parents in Japan seem to have the both toast and Japanese style breakfast (Rice, Miso soup, fish or ham, vegetables) together. If you stay in nice hotels in Japan which offer breakfast buffet, you will find the both western and Japanese breakfast dishes such as bread, cooked eggs, Bacon Ham, Roasted fish, vegetables, fruit juice, Milk, coffee and green tea.
I often meet Americans who are interested in learning Japanese language or visiting Japan. They love eating Sushi and have their favorite Japanese restaurants. Some Japanese food such as Teriyaki was transformed to meet American taste. For example, Teriyaki served as fast food is the North west American version of Teriyaki which is sweeter than Japanese traditional Teriyaki. Seattle residents seem to love Teriyaki. Teriyaki is inixpensive and usually fast to be served.

Although they don't serve traditional Japanese Teriyaki, I missed Teriyaki restaurants when I passed by Wyoming and Montana where I hardly find good Asian restaurants. At least in Seattle, I can find Teriyaki restaurant easily.