-Shop cute Japanese products and cool products from Japan. This cute blog is about Japanese kawaii, kawaii Japan, kawaii fashion, Japanese pop culture and more. It's a kawaii blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

Basically Japanese people who work in the city have to spend a lot of time at work and less time at home. Overtime work is very normal. I’m afraid there are not many workers who can leave office at 5pm everyday. Most of full-time employees would work 9-7 or 9-9 or they may have to work on weekends too to cover their workload. This happens because work sharing has not become popular in this country. Each employee has to cope with the workload of 1.5 people, for example.

Well that’s not the main topic in this post. Reflecting such background, delicatessens are very popular. When we finish work at 7 or 8pm and take 1 hour to go back from the office to home, (Spending nearly 1 hour for commuting is quite normal in Tokyo area. Some even take nearly 2 hours!) do you think we feel like spending another 1 hour for cooking? If we did that, the dinner can be 10pm or something and that’s too much of labor and no free time left!

That’s why depachika, or department of delicatessens is popular. Delicatessens from depachika are not expensive compared with eating out at restaurants, but require no need of cooking, and they tast good. It’s called Nakashoku. “Naka” means something in-between. “Shoku” means meals or foods. Delicatessens from depachika are considered meals between eating-out and home cooking. It’s also true that we want to eat relaxed at home rather than at a restaurant outside especially after working 10 hours, for example. If we buy only main and side dishes from depachika and prepare rice at home, we can even save some money. haha…^ ^;

Depachika usually has variety of cuisines and sweets. But the difference is that their foods must be easy to be carried away and still taste good after hours later. Thus, basically they don’t have noodles. Well, they may do but I’d avoid it anyhow. ^ ^;

The pictures are from the depachika in Lazona Kawasaki.

Some packed bentos.

Delicatessen is called “Osouzai” or just “Souzai” in Japanese. (“O” is added to make it sound more elegant, but it’s actually “souzai”.) Here are some souzais. (It sounds weird to make a Japanese word plural form because we don’t have this notion. Am I supposed to write “bentos” and “sozais” as plural form of “bento” and “sozai”? )

Tonkatsu special corner

Sushi special corner. We can eat sushi a lot cheaper than we do at authentic sushi restaurants. Actually most of us rarely can go eat at authentic sushi restaurant. We may get these affordable packed sushi from depachika or supermarket or Kaitenzushi (sushi-go-round restaurant).

Tempura special corner.

Unagi special corner.

Chinese special corner. We love Chinese food just as much as you! I think Chinese and Italian cuisines are most popular among other foreign cuisines in Japan.

Gyoza special corner.

I found kawaii set of Butaman (steamed pork buns). Don’t you think they are too cute to be eaten? XD

Don’t forget to get some vegetables or Japanese pickles, too.

You can get delicatessens at local supermarkets cheaper, and it does not always mean deli from depachika tastes better than that from supermarket only because it’s more expensive. I had experiences that deli from depachika tasted terrible for the money I spent!

Anyhow, I have two contradicting thoughts:
1) I want to have a free passport to my favorite depachika!
2) I wonder how the unsold food is treated. Sometimes even after time sale (to reduce the dead stock of food) is over, there are still some left. These must be consumed in the same day. I wish they were not just dumped as garbage. I wonder if the unsold food can be given to homeless people or homeless dogs…This is my strongest concern. When people are dying from no food on the other side of the globe, how can we waste food if it’s still edible?

Every time I walk around depachika, I am suffering from those 2 complex feelings. How about you?

• Girl’s power from department stores

As some of you might have noticed, I created a new page “Gallery” on this blog, in which I can share beautiful art and craftworks created by my Japanese artists or artisans (and hopefully by myself, too in the future!). The main purpose of this page is to give them an opportunity to have their works seen by foreign people as often as possible. I believe this will trigger their motivation to create more kawaii or cool works.

Kawaii Notebooks:

Kawaii Notebook -Matcha-

Kawaii Notebook -Matcha (inside)-

Kawaii Notebook -Botan-

Kawaii Notebook -Botan (inside)-

Kawaii Notebook -Fuji-

Kawaii Notebook -Fuji (inside)-

Kawaii Notebook -Sora-

Kawaii Notebook -Sora (inside)-

Recommended usage:

These are small and handy. Chika likes to bring one of them as an idea book, which I think is nice idea. I’d love to keep one for myself and write down the good phrases I encounter from reading or talking with friends, as well as new ideas for this blog or business! It’s also nice to use it as a diary with little illustration. I personally don’t like lined notebooks. I like free style just like these. It’s also cool to write a story in the book and make my own fictional novel and give it someone as a present<3

About the artist:

Chika
Chika has learned oil and acrylic paintings and she also has experience of making glassworks. Nowadays she enjoys drawing works with colored pencils or pastels. She has mastered bookbinding while she likes book, notebook and cloth. "It's my great pleasure to be able to have someone, even if it's only 1 person in the world, who understands my feeling that how much I'm impressed with the beauty of the color or the line of my work." Chika is very happy to have her works treated at Tokyo Kawaii, etc. and I am very happy to be able to share her works with my readers! Please feel free to comment or contact me if you are interested in purchasing one of these works.

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