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Tea…TWININGS Tea (20 tea bags) costs 399yen. I found the tea bags sold in Australia are slightly bigger than ours in Japan. Ours is designed for 160ml of water or something (not sure) but here it is designed for 220ml of water or something. I guess 1 cup is bigger here.

Rice…1880yen (5kg) and 3580yen (10kg). In Australia, I eat SUN RICE that is about 500yen for 2kg. Unexpectedly I don’t really miss Japanese rise so much. It was good to know that it doesn’t have to be Japanese rice, as long as it’s a tasty rice.

Japanese styled curry roux…178yen. It was surprising that I found Japanese curry roux at a general supermarket (Woolworth or Coles) in Australia!

Cabbage…350yen (whole) and 178yen (half). Sometimes quarter size is also available when the supermarket targets single or small family customers.

Sashimi…380yen (1 package), 680yen (2 packages) and 1000yen (3 packages). I like that we can get Sashimi very easily like this in Japan.

Green peppers…158yen for 1 package (normally contains 5-6 green peppers). I hate this. Why don’t they sell it by the kilo? I don’t need 5 or 6 at a time always.

Shimeji mushrooms…98yen for 1 package

Apple…198yen for 1 apple, not 1 kilo! You can see how fruits are expensive in Japan.

Banana…198yen for a bag of banana. Do we need a bag first of all? They could reduce the price without the bag or wrap, and that’s also eco friendly I guess…

Strawberries…598yen for 1 package (about 12 to 15 strawberries)

Snack-1…a bag of potato chips for 99yen

Snack-2…Pocky (9 small bags) for 238yen

Cup noodles…about 100-130yen per cup

Did I start missing Japanese food? No, not really. I noticed I will be OK as long as I can eat rice. I mostly eat either sandwich or pasta when I don’t eat rice with curry or fried rice or whatever. What did you think when you shopped at a grocery store in Japan? Did you feel some products were way too expensive or very reasonable?

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1: Tonjiru
You can think of it as a miso soup with ingredients like various kind of vegetables such as Daikon (Japanese radish), carrot, Gobou (burdock), green onion (Japanese leek), Konnyaku and thinly sliced pork. It can be a main dish. I personally like to put some thinly sliced ginger when I cook it, but my husband didn’t. He cooked large amount at a time with less miso, and each time when we heated it, we added some miso. By doing that every time we ate it, the soup smelled nice, nevertheless it was made and preserved in a fridge. The point is “Don’t boil the soup after miso is added, because the good smell will fade!”

2: simmered Kabocha, as in the cooking tutorial page

3: Natto

4: steamed rice

Weekend Dinner 5

1: Nikujaga, as in the cooking tutorial page
This was yummy!

2: steamed Hijiki and vegetables (Hijiki-ni)
This tasted so much better than the one I’ve cooked so far or even the one his mother cooks! I honestly thought he could change my preferences. I thought I didn’t like Japanese cuisine so much but he could change that. I seriously think so!

3: Enoki mushroom and wakame seaweed salad
I loved this too! He said he put too much seasoning but it was very tasty. According to him, it’s very easy to cook. Soak the cut Enoki mushrooms and dried wakame seaweed in some water to cover them, microwave for 2 minutes, squeeze water and mix with Chinese chicken soup stock, soy sauce, sake, and mayo. He said he put a touch of Chinese chill bean sauce and sesame oil too. Easy huh? But tastes good!

4: steamed rice

I feel as if I were a husband of him, being attracted by his cooking. I mean, people here say that house wives must be good at cooking in order to keep her husband all the time. Good cooking will make husbands return home earlier and stop them from flirting with other women. I didn’t understand it so well because I believed there was always better food outside served in a fancy restaurant, for example. But now I feel for the first time in my life what that really means.

At first I was satisfied with being served by him. But nowadays I totally love and enjoy whatever he cooks and I’d rather try to eat at home than outside! So this is it! (I’m not flirting with other man, so no worry for that point. lol) My mother was very poor at cooking (luckily my father didn’t leave) and my cooking is just OK. So I didn’t really pay much attention to home cooking. But home cooking can be so tasty, never make us bored, and much healthier. (I’m impressed he often simmers finely cut onions instead of stir-frying it, or also boils meat first to reduce fat!) I never expected to be kind of hooked by his food! :O His cooking has totally grabbed my heart (stomach)! Do you have a similar experience? I wish I were good at cooking as much as he is!

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However, you would only find popular parts like chicken thighs, chicken wings, minced chicken balls, chicken karaage, chicken skin and some pork meat with fat in the yakitori stalls in Singapore.

So my idea of yakitori was Japan’s version of chicken kebabs or satays.

In my first trip to Japan some years ago, I was in the basement supermarket and there was this lovely sweet smoky aroma which led me to the Yakitori stall. I was about to buy it when I realised the range of choices was huge there!

I had no idea what they were at all, but with my limited Japanese vocabulary knowledge then, I recognised the words ‘heart’, ‘neck’, ‘gizzards’ in some of the descriptions of each stick, and I stopped, and I walked away.

Fast forward to now, I was sitting in an izakaya with my Japanese friends, and they ordered Yakitori for us!

If you’re wondering why Yakitori offers you strange chicken parts, it’s because in the past, chicken meat was very popular and expensive. So, clever business-minded stall owners decided to use the bits and pieces of chicken discarded by high-class restaurants and sell them in skewered sticks!

So, basically, you can eat Seseri (neck), Hatsu (Heart), Muneniku (Breast), Tebasaki (wing), Teiru (tail), Sunazuri (gizzards), Momo (thigh), Kawa (Skin)… There are also livers, the bottoms, soft bones, Tsukune (Chicken meatballs), and most of the times there are pork parts too.

I still do not dare to give strange chicken parts a try, but that night, my friends highly recommended trying seseri (neck) and soft bones. It was delicious. Seseri tastes just like chicken meat, except it has more muscles. You should try it! And soft bones are chewy and crunchy and goes well with beer.

Yakitori is more of a Kanto (Eastern part of Japan) food. While Yakitori was popular in Kanto, because of the abolishment of the regulation of flour in the Kansai (Western part of Japan) area in 1951, the use of flour flourished in Kansai, and popular foods like Okonomiyaki, Takoyaki, and Kushiage were born.

Kushiage was also skewered meat and vegetables on a stick, somewhat the same idea as Yakitori, but Kushiage is covered in batter, deep-fried in oil, and usually eaten with different kinds of sauces or salt.

Here is Kushiage.

It really is very popular in Kansai. You can see many Kushiage stalls and restaurants everywhere.

I prefer Yakitori to Kushiage though. I’m not a fan of deep-fried food.

How about you? Have you tried either of these skewered food before? Which do you prefer?

If you haven’t tried them before, do they appeal to you? Would you be adventurous enough to try all the strange parts that are not commonly eaten in your country?

===end of the post===

Kirin’s opinion
I also had Kushikatsu or Kushiage in Osaka before, but if I compare it with Yakitori…I think I like Yakitori more. But I like Karaage (Japanese styled fried chicken) more. I didn’t know the reason why the use of flour is so popular in Kansai. Thank you for sharing the knowledge, I’m learning from you!

***Giveaway offered by Apple***
Apple has recently created a page ‘Happy Girls Cute Food’, where you can learn how to make cute, girly food. From now till 30 April, she’s doing a giveaway of some cute food items from Osaka! ‘Like’ her page and you will instantly have a chance to win something for yourself! Go to Happy Girls Cute Food for more details~!

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