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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?

I try as much as possible to eat some vegetables at each meal, but for this time I didn’t feel like eating anything more but Unagi Donburi!

When we eat Unagi at home, we usually buy baked Unagi just like this.

Considered that each package is for one person, it’s over 1000yen per person and slightly under 1000yen when discounted just like the one in this picture. Unagi is not reasonable enough even if we try to help ourselves at home. (Especially if we look for Unagi from Japan. The one from China is half a price, I guess. Safety of food is a big concern in Japan especially since the incident that some Chinese foods contained poison. It was a surprise by the way when I found Japanese powder milk sold at Narita airport for the Chinese people. It was written in Chinese and seemed to stress its safety because it’s a Japanese product. I just hope we can truly enjoy Chinese foods without worry.) Let alone, when we try to eat Unagi outside, we have to pay around 3000yen if we want to have the one that has proper quality and volume. Casual one might be from 1800yen or so. I’m talking about the price from authentic Unagi restaurants.

I hear most of people would microwave it for a few minutes, but I follow the way that makes Unagi from supermarkets tastes better.

So I took out Unagi from the fridge at room temperature for a while, then I placed it over the foil wrap and put some Sake (cooking wine) over it. How many tea spoons? Please don’t ask. Look, the one I’m holding is not even a tea spoon of table spoon! lol I just grabbed it from somewhere~! I guess 1-1.5 tbs is enough.

Usually Japanese kitchen has a fish grill just like this. I heated Unagi over medium heat for 3 minutes or so until it gets warm and soft.

Then I took it out and put the Unagi sauce over it that came along with the Unagi.

Just like this, and I heated it in a grill again for 1-2 minutes or so. *_* Sorry I really don’t measure anything! But be careful not to heat it too strongly or for too long a time because the sauce contains sugar, which is going to burn the Unagi.

Cut it and put it over the steamed rice.

Put some Sansho powder (山椒 that’s how we call it in Japanese) that also came along with Unagi and it’s ready! The meal could be perfect with some Japanese pickles though. :p Especially we are totally fatigued from this hot humid summer in Japan, it’s often recommended to eat Unagi proactively on the certain days in July or August. The day is called “Doyou no ushi no hi” (土用の丑の日) but as always, I don’t care about what others say. When I feel like eating it, I eat it. That’s it. If I try to go to Unagi restaurant on the Doyouno…the Unagi day, I can easily imagine it’s full of people who like to follow our tradition. I don’t like the crowds, so I guess this Unagi day for everyone in Japan is the last Unagi day for myself! lol

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Japanese people LOVE Italian cuisine. There are many Italian restaurants in Tokyo. Mentaiko Spaghetti is a Japanese-Italian cuisine and it tastes so good! I actually love Mentaiko so much, especially when it’s mixed with mayo. Thus I like to put Mentaiko mayonnaise inside rice ball or over steamed rice as much as Mentaiko pasta or Mentaiko potato with butter. I wonder if you can get Mentaiko at your place, but if you can please give it a try. It’s yummy!!

Mentaiko spaghetti with thinly sliced beefsteak plant or laver.
I had a cup of vegetable soup with Parmesan cheese. I love cheese too!
And half an orange as a dessert.

Cooking Mentaiko spaghetti is pretty simple and easy.
While boiling spaghetti (100g for 1 person), cut a few leaves of beefsteak plant and mix the following ingredients in a bowl so that boiled spaghetti can be well mixed later. (I didn’t use a bowl because I mixed everything on the hubby’s plate and arranged it beautifully on my plate. lol)

for 1 person
-Mentaiko x 1
-mayonnaise x 3tbs
-butter x 1tbs
-squeezed lemon x little bit
-Japanese Konbucha powder. Or Japanese dashi no moto powder to be replaced. Both are like instant soup powder. I would say 1 teaspoon of either powder.

*I found mayonnaise sold in Australia was pretty different from Japanese one. When I was staying in Australia with working holiday visa, Japanese mayonnaise was something very precious among us. I begged one of my working holiday friends who worked at a Japanese restaurant to share some Japanese mayo with me. lol We were serious about saving money then because we wanted to keep travelling until the money ran out. I don’t know about mayo in other countries.

Well, as the dish has butter, mayo, and tarako that all contain high cholesterol, I cannot say it’s very healthy. But once in a while will be OK! :p I think most of Italian restaurants in Japan have Mentaiko spaghetti on their menu, but I’m not sure if authentic Italian restaurants might not like to include such non-Italian dish.

I decided to add a new type of post where I simply share what an average Japanese (=me!) eats everyday.
What kind of food do you imagine from Japanese foods? Sushi, sashimi, tempura, sukiyaki, yakiniku, unagi…? These are basically not for everyday cooking, because they are expensive. ^ ^; We also eat a lot of western foods, fast food, Chinese, Korean, and other Asian foods, too and we like to arrange them as we like! I wish I could make my cooking videos but unfortunately that’ll be too much work for a moment.

Menu
-Tonkatsu とんかつ (deep fried pork) with tonkatsu sauce and mustard
-Kyabetsu no sengiri キャベツの千切り (shredded cabbage)
-tomato and avocado
-Ingen no goma ae いんげんのごま和え(kidney beans dressed with miso, sugar, and sesame)
-steamed rice
I could have added miso soup to this lunch, but that’ll be too much. To tell you the truth, I barely fix miso soup lately. I found an old miso pack that was best before something 2008 in a fridge the other day. haha…^ ^;

It’s part of Japanese diet culture to eat Natto. But to be exact, this is more likely to be particular in east Japan. Basically people from west Japan do not eat Natto as much as we do. Most of them are not used to eating Natto and many of them don’t like it. I felt it very weird when my father, who’s originally from Oaska, and grandma who still lives in Osaka don’t like it at all because I can eat it with no problem.

I happened to see an interesting statistical result of how much or less the Japanese eat Natto compared with fracture rate at a Natto sales space at a grocery store. The orange colored area means high fracture rate, the green colored area is low fracture rate, and the yellow colored area is somewhere in-between. Blue circled area (north and east Japan) is considered large consumer and pink colored area (west and south Japan) is considered small consumer. The graph tells people of which prefecture spend how much money for Natto. (This is too small with above photo and I cannot even tell.) You can see that people from north – east Japan eat more Natto and score less fracture rate while people from west Japan, especially Osaka area, eat less Natto and score higher fracture rate.