So yesterday, on a bit of a whim, Paul and I decided to drive out to Cambridge (a good hour and forty minutes away) to go to the little Japan area at Porter Square, primarily to shop in the Japanese market they have there, though we ended up browsing other stores as well. I had no idea such a place existed, actually, until Paul found it online. What a lucky find!
At the market, we picked up lots of food, including snacks. My favorite find was their spicy tuna & mayo onigiri. If this is what convenience store onigiri tastes like in Japan, I can understand why everyone is always eating it. This is something I make at home a lot, but while the rice in my onigiri always gets hard and dry if I refrigerate it overnight, this onigiri’s rice remained magically perfect and moist, even after a night in my fridge. Yum, yum, yum.
While we were there, we picked up lunch at one of the many little restaurants, and I got to eat takoyaki (octopus dumplings, for those who are not obsessed with Japanese culture like I am) which was squishy and delicious!
The main reason for the trip, however, was to pick up ingredients for sukiyaki, which we had for dinner today! Paul got a portable gas stove for Christmas, just the thing for cooking food at the table, so with the perfect setup, we served up our sukiyaki (Kanto style), raw egg and all. It was extremely delicious, and will be a wonderful dish to share with family and friends!
jansong@livejournal.com says
January 18, 2009 at 9:38 pmGlad it all worked well. :)
Melinda Beasi says
January 18, 2009 at 9:42 pmWe will have to invite you the next time we make this! You probably won’t want to do the raw egg part, but the rest of it you’d love!
That little spot in Cambridge is wonderful! You’ll be impressed to know that we avoided buying anything but food, which is what we went for! :D
jansong@livejournal.com says
January 18, 2009 at 9:45 pmI used to make food dishes with raw eggs, but I’ve become squeamish about it in recent years with all the food poisoning problems. Glad you controlled yourselves in the spending. :)
Melinda Beasi says
January 18, 2009 at 9:48 pmYeah, that’s what I was figuring. I didn’t think you and dad would be up for the risk. But the raw egg is just for dipping, so you can easily skip it.
Melinda Beasi says
January 18, 2009 at 9:53 pmHere’s some info if you want to see what this dish is. We used the sliced beef (one of the things we got at that market), bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, Japanese scallions, leeks, udon noodles, shirataki noodles, and grilled tofu. But it’s the kind of thing where you can really add whatever you want, especially since it’s all cooked at the table. Everyone just puts in what they want, and pulls it back out again.
kate says
January 18, 2009 at 11:45 pmThat sounds absolutely delicious and is making me want to take a trip to our local Japanese grocery store this week. :)