I chanced upon these crumbed potato cakes in the frozen foods section at my local Japanese grocery store. I’m a big fan of potato croquettes, and I took a fancy to these particular ones because of the ingredients – seaweed and cod roe. I’ve never tried potato cakes with this combination of fillings before, so I bought them for yet another taste test at home.

These would make a good snack for those peckish moments, or served as a side dish with some hot rice. Not very good value for money considering their size and amount though.

During one of my weekly grocery shopping trips to my favourite Japanese food store, I was browsing through the condiments isle and right next to the pasta sauces I saw a packet of this “Spicy Cod Roe Spaghetti Sauce” by S&B (Makers of the popular ‘Golden Curry’ range and wasabi sauce). This was a new concept to me, and the thought of some ‘caviar’ infused pasta excited me so I bought it.

A quick glance at the ingredients and cooking instructions:

The instructions were very simple, just like preparing instant noodles. There was one minor problem though- I didn’t have any pasta in my pantry but I had some Udon, so I used those instead. How could you go wrong with Udon anyway? It’s Japanese as well so I figured a happy marriage would be the outcome of the two ingredients together.

The Spicy Cod Roe Sauce packet contained two separate servings which meant I could save the other serving for a rainy day. =) There are two different seasoning sachets; the red and silver contained the cod roe sauce, while the black and silver contained shredded seaweed garnish.

Here is a closer look at the Spicy Cod Roe Sauce when applied onto the cooked Udon – It’s bright orange, has thousands of tiny egg sacs, and a tart, fishy smell. It would put some people off but I didn’t mind it.

I mixed the sauce in well with the Udon, then sprinkled the seaweed garnish on top. So here’s the verdict: Delicious. It tasted EXACTLY like Taramosalata. It’s both salty and tart, and very fishy. As for the ‘Spicy” factor, maybe a 1/10. I have to say it’s an acquired taste. But if you like Taramosalata then you’d love this. The Udon matches the sauce well, and it absorbs more flavour than regular pasta so I’ll probably use Udon next time, but I’m also open to trying it with regular pasta. Although the egg sacs were visible, the sauce itself wasn’t grainy. This dish was a winner, and I’ll definitely be buying more “Spicy Cod Roe Spaghetti Sauce” in the near future. =) Tasty!

Yet another bizarre find – this time from a vending machine. I had some spare yens so I gave this little beast a try – Sweet black coffee jelly in a bottle. The stangest thing was that I had to shake the bottle to ‘activate’ the jelly so it turned into a thick  fluid. It tasted like coffee alright, so that was a plus. But the texture was an assault on the senses. Cold. Jelly. Sludge.

Needless to say I was left feeling slightly queasy..

This kept me awake for a few hours as it was nearly midnight when I ate/drank this. The drink was surprisingly high in caffeine! At least I got my 200yen’s worth for trying something new…

It was over 35 degrees, humid and hot as hell. These factors were hard to avoid while walking down a street in Kyoto in the middle of a Japanese summer, but as the below photo demonstrates, the sheer joy of one finding the ultimate in edible coolants:

We came across a stall outside a tea shop selling green tea ice cream floats – With a Japanese twist of course! Soft green tea ice cream dunked in a cup of chilled green tea! It was the perfect summer coolant. Yet another brilliant idea by the Japanese!

Forget energy drinks – Collagen-enhancing drinks are all the rage, only in Japan! And I thought I’d seen my share of the bizzarro. I was wrong. All the pharmacies in Japan have a ‘health drinks’ section – and that’s where I found this Collagen beverage.

In fact, I have even seen this particular bottle for sale at some everyday convenience stores like 7-11. I would give you more detail, but I can’t for the life of me read Japanese. From what the bottle says, one of my assumptions would have to be that it contains 1000mg of Vitamin C. Who knows what the other 3000mg is!

I am assuming that this product would somehow  increase one’s collagen intake? Improve skin texture? Decrease wrinkles? Improve your overall wellbeing? I didn’t want to risk having a trout pout during my trip, so unfortunately I didn’t sample this! It was still an intriguing find though, I must say!

The Japanese are full of quirky ideas when it comes to, well, everything. Especially pre-packaged food. One of my favourite convenience store purchases in Japan was none other than a quick fix of ‘pocket’ sandwiches! Each time I stepped foot into a convenience store, I just HAD to get a bag or two – sometimes even sneaking them into my bag quickly after I paid for them. It was getting embarrasing that I had some sort of fetish for these and had to hide it from the group!

At 200yen a pop (around $2.50), these cute little bags of fresh and fluffy white crustless sandwiches are just simply a genius idea. They are widely available at various Japanese convenience stores like Family Mart and 7-11, and come with different fillings – Egg mayo, tuna mayo, peanut butter, strawberry, blueberry, chocolate (gasp!), and custard (double gasp!). They were always fresh when I bought them – even after leaving them in my bag for a day or two! Japanese technology…

I nicknamed them ‘pocket’ sandwiches because of the way the fillings are ‘sealed’ shut between two slices of bread, sans the crusts. I never like crusts, so the discovery of this sandwich ‘niche’ changed my life forever. The white bread they use is very soft and fluffy – my favourite pocket sandwich has to be the egg mayo, while the tuna mayo comes a close second! The perfect sandwich, satisfying in so many ways…