other than delectable filled buns... i like japanese food.
...among other Asian foods. I used to be a vegetarian some several months ago. I got influenced into it by a classmate, you would say, from capoeira, a martial art that I used to do. Turns out, being vegetarian isn't all that bad, as some people would fear. Meat isn't everything. Some people I bet wouldn't even recognize they're eating something vegetarian unless you pointed it out to them; that what they're munching on has no meat. French fries, ice cream, potato chips, chocolate. They don't contain meat. Yet people, even the most dedicated carnivores, eat them. Just because you're vegetarian doesn't mean you're bound to lettuce, kale, and spinach.
Anyway, USED to be is the keyword. Why I reverted back to being a meat eater... has totally nothing to do with this post. Even being vegetarian. Hah.
Yesterday, my boyfriend and I went to the local Japanese mart, Fujiya, on Clark and Venables. Pretty small grocery store filled with food and whatnot from the Land of the Rising Sun. Well, most of the packaged ones are. Some of the produce are conventional and local.
They also make conventional bento and other homemade snacks, kind of like the meals they would sell in a 7-11 in Japan or something. Not that I've ever been to Japan, but my friends who have been there told me that local grocers, supermarkets, convenience stores, even some vending machines would sell (fresh) day made food, and that's what the locals would eat for lunch while they're at work or something.
I particularly like the Vegetarian bento that they sell in Fujiya. This stuff tastes like heaven. Everyone, vegetarian or not, should take a bite of this wholesome bento.
As you can see, I took a photo of my very good job of separating my chopsticks (don't you just hate it when this happens? Just when I'm about to tuck into my awesome veggie delight too.)
In the bento there are some edamame (boiled soybeans, the green pods), some carrot and burdock kinpira, a portobello mushroom cap, a slice of carrot, seasoned tofu, boiled taro, a slice of bamboo shoot, some seasoned eggplant (this is THE best thing on this bento), some spinach gomaae, and brown rice with mushroom and bamboo.
The first time I tried this, I was at the peak of my vegetarian-dom. I went with my friend Martin and we were so delighted when we tried it. He's not vegetarian or anything, but he's very adventurous towards food (unlike my boyfriend. He just refused to touch it because he knows there's no meat in it, which means, in his mind, he will not enjoy it.) and he very well thought the vegetables were delightful.
The brown rice has just a nice fluffy texture to it, and the mushrooms just give it a little more chewyness. The mushroom cap, carrots, tofu, bamboo, and taro all seems to have been boiled in a little bit of shoyu and mirin (soy sauce and sweet rice wine). The eggplant, those two purple things on the top left corner of the box, seemed to have been seasoned with some shoyu, mirin, and ginger. There could have been some more, but boy, does it taste awesome. The eggplant just sucks in the sauce it was cooked in but still retains its eggplant-y taste (which is nothing). Can't say much for the gomaae and kinpira, it tastes like any other gomaae and kinpira. And my boyfriend ate the edamame.
Overall, anyone who might pass by Fujiya might want to try this bento out. Packs a lot of taste. I kept on saying "Oishi!" in my best Japanese anime character impersonation when I tried it for the first time. And yes, try it because you need your vegetables.
Better yet, why don't you try being vegetarian for a whole week? It won't kill you. You can at least say you tried delving into the world of the culinarily insane.
Show some veggie love!
<3
Show some veggie love!
<3
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