Vegan sushi and rice balls (2)

Today I went to the basement of Entetsu Department Store to buy some food for lunch. Near the entrance, there is a shop Kosei Iro Iro (個性色色) where you can find a variety of box lunch, ready-to-eat foods, bread, beverages, sweets, and so on.

Rice balls are one of the most popular foods for lunch in Japan. The shop has a wide selection of them including some vegan-friendly ones. There are also sushi rolls that are also suitable for light lunch. I chose two kinds of sushi rolls and two kinds of rice balls.

These are sushi rolls with natto (納豆) or fermented soy beans in them. They were accompanied with soy sauce and pickled ginger. In fact, I don’t like stringy natto very much because people in Hamamatsu, at least my family and relatives, didn’t have the custom of eating it when I was little. It is still unfamiliar for me. Natto in the sushi rolls was as stringy as ordinary natto that is eaten as it is. However, it seemed to be nutritious anyway.

The other sushi rolls contained kanpyo (干ぴょう, 干瓢, or かんぴょう) or dried gourd shavings cooked with sugar, soy sauce, and sweet sake. The combination of sweetened dried guard shavings and vinegared rice was very good.

 

One of the rice balls contained umeboshi (梅干し (うめぼし)) or a salted plum. This kind of rice balls may be easily recognizable because they often have a red color on the package.

After eating the top of the triangle, I remembered that I had to take a picture of the plum inside. It was a big plum and was salty and sour - exactly how it should be. Salted plums are said to have an antibacterial and antiseptic effects and have been traditionally combined with rice in rice balls or box lunch.

The other rice ball was made of red rice. This rice is glutinous rice steamed with adzuki beans and is originally eaten on celebratory occasions. Though this product contained also nonglutinous rice, it was elastic and remained me of a rice cake.

Today’s lunch was substantial. All these sushi and rice balls are made by Chikuya (知久屋). It is a food company that uses chemical- free vegetables or vegetables cultivated with a reduced amount of chemicals and avoids food additives for their products. Kosei Iro Iro in Entetsu Department Store has a corner for their ready-to-eat food other than sushi and rice balls.

In addition to products from Chikuya, Kosei Iro Iro handles products from several popular local shops. There may be some other vegan-friendly or vegetarian-friendly foods.

Vegan sushi and rice balls (1)

Since I became a vegetarian 27 years ago, I have usually cooked brown rice at home. It is more nutritious than white rice, but white rice is also good when I feel like eating something light. When I went to BIO Atsumi, a supermarket 7-miniute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station, last night, some sushi and rice balls were already sold at a discount price. So, I bought one pack of kappamaki or cucumber sushi rolls and two rice balls.

Kappamaki is one of the most recognizable vegan foods available in supermarkets. It may be the simplest kind of sushi, just consisting of rice, cucumber, and laver. Beside the sushi corner in BIO Atsumi, there were soy sauce and wasabi you could take as necessary. But I ate them only with soy sauce I had at home. Since I like sushi rolls with laver because of their flavor of sea (it is difficult to explain the flavor of laver), I thought these cucumber rolls were also good.

The rice balls contained kombu (昆布) or kelp and goma (胡麻) or sesame. Though kelp is a popular filling for rice balls, it is often flavored with dried bonito broth. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case with the kelp in these rice balls. The ingredients were just rice, kelp, laver, salt, and sesame. I couldn’t feel the taste of sesame very much, but I enjoyed the flavor of seaweed both inside and outside of the rice balls.

BIO Atsumi is an interesting supermarket with many high-quality foods from Japan and abroad. I have once introduced ganmodoki and oyaki sold there in this blog, and there are still other products to write about.

BIO Atsumi
Address: 1168 Sunayama-sho, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-456-5550
Open hours: 9:30 - 21:00

Agarasa - Steamed vegan buns from Okinawa Prefecture

As yesterday was my birthday, I had a dinner at an Indian restaurant. But it was very difficult to find a vegan birthday cake. I wondered if I really had to have a cake to celebrate my birthday. I thought some other sweets would do. I went to Entetsu Department Store to look for something delicious.

In the basement, they had a food fair of Kyushu and Okinawa. I found a shop selling agarasa or steamed buns containing black sugar. They were heated and looked tasty.

I intended to buy only one as they were big. But there were also some chocolate steamed buns, which I had never seen before. So, I bought one of them, too.

When I got home, they were still warm. I ate plain agarasa first. Black sugar contained in it was sweet but a little bitter, giving a rich taste to the bun. The chocolate agarasa looked like this and was also good, but I thought the plain one was better to enjoy the taste of black sugar, which is one of the specialties in Okinawa.

Okinawa is the only prefecture in Japan that located in the subtropical zone. It has a unique food culture. The name of the shop in the food fair is Gushiken Shoten, and they have some other black sugar products in addition to agarasa. The food fair will be held until January 29. I think I’ll visit their shop again if I have time.

Indian vegan dinner at KUMAR

Today is my birthday, and I thought of going out for dinner. Last year, I had a vegetarian set menu that included yogurt at KUMAR, the Indian restaurant in Act City. But this year, I wanted to have a completely vegan dinner. In an Italian restaurant, it is not so difficult to choose vegan options. But I had pizza and pasta last weekend, so I went to KUMAR this year again.

KUMAR has many vegetable curry options. I asked one of the staff members and learned that there were several vegan options. Among them, I got interested in Dal Yellow. According to the explanation in the menu, it is eaten by Indian people daily like miso soup in Japan.

As bread I chose Tondoori Roti. According to the explanation, it is made of whole wheat flour from India. Since it was not big, I ordered also Vegetable Samosa, my favorite snack stuffed with spicy potatoes.

First, the samosa were served with sweet sauce. The outside was like a pie. They were freshly fried and crunchy. In addition to mashed potatoes flavored with spices, I found nuts in them. They were very good though it was difficult for me to eat them with a knife and a fork.

After that, the roti was served. As I have eaten naan bread in Indian restaurants in most cases, this might have been my first time to try roti.

Then, Dal Yellow came. Unlike other kinds of curry I had have before, it really was soup.

   

I found the roti spicy. Though it was made of whole wheat flour, I was more interested in the spice than the flour. I asked the staff member about it, and he explained that it contained spice good to the stomach. The soup also contained various spices, and he brought me a picture of them. While eating, I looked at them and wondered what they were. The inside of my mouth felt tingly.

The dinner was quite satisfactory. It was interesting to have bread and curry that were more commonly eaten in India. I think I’ll try other kinds of vegan curry at some other time. At Indian restaurants, I can feel a deep-rooted tradition of vegetarianism and ease. Indian people use plant-based ingredients naturally as they are, not as substitute for meat. They don’t use fake meat, but their dishes are substantial and have a rich flavor with spices. It may be the main reason why I like Indian restaurants.

KUMAR
Address: Act Plaza B1, 111-2 Itaya-machi, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-451-0154
Open hours: Mon.-Fri.     Lunch: 11:00-15:00 (LO 14:30)
                                      Dinner: 17:00-23:00 (LO 22:00)
                    Sat., Sun., national holidays
                                       11:00-23:00 (LO 22:00)
Access: 5-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station

Two kinds of McVitie's biscuits

In December, I found the famous Swedish ginger cookies were vegan. Then I wondered if there were other European vegan cookies sold in supermarkets.

In the basement of May One, a commercial facility in the building of JR Hamamatsu Station, there is a supermarket Seijo Ishii where many imported sweets are sold. The other day, I found McVitie's HobNobs on the top shelf. As soon as I saw the picture of a biscuit on the package, I recognized that it was an oat biscuit, my favorite, from its rough surface. After checking the ingredients on the label in Japanese and finding that no animal products were contained, I bought one packet home.

Oat is not so common in Japan as in Europe, so it may be difficult to find oat biscuits in ordinary supermarkets. I have often seen Swedish oat biscuits made by Gille in import grocery stores and supermarkets like Seijo Ishii, but they contain eggs. IKEA has some vegan oat biscuits, but I haven’t tried yet. So, this was the first time I tried oat biscuits without animal ingredients.

In addition to oat, they also contained whole wheat. The texture was grainy, which is something I like about oat. The biscuits were thick and had sweetness of syrup. I thought they were just the opposite to the delicate ginger cookies I had in December. I like them both though they are so different.

In Seijo Ishii, there were also McVitie’s Digestive beside McVitie's HobNobs. Since there were no animal products among the ingredients in Japanese, I bought them, too.

They were whole wheat biscuits and had a simple but good taste. While eating them, I remembered a commercial song of McVitie’s biscuits I heard a long time ago. In Japan, they have been sold by a Japanese company Meiji (Japanese versions with packages in Japanese), but I have never eaten them. According to Meiji’s website there are three kinds of biscuits sold: Digestive Biscuits, Milk Chocolate, and Vanilla Cream. All of them are made from whole wheat like English versions, but they contain milk constituents.

When I learned this, I got worried and peeled off the label of McVitie’s Digestive and read the description in English. It said “CONTAINS: GLUTAN. MAY ALSO CONTAIN MILK.” Then I checked the packet of McVitie’s HobNobs and found “May contain: Nuts, Milk, Soya.” I was perplexed and called the company that handles these biscuits in Japan. They said clearly that both of them contained milk.

I read their Japanese labels again and found a warning “In the manufacturing plant of this product, products containing milk are also manufactured.” Then I understood that contamination may occur during manufacturing.

Tartaruga - Pizza, pasta, and vegan-friendly buffet

Today my mother and I went to Tartaruga for dinner. It is an all-you-can-eat Italian restaurant with a buffet. It was a little over 16:00, and we wondered if there was as much food to choose as in the lunch time or at night. But it proved to be unnecessary worry.

In Tartaruga, each customer can order one dish at a time from the touch panel on the table. The menu mainly consists of pizza and spagetti, and you can see photos of all of them on the touch panel. After the dish is served, the next dish can be ordered. First, my mother ordered spaghetti recommended by a staff member, and I ordered Pizza Marinara, the oldest type of pizza without cheese. Then, we went to the buffet to pick up some vegetables.

The carrot strips were Carrot Rappees, and the cabbage pieces were also seasoned. I didn’t use dressing for other vegetables and seaweed, but there were several kinds of dressing beside the vegetables. After a while, the pizza was served.

It was a simple pizza with tomato sauce and basil as shown in the touch panel. As we could eat as much as we liked, pizzas and spaghetti were served in portions smaller than other restaurants. So, I ordered Spaghetti with Olive Oil, Garlic and Hot Chili Peppers, which is shortly called “peperonchino” in Japanese.

This simple spaghetti was very good. It was al dente and had a good flavor of garlic. Though the pizza was also good, I liked the spaghetti better. If there is any other vegan spaghetti, I’d like to try two kinds of spaghetti next time.

With the touch panel, you can order some desserts. Mother ordered a focaccia with chocolate sauce on the panel, but I was interested in soy milk soft ice cream and Japanese vegan sweets in the buffet. They were warabimochi (bracken-starch jelly) with powdered green tea sprinkled, zenzai (sweet adzuki-bean soup), shiratama (rice flour dumplings), and agar jelly.

I took soy milk soft ice cream because I had never had one before.

It was plain compared with dairy ice cream. I noticed later that I forgot sprinkling topping on the ice cream. There were also many kinds of fruits that might have gone well with the ice cream.

In addition to the focaccia, mother had other desserts including a lychee. It is a fruit loved by Empress Yang Kuei Fei in China but is not so common in Japan. I felt like trying one myself, so I took the last portion and jasmine tea.

The lychee had a smooth fresh texture that I thought unique. Jasmine tea had a good fragrance that I always like.

In Tartaruga, I didn’t have to ask staff members about vegan-friendly food, because they had simple options that were obviously vegan. I appreciate their wide range of options that allows vegetarians (vegans) to eat satisfactorily without any concerns.

This restaurant has another good point. They provide a senior discount to people aged 65 or older.

Tartaruga
Address: 9894-3 Irino-cho, Nishi-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-489-3781
Open hours: 11:00 - 22:30 (LO 21:30)

Two types of dried persimmons

One of my favorite fruits in winter are persimmons. After the season of fresh persimmons ended in December, dried persimmons from several production regions have been sold in supermarkets. They are popular food for New Year’s Day, and my mother gave me packed dried persimmons before I went home. They were called “Ichidagaki” or persimmons from Ichida in the southern part of Nagano Prefecture.

I think Ichidagaki is the best-known brand in Hamamatsu as Ichida is not very distant compared with other production regions of dried persimmons. Ichidagaki are made of astringent persimmons harvested from the end of October to November. They are dried for a month before shipping. Though they look like coated with sugar, the white powder is crystalized glucose.

As dried persimmons are very sweet, they are sometimes used for traditional sweets, but I like to eat them as they are. The ones I got from my mother will last until January 25, and they seemed to have become whiter and maybe sweeter. I have to be careful not to eat too many at a time.

In addition to Ichidagaki, there is another type of dried persimmons. It is “Anpogaki”, and those produced in Yamanashi Prefecture are often seen in supermarkets in Hamamatsu. Like Ichidagaki, they are also made of astringent persimmons, but they are reeked with sulfur before dried.

Though Anpogaki may be categorized into dried persimmons, they are actually half-dried persimmons. When I ate them, they felt much fresher compared with Ichidagaki. They were soft, and somehow, I felt as if I were eating raw fish though they were sweet and had the taste of persimmons. I wasn’t used to eating them but found them interesting.

The other day, I found fresh sweet persimmons sold at a low price. As their season is over, they are usually very expensive in January compared those sold during the season. I was glad to find them.

But I found them not so delicious as a month ago. Now it’s much better to eat dried persimmons instead.

Kakegawa (3) - Kakegawa Stained Glass Museum

This was my first visit to Kakegawa Stained Glass Museum though I heard of it long before. As I’m not a Christian, I’m not familiar with churches and their interior decoration. But after I saw the huge kaleidoscope in MOA Museum of Art in Atami on January 3, I remembered this museum and felt like seeing stained glass.

The museum is located near Ninomaru Art Museum. It looked pretty.

The collection has over 70 items, and most of them were made in England in the Victorian era. They were donated by a private collector with the building of the museum.

In the inner part of the building, there was a set of nine pieces of stained glass “Life of Virgin Mary” made in France in the 19th century. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so the sunlight was not strong enough to come in through the stained glass. However, this set of nine pieces was still beautiful.

Near this work, I could see an interesting video explaining how stained glass is made in France.

It was a pity that I didn’t know much about Christianity and could not recognize what each piece of stained glass represented without reading description. However, when I saw this piece, I remembered one of the most impressive episodes described in a biography of Jesus Christ that I got from my mother as a Christmas present when I was little. It was “Jesus Blessing Children.”

Jesus in this piece had an affectionate expression, and I felt comfortable. There was another piece that had the same theme. This Jesus looked also affectionate.

There were some people whose names were familar even to me. This is Moses.

I found Saint Lucy who is called Lucia in Sweden.

The piece beside this represented Saint George.

The museum had a souvenir corner, and I bought some postcards. I asked one of the staff members when was the best time to visit the museum because the stained glass might look differently depending on the sunlight. She said that it is a matter of liking - when it is fine, stained glass looks brighter, but when it is cloudy, you can see wrinkles on faces in stained glass more clearly.

However, she also said that it is beautiful when the light of the afternoon sun enters the building through the stained glass and the museum was sometimes opened at night in December. I expected to see stained glass with afternoon sun next time or in a festive atmosphere in December. The staff member kindly gave me some discount tickets. Maybe I’ll visit there again this year.  

Kakegawa (2) - Kakegawa Castle

After passing by the statue of Ninomiya Kinjiro, I walked straight down the street to Kakegawa Caste. It took only seven minutes to get there. I bought a combined ticket for the donjon, Ninomaru Goten, Ninomaru Art Museum, and Kakegawa Stained Glass Museum and went up to the donjon first. It is a wooden donjon rebuilt in 1994.

At the entrance, I had to take off the shoes. After climbing steep wooden stairs, I saw a statue of Yamauchi Kazutoyo, the lord of Kakegawa Castle at the end of 16th century, who rebuilt the castle damaged by provincial wars and developed the castle town.

There were exhibits such as saddles, war fan, and armor.

On the top of the donjon, there were many people looking down the town of Kakegawa and surroundings. To my surprise, I could recognize Act Tower in Hamamatsu with a height of 212.77m. But the most interesting thing was Ninomaru Goten on the east of the donjon. It is one of four existing castle palaces in Japan. The building was rebuilt from 1855 to 1861 after a big earthquake and has become a nationally important culture property. It was used as the residence of the lord, as well as a government office and a place for ceremonies.

After leaving the donjon, I went to Ninomaru Goten.

As it was an old building, it was more interesting to see inside compared with the donjon. There was a big drum used to announce the time.

This scroll seemed to be very old, and I couldn’t read the character on it. I heard later that it was “虎 (tora or tiger).”

From the palace, you can have a good view of the donjon.

In fact, I’m not very interested in the history of the age of provincial wars as wars are always bloody. However, the design of this helmet was eye-catching.

Princesses in the palace might have played with these balls.

There were also kites from Shizuoka Prefecture and other regions in Japan displayed in a room.

As a whole, this building was well-preserved and worth to see.

After that, I made a short visit to Ninomaru Art Museum and went to Kakegawa Stained Glass Museum.

Kakegawa (1) - Statue of Ninomiya Kinjiro

Last Sunday I went to Kakegawa, a town 28 km from Hamamatsu. It took only about 30 minutes to get there by local train, and I used Seishun 18, the ticket for unlimited local train rides of a day (five times). I used the ticket three times already when I traveled to Nagoya, Yokohama, and Atami, but I could still use it twice.

In front of JR Kakegawa Station, there is a statue of a boy reading a book while carrying firewood on his back. It is Ninomiya Sontoku (called Kinjiro as a boy) in his childhood.

Ninomiya Sontoku (1787-1856) was an agrarian reformer who reconstructed over 600 exhausted farming villages with an approach based on his philosophy called “Hotoku.” The philosophy has four principles: sincerity, diligent labors, living within your means, and giving away the excess to others. It was a practical way of living and won many followers especially in Enshu or the western part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Sakichi Toyoda (1867-1930), who was the founder of Toyota group and born in Kosai, was also influenced by it. In Kakegawa, there is Dainippon Hotokusya, an organization that works to spread the philosophy of Hotoku. It is located near Kakegawa Castle, and its auditorium is a nationally important cultural property. Unfortunately, I couldn’t visit there because I didn’t have much time.

Ninomiya Sontoku seemed to be a realistic person. He said, “Economy without morality is a crime, and morality without economy is nonsense.” I agree with him. Both economy and morality are important.

Formerly, every elementary school in Japan had his statue like the one in front of JR Kakegawa Station as a symbol of diligence. In recent years, however, it has been removed from many schools partly because teachers and parents consider it dangerous to read a book (or watch a smartphone nowadays) while walking. But in Kakegawa, all the elementary schools have the statue, and the philosophy of Hotoku is familiar to the inhabitants.

Many Japanese people like watching historical dramas, but most of them are just samurai dramas. I wish I can see a drama of Ninomiya Sontoku some day. We may be able to learn a lot from his life and philosophy especially when we have weak economy.