Green Burger has come at last

On March 26, I introduced MOS PLANT-BASED GREEN BURGER of Mos Burger that was released at 9 stores in the metropolitan area. From today, this vegan burger is available at all the stores in Japan, even at the one on the main street of Hamamatsu.

Like other Mos Burger menu items, it took for a while to get Green Burger ready. I took it home with another menu item Onion Potato and was full of expectation.

As in the poster, the buns of Green Burger were pale green.

When I ate it, I found the patty had a beany flavor and was very much like that of Soy Patty Hamburger (containing milk) that has been a regular menu item for some time. The tomato sauce was good. Green Burger tasted sweet as a whole because of the buns containing spinach and the sauce. I ate such buns for the first time. Though Green Burger has been released as a vegan option, it is also oriental vegetarian as it doesn’t contain five spicy foods such as garlic, Chinese chives, onion, Welsh onion, or Chinese scallion. So, it may taste the mildest of all the main menu items.

Fresh green leaves & tea leaves

May is the season of newly harvested tea. Last year, my mother, sister, and I went to Mori-machi, a town about 30 km from Hamamatsu and visited a tea shop Ishikawaen (石川園). In April this year, we got a brochure of their products including new tea leaves and a tea bag by post.

When I visited my parents’ house on May 5, my mother took me for a drive to Mori-machi as it was the last day of the annual sale of newly harvested tea. I got out of Hamamatsu for the first time in more than two months and had a feeling of freedom in the nature. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery of mountains with fresh green leaves. There weren’t many cars running on the road in front of Ishikawaen.

Last year, they had a tent in front of the shop and offered a cup of free green tea and Ochabatake (tea garden) Yokan (thick jelly made from adzuki beans, agar, sugar, etc.) containing green tea to each visitor. But this year, they didn’t do that

and had a disinfectant at the entrance.

My mother bought some tea leaves and a box of Ochabatake Yokan.

I ate one piece of yokan at home with the tea sent from Ishikawaen in April. The yokan (5 cm x 3 cm) was dark green and had a rich flavor of green tea.

The contents of the tea bag consisted of green tea, Gyokuro (玉露), and powdered green tea. Gyokuro is the highest quality green tea. Before harvesting, its tea plants are covered to be protected from sunlight for three weeks to increase sweetness and decrease bitterness. The tea bag is intended to make tea with 400 cc of cold water. The pale green color of tea was beautiful, and the tea had a mild refreshing flavor.

Ishikawaen is a generous tea shop. Before we left, they gave another tea bag of this tea and a small bag of newly harvested tea to each of us. I think I’ll send them to my sister who has stayed in Tokyo all the time.

In Mori-machi, we also visited Daitoin Temple,

where we found thistles that can be rarely seen in the area where we live,

and went to FamilyMart. Though it is a convenience store chain, this store has a corner of locally produced vegetables and fruits.

I bought a pack of strawberries at a reasonable price. Though they were small, they tasted very good. Such simple local products always give me energy.

Snap peas & shiitake mushroom

At the beginning of May, my mother and I went to Shirawaki Branch of JA Topia Hamamatsu Farmers’ Market. It is right across from Muhammadi Masjid Hamamatsu in Minami-ku (South Ward) and has big signboards in front of its parking lot.

In a farmers’ market, you can find local fresh flowers sold at reasonable prices.

Now is the season for snap peas and green peas.

I bought a bag of snap peas and got a bag of fresh shiitake mushroom from my mother.

With them I made two kinds of vegan dishes. First, I strung some snap peas and broke off the stems from the mushroom caps.

Then I cut the caps, sauteed them with snap peas with sesame oil, grated garlic and salt, and sprinkled black pepper. According to the recipe on the Internet, you should saute them with olive oil, but I thought it was also good with sesame oil.

Another dish was miso soup. Usually, Japanese vegan broth is made from dried shiitake mushroom (or kelp), but I used the stems of shiitake mushroom instead. I boiled snap peas and sliced stems in 200 cc of water for about 5 minutes and added a tablespoon of miso.

I found this miso soup was satisfactory. Maybe some other ingredients such as leek can make it tastier.

Farmers’ markets are nice places for vegans to visit. In addition to fresh vegetables, you can also find seasonal fresh sweets. My mother and I ate kashiwamochi or a rice cake wrapped with an oak leave in the car before we left. I introduced kashiwamochi several days ago in this blog, but this one from the farmers’ market was also delicious. It may not be as good-looking as those in confectionery stores, but it had a hand-made feel with much adzuki bean paste in it.

Believe in our future

Today is the last day of our holiday season called the Golden Week. Since the government declared a state of emergency for the coronavirus that covers all over Japan until May 6, we are expected to stay at home to the extent possible. Even in Hamamatsu, many restaurants have responded to the request from the city to close until May 6.

The holiday season has passed calmly. The population of Hamamatsu is about 800,000. Until now, seven people have been infected, but there has been no new case found for three weeks. Though the state of emergency has been extended until the end of May, the city doesn’t extend the period of the request for closure. The local restaurants will be opened tomorrow.

Under such circumstances, the city made a video “Believe in our future – Hamamatsu, Japan” to promote sightseeing after recovery from COVID-19. It is posted on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eVqehSWeik

Though it is a very short video, it contains beautiful scenery of Hamamatsu Castle, Lake Hamana, etc. in spring. On YouTube, I found some other interesting videos about Hamamatsu:

SHIZUOKA 【Cherry blossoms】“Somei-Yoshino” at Hamamatsu Flower Park 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKvQ3Iqke8s

【大迫力】これぞ大凧あげ！ 浜松まつり 開会式の混戦を揚げきる
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKMVHivXrro&t=530s
(Hamamatsu Festival with exciting kite flying)

Hamamatsu Kite Festival – Celebrating the New Born Baby - Flying Kite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RjxcFWFN1I
(Short video with a new-born baby, his parents, and neighborhood)

As I wrote yesterday, Hamamatsu Festival was canceled this year. I wish the Japanese government will learn from the success of our neighboring countries to take useful measures against COVID-19 as soon as possible so that we can have a powerful festival next year.

Scenery near the kite flying field

Unique kashiwamochi in Hamamatsu

May 5 is a national holiday Children’s Day in Japan. It is also known as Tango-no-Sekku (端午の節句), a festival to pray for healthy growth and success for boys (for girls, we have the Doll Festival on March 3). Families with boys celebrate this day with warrior dolls displayed at home and carp streamers hung up outside. In recent years, however, it has been getting difficult to see carp streamers because of declining birth rate or for some other reasons.

May 5 is also my father’s birthday, so I visited my parents' house today.

I brought kashiwamochi or rice cakes stuffed with adzuki bean paste and wrapped with oak leaves. They are traditionally eaten on Tango-no-Sekku. One of them was a special one,

which was three times as big as the other (ordinary size).

Instead of a birthday cake, we cut it into three pieces.

I got the right one. The rice cake was fresh, soft, elastic, and delicious.

My father got the middle piece with much adzuki bean paste in it. After eating it up, he asked me if he could have the other kashiwamochi. I was glad that he had a good appetite (we had already lunch before this). The normal-sized kashiwamochi was brown because it was made from sorghum. I heard this type of kashiwamochi is unique to this area and it is softer than ordinary white kashiwamochi.

In addition to kashiwamochi, we had tsurunokomochi, pink and white rice cakes eaten in festive occasions. They have the shape of an egg of a crane that is a symbol of longevity and said to live for a thousand years. My mother and I ate one tsurunokomochi respectively. It was soft and had mild sweetness.

I thought these rice cakes were very good. They were all from a rice cake shop Tsuchiya Mochiten (つちや餅店), not a confectionery store. I remember a Japanese proverb saying “For rice cakes, go to the rice cake shop (餅は餅屋)”. It means one should go to specialists for the best results. As for Japanese traditional sweets based on rice cakes, rice cake shops can excel confectionery stores sometimes.

Rice cakes are given or eaten in a variety of festive occasions. In Hamamatsu, extremely big kashiwamochi are often used as a return gift for a gift to celebrate the birth of a child (when a boy is born, it is often his grandparents who buy warrior dolls and carp streamers for him). In addition, they are also used as a treat in Hamamatsu Festival where big kites are flown to celebrate the birth of children. It is usually held from May 3 to 5 but was cancelled this year to avoid the crowd like this.

The rice cake shop Tsuchiya Mochiten provides three sizes of “big kashiwamochi”, and I bought the smallest one to be eaten by three people. The biggest one is ten times as big as an ordinary kashiwamochi, which may be the one intended for the festival.

In addition to kashiwamochi, Tsuchiya Mochiten has dumplings, warabimochi, and some other traditional sweets. If you live in Hamamatsu and seek real vegan treats, I highly recommend visiting there. From the bus station, take bus #40, #41, etc., get off at Izumicho-Naka (泉町中), and walk southward for a few minutes. You can find the shop easily. Though it was open today, it is usually closed on Tuesday.

When I went there this morning, I saw drawings on the ground to help customers in a queue to keep a social distance. The shop is small, so customers have to wait outside sometimes. The drawings represented skewered dumplings, grilled rice cake, and rice cake pounding, and people should stand on them. In addition to this, they seemed to take several measures against COVID-19, leaving me a good impression.

Vegan Ochazuke Nori since 1952

After posting the article about Shin Ramen, I remembered another product confirmed to be vegan by a consumer on the Internet. It is Ochazuke Nori by Nagatanien (永谷園) that may be known to most Japanese people. Ochazuke is a traditional quick meal made by pouring green tea on boiled rice. As toppings, you can put pickles, dried seaweed (nori), or some other things you like. Nagatanien’s Ochazuke Nori contains flavored powder, dried seaweed, and rice crackers, making it much easier to prepare ochazuke. This product contains 8 small bags, one for each portion. The design of colorful stripes was inspired by a Kabuki curtain and presents the atmosphere of the Edo period (1603-1868).

I made ochazuke as instructed. All you need to do is to put the contents in the bag on boiled rice (100g),

and pour hot water (150 cc). I used my miso soup bowl instead of rice bowl. Fortunately, it was big enough.

The soup powder contained salt, sugar, powdered green tea, and powdered kelp. The soup was a bit salty but tasty. I thought it may be ok to drink as it is without rice since it reminded me of kelp tea. The small rice crackers that got wet in the soup were also tasty. I have heard about someone who used Ochazuke Nori to make vegan spaghetti. Sounds interesting.

Ochazuke Nori is a long-selling product first released in 1952. From 1965 to 1997, a mini picture card of the “53 Stations (post towns) of the Tokaido Highway” series of Hiroshige Utagawa (1797 – 1858) was included in each package of Ochazuke series. When I was little, I used to collect such cards as many other people did. They were so popular that they came back in 2016. As I mentioned before in this blog, Hamamatsu was one of the post towns on the Tokaido Highway during the Edo period and included in this series of pictures. But I could hardly expect to get a picture of our town out of as many as 55 pictures (start point (Edo) + 53 stations + end point (Kyoto) of Tokaido). This picture on the pack is the start point, Nihonbashi in Edo (present Tokyo).

To my surprise, the card I got this time was that of Maisaka, the post town next to Hamamatsu. It is located by Lake Hamana and in West Ward of Hamamatsu now.

Until January 31, 2022, Nagatanien has a campaign where 1,000 people can win a full set of “53 Stations (post towns) of the Tokaido Highway” cards every month by collecting three application marks on packages and sending them to the company. The Ochazuke series has five flavors: dried seaweed (Ochazuke Nori), salmon, picked plum, salted cod roe, and wasabi. Ochazuke Nori is the oldest one and the only vegan one. Its name “お茶づけ海苔“ is written in the center of the pack on a yellow background while the names of other products are written on backgrounds of other colors such as pink and orange.