Mitsuwa Shopping Spree

I had a great time shopping at Mitsuwa, formerly Yaohan the other day! Here is a picture of my haul with some thoughts.



Starting in the upper left corner,

• Big bottle of Gekkeikan sake, strictly for cooking
• Stack of tofus, extra firm, on sale for 99 cents each! You can’t go wrong.
• Tiny can of wasabi powder sitting on..
• Two jars of picked ginger, one red, one pink
• BIG bag of panko. Why spend $2.50 on that tiny box of Dynasty brand of panko which is the only brand that Jewel or Dom’s seems to carry when you can get a huge sack (400 g) for the same price at a Asian market, I ask myself?
• Lovely, lovely rice crackers
• Mirin for cooking. Could anyone explain the difference between sake and mirin as they are generally used in Asian cooking? They seem interchangeable to me. Am I missing the point?
• Wonderful frozen-fresh udon noodles
• Frozen edamame both in shells and
• … shelled. Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food (issue #30, March 2006) has a nice article about how to edamame: edamame spread with rice crackers, brown rice and edamame that looks sooo much better than it sounds, and an edamame corn chowder with bacon. The article made me take the plunge here, my first edamame.
• Dried soba noodles
• Fresh wonton wrappers – Everyday Food Issue #31 (April 2006) has an article on wonton wrappers: wontons for soup, pot stickers, baked wonton cups (in a mini-muffin tin) that are then filled with a cream cheese – chutney mixture or any other yummy thing you can think of, wonton crackers baked with sesame and fennel seeds and served with a green curry dip.
• Wasabi paste in a tube
• Big bag of pork gyoza pot stickers
• Fresh yakisoba with sauce packets. I just love this stuff!

By the way, I think the $3 plate of yakisoba from the food court at Mitsuwa is one of the great food bargains in that area. It is a very healthy portion of steaming hot noodles, veggies (mostly cabbage), some onion, a tiny amount of ground pork and some good spices. I used to work near Yahohan years ago and would get weekly cravings for this dish. The entire food court there, imho, is worth exploring systematically over several lunches.

Lastly, there is an interesting sounding recipe for edamame dumplings with an easy dipping sauce in the new Cooking Light (April 2006). A sort of mashed, spiced filling in wonton wrappers.