I've posted about Calbee, Kit Kat and Pocky in Part 1. Those are like my generic "must buy" snacks whenever I head to Japan. In Part 2, I'd focus more on Okinawan specialties that I got while visiting the attractions.
Okinawa is known for its beni imo (purple sweet potatoes), pineapples, kokuto (brown sugar), sea salt and shikuwasa (a citrus type of lemon/lime). Little wonder why my shopping revolved around those themes.
A different version of pineapple cake bought (if I don't recall wrong) while we were at Kouri Tower. This one comes with a pineapple paste wrapped in a thin sponge. I have been cutting down on sugar in my diet for a while, so my palette has definitely changed to one which appreciates something that isn't too sweet. This one hit the right buttons with a very soft sponge, a pineapple paste that was not too sweet and had bits of pineapples to give a bit of crunch.
Beni imo tarts, also known as purple sweet potato tarts can be seen almost everywhere on Kokusai Street. There are different brands but the most famous has to be the one offered by the main souvenir shop, Okashi Goten (see photo above). There are several Okashi Goten outlets in Okinawa with some offering tours of their beni imo tart assembly lines and even beni imo tart making workshops.
These are also good as souvenirs for the office. They're individually packed which means you can easily distribute them out. In fact, even though Japanese packaging isn't the most economical or earth-friendly, because a lot of their snacks come individually packed, it is so easy to give away many of these food items that I write about to friends, precisely because they are individually packed. Hence I do tend towards buying food stuff as souvenirs. These past few days, I have friends texting me how grateful they were that I had given them each a bag of various snacks from Okinawa. The snacks were helping them get through working and staying at home during our social distancing measures.
The extra plus with the beni imo tarts? They're halal certified! See top right corner of the box. Unfortunately, I didn't quite like the taste of it. I thought the pastry was a little dry overall.
I enjoyed Shikuwasa juice while in Okinawa. Well, generally my parents and I tend to enjoy most fruits while in Japan. Japan tends to keep the best of their produce for distribution within Japan and only exports the rest. This time round in Japan, we enjoyed really yummy mangoes, soursops, and pineapples. Shikuwasa juice was one of the more common fruit juice found and I even had a shikuwasa whiskey highball (Japanese alcoholic cocktail).
I enjoyed shikuwasa juice so much, I decided to haul a bottle of juice concentrate back home. I've been enjoying a shikuwasa drink regularly since coming back. A couple of spoonfuls of the concentrate, mixed with chilled water and ice. Completely refreshing on a hot day. It's like a lime version of apple cider vinegar. You can add a pinch of honey if it's too sour for you.
Spam is a common ingredient in Okinawan cuisine, which kind of surprised me since Okinawa is also known for its number of centenarians. I love my spam fries but I've been consistently told that spam isn't the most healthy thing to regularly have. Well, I was in spam heaven in Okinawa where there's even a famous spam onigiri store!
So I wasn't even surprised to chance upon spam curry that I could bring home.
Agu pork is a delicacy in Okinawa so when I saw that it came in spam form, obviously I had to grab a couple to try. I'm left with just that 1 pack though, since I gave away the rest to fellow spam-loving friends.
Sea salt is another Okinawa specialty, given its location as an island surrounded by sea, that's no surprise. What's ingenious is there's even sea salt ice cream! If you love dipping your MacDonald's french fries into their sundaes, then sea salt ice cream is for you. I loved it!
I came home with a few bottles of flavoured sea salt, gave some away and kept these 2 for myself. Top one is lemon and herb salt for french fries, which essentially means you can use it to flavour almost any other fried food. Bottom one is a shikuwasa flavoured cooking salt which I have been using when I cook at home during this stay home period.
Kokuto, or brown sugar is another common Okinawan specialty. We were often offered brown sugar sweets and you can often see brown sugar cakes or doughnuts being sold at various shops. My parents and I liked the kokuto sweets and we bought some home. I can't find a photo of the ones I bought which means I likely forgot about those and I've already since given most of them away.
The only picture I have left is one I took in a hotel room so that we would remember which one we liked and be able to buy it if we spotted it during our travels. Its tastes a little like gula melaka and reminded me of those coconut gula melaka sweets that I used to have as a kid. I also bought a plum version of the kokuto sweet and that was a hit with colleagues.
Rounding up the post with ramen! Haha, when in Japan, eat ramen! And it so happened that Ichiran was just a few step away from our hotel in Naha! Being fans of Ichiran, we obviously visited the restaurant and I came home with their takeaway packs.
I also came home with a packet of instant noodles. I'd have loved to get more but by then I was really running out of luggage space. I'm not 100% sure but I think I've seen this packet before in local Japanese stores. It was a yummy packet though. Mom also passed a packet to my brother who agreed that this is a "can buy" brand.
It was my dinner just a recent week ago when I was too lazy to cook anything else. Tasted really yummy with just fishballs, crab sticks and shitake mushrooms. The broth was really tasty and I kind of regret not getting the other flavours to try.
All right! That's it for the food stuff that I hauled back from Okinawa. Not bad. I actually got 2 posts out even with the bit of inertia I mentioned in the earlier post. Hopefully, this continues and I'd be able to get my Okinawa notes out onto this blog smoothly.
Pineapple cakes. There was a variety of pineapple foodstuff while we were in Okinawa, from pineapple wines, to mochi, soft serve, pies, etc. I was really tempted to haul back a bottle of pineapple wine but the bottle was way too huge. The easiest for us to bring back was definitely pineapple cakes instead. I liked this pineapple castella version (photo above) that I got from Nago Pineapple Park. My only gripe was that the thin paper layer used to protect the cake was a little hard to peel off.
Wow. I just realised the entire paragraph has lines starting with pineapple...
Anyway, for the attractions that I mention in this post, I'd blog about them later. So just watch out for the subsequent posts.
A different version of pineapple cake bought (if I don't recall wrong) while we were at Kouri Tower. This one comes with a pineapple paste wrapped in a thin sponge. I have been cutting down on sugar in my diet for a while, so my palette has definitely changed to one which appreciates something that isn't too sweet. This one hit the right buttons with a very soft sponge, a pineapple paste that was not too sweet and had bits of pineapples to give a bit of crunch.
Beni imo tarts, also known as purple sweet potato tarts can be seen almost everywhere on Kokusai Street. There are different brands but the most famous has to be the one offered by the main souvenir shop, Okashi Goten (see photo above). There are several Okashi Goten outlets in Okinawa with some offering tours of their beni imo tart assembly lines and even beni imo tart making workshops.
These are also good as souvenirs for the office. They're individually packed which means you can easily distribute them out. In fact, even though Japanese packaging isn't the most economical or earth-friendly, because a lot of their snacks come individually packed, it is so easy to give away many of these food items that I write about to friends, precisely because they are individually packed. Hence I do tend towards buying food stuff as souvenirs. These past few days, I have friends texting me how grateful they were that I had given them each a bag of various snacks from Okinawa. The snacks were helping them get through working and staying at home during our social distancing measures.
The extra plus with the beni imo tarts? They're halal certified! See top right corner of the box. Unfortunately, I didn't quite like the taste of it. I thought the pastry was a little dry overall.
I enjoyed Shikuwasa juice while in Okinawa. Well, generally my parents and I tend to enjoy most fruits while in Japan. Japan tends to keep the best of their produce for distribution within Japan and only exports the rest. This time round in Japan, we enjoyed really yummy mangoes, soursops, and pineapples. Shikuwasa juice was one of the more common fruit juice found and I even had a shikuwasa whiskey highball (Japanese alcoholic cocktail).
I enjoyed shikuwasa juice so much, I decided to haul a bottle of juice concentrate back home. I've been enjoying a shikuwasa drink regularly since coming back. A couple of spoonfuls of the concentrate, mixed with chilled water and ice. Completely refreshing on a hot day. It's like a lime version of apple cider vinegar. You can add a pinch of honey if it's too sour for you.
Spam is a common ingredient in Okinawan cuisine, which kind of surprised me since Okinawa is also known for its number of centenarians. I love my spam fries but I've been consistently told that spam isn't the most healthy thing to regularly have. Well, I was in spam heaven in Okinawa where there's even a famous spam onigiri store!
So I wasn't even surprised to chance upon spam curry that I could bring home.
Agu pork is a delicacy in Okinawa so when I saw that it came in spam form, obviously I had to grab a couple to try. I'm left with just that 1 pack though, since I gave away the rest to fellow spam-loving friends.
Sea salt is another Okinawa specialty, given its location as an island surrounded by sea, that's no surprise. What's ingenious is there's even sea salt ice cream! If you love dipping your MacDonald's french fries into their sundaes, then sea salt ice cream is for you. I loved it!
I came home with a few bottles of flavoured sea salt, gave some away and kept these 2 for myself. Top one is lemon and herb salt for french fries, which essentially means you can use it to flavour almost any other fried food. Bottom one is a shikuwasa flavoured cooking salt which I have been using when I cook at home during this stay home period.
Kokuto, or brown sugar is another common Okinawan specialty. We were often offered brown sugar sweets and you can often see brown sugar cakes or doughnuts being sold at various shops. My parents and I liked the kokuto sweets and we bought some home. I can't find a photo of the ones I bought which means I likely forgot about those and I've already since given most of them away.
The only picture I have left is one I took in a hotel room so that we would remember which one we liked and be able to buy it if we spotted it during our travels. Its tastes a little like gula melaka and reminded me of those coconut gula melaka sweets that I used to have as a kid. I also bought a plum version of the kokuto sweet and that was a hit with colleagues.
Rounding up the post with ramen! Haha, when in Japan, eat ramen! And it so happened that Ichiran was just a few step away from our hotel in Naha! Being fans of Ichiran, we obviously visited the restaurant and I came home with their takeaway packs.
I also came home with a packet of instant noodles. I'd have loved to get more but by then I was really running out of luggage space. I'm not 100% sure but I think I've seen this packet before in local Japanese stores. It was a yummy packet though. Mom also passed a packet to my brother who agreed that this is a "can buy" brand.
It was my dinner just a recent week ago when I was too lazy to cook anything else. Tasted really yummy with just fishballs, crab sticks and shitake mushrooms. The broth was really tasty and I kind of regret not getting the other flavours to try.
All right! That's it for the food stuff that I hauled back from Okinawa. Not bad. I actually got 2 posts out even with the bit of inertia I mentioned in the earlier post. Hopefully, this continues and I'd be able to get my Okinawa notes out onto this blog smoothly.
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