Year of the Rabbit

Aunt brought us this mochi from the grocery store. Inside, there is potato paste (sweetened mashed potatoes) that was dyed pink. It is supposed to look like rabbits. Four little rabbits huddle in a plastic hutch.

There was a time (not too long ago) when things were never sold in fours. In pairs, threes or fives, but not fours. Four is an unlucky number because the word in Japanese (shi) is the same sound as the word for death.

Times are changing. Big Sister told me that some people are saying that shi (four) should be considered as a short form for shiawase which means happiness. It will be interesting how much this changes. Gift packs are still being sold in pairs or threes or fives.

Scroll to see earlier posts about mochi or click on the label below. Click here to read about the number 4.

Oshiruko, A Winter Japanese Dish of Beans and Rice

Atsuki beans can be bought dried or canned. They are used in a rice dish eaten on special occasions, sekihan, and to fill glutinous rice cakes or mochi. A bowl of sweetened atsuki beans are also served with mochi in them. Those things that look bars of soap are the glutinous rice cakes before they are cooked. After they are heated they become gooey. They should be eaten carefully.

Click on the labels below to see other posts about mochi and sekihan.

Autumn Moon Viewing

Tonight was the night for moon viewing. Read about Autumnal Moonlight Viewing at Kids Web Japan.

We all went to the roof garden several times to view the moon. It was a nice crisp night. It is difficult to take pictures of the moon. I still need more practice!

We bought flowers with pampas grass. We also bought mochi round like the full moon filled with adzuki bean paste. The rabbit is a decoration our family uses when we decorate for Easter. Click on the label below for other posts.

I took this picture from the roof garden. I used the tripod and zoom lens. Much better!

Bean KitKat

KitKat has seasonal flavors here. This one is made out of adzuki beans and white chocolate.

Yakimochi

There are vendors outside the Jindaiji Temple grounds. This sign advertises cooked mochi, glutinous rice cakes. They are filled with adzuki beans. This steam basket has sweets wrapped in bamboo paper.

Taiyaki Ice

That's what it says in red letters.

This is ice cream and sweet bean paste inside a cone shaped like a fish. Yum. It is yummy!
Do a blog search for taiyaki.

Making Taiyaki

I bought three custard taiyaki at the new shop and asked if I could take a picture through the window. They were making some. The worker on the right is making okonomi taiyaki (see post below). She is closing the iron mold (actually it looks like Teflon).

The worker on the left is squirting batter into a mold. She has already squirted batter into one side of the mold. She will then squirt custard or adzuki beans onto one side. She will close the mold when the outside of the cake is browned. Then she will flip the closed mold from one side to the other on top of the stove.

The cooked taiyaki are placed in a rack in the window. The sign says "custard 130 yen".

Shop Opening

A new shop opened in our neighborhood on the 29th. It makes and sells taiyaki. A pancake-like snack shaped like a fish. This shop sells them filled with the usual azuki beans, but also with custard. there is also one called okonomi taiyaki that is filled with cabbage, carrots, bacon and mayonnaise.

Too bad it was raining on their opening days, but people were still lining up to buy them.

Well wishers send big bouquets of flowers for a shop's opening day. On the third day after the grand opening, the arrangements were separated into small bouquets and put in pails outside the shop. A salesclerk was handing them out to customers.

This is the shop's sign. The blue fish on the left is holding a real bamboo fishing pole. In Japanese, it says yume aru machi no taiyakiya san. Big Sister translated it as "A Taiyaki Shop in a City that has a Dream". Papa called it "Dreamland Taiyaki Shop". That doesn't really mean the same thing, does it?

More Mochi

No, these aren't chocolate kisses. They are mochi with anko, adzuki bean paste, on the outside. A small plastic cake "fork" came with this. The top part of this "fork" has the shape of bamboo.

People use this kind of utensil to eat Japanese cakes. We used it to pick the mochi up to put on our plates. We used stainless steel western-style dessert forks to eat them. We drank green tea with them.

Different Kinds of Mochi

Mochi, glutinous rice, on a stick is called dango. These are bigger and are flatter than usual. Dango are usually small round balls of mochi. There is no adzuki bean paste in them.

These were toasted next to charcoal. Click to enlarge the picture and you may be able to see the flame.

This was at Jindai Botanical Gardens.

This looks like bars of soap, but they are bars of mochi. This kind of mochi is available by the bag at the grocery store. It is put in azuki beans to make oshiruko. Click on the "snacks" label to see a picture of that. This mochi can also be grilled on the stove. Little Brother likes to put it in the microwave. It puffs up. He eats it with soy sauce and nori, sheets of dried seaweed.

This is sweet potato mochi. Before it is cooked, it looks like the mochi in the picture above. Mochi is really gummy and sticky. Children and old people are warned to be careful while eating it. It can be a choking hazard.

Dorayaki

This is a snack called dorayaki.

It is filled with azuki (sometimes spelled adzuki) beans.

Check out Kids Web Japan-- sweets and cakes

Winter Treat

Toasted mochi or glutinous rice in a bowl of steaming hot adzuki beans is a winter treat. This is a sign at a coffee shop. This dessert is called oshiruko. Though the green box tells what kind of coffee the shop sells, this dessert would most likely be served with tea. (The information in the pink box above the bowl probably tells about it. I didn't photograph that part of the sign!)

These instant cups are sold at some grocery stores. I bought this for a friend who was in the hospital. All he had to do was add hot water. Not sure if it were good or not.

Temple Treats

These men were selling gingko nuts. This is the season for gingko nuts.

Here is glutinous rice with azuki bean paste inside. They are yummy.

Little Brother, Big Sister, and I had one of these.

These are called dango, balls of glutinous rice on a stick. Some are dipped in sauce. Some have azuki bean paste on them. The black paste is black sesame seed paste. All of these are delicious, too. Papa had one with azuki bean paste on it.

These sweets are always sold at the temple, but there were more vendors today.

Note: I have seen the Japanese word azuki written as "adzuki" in English.

Dessert at Big Boy Restaurant, Tokyo

I didn't take pictures of everyone's meal. They were all basically the same. But the desserts! Look at them!

This one had green tea jelly (the green square), mochi (the round green balls of glutinous rice), green tea ice cream, adsuki (sweet beans) and whipped cream.




Purin (flan), coffee jelly and vanilla ice cream parfait with a sprig of mint.




Green tea and vanilla ice cream and a soybean purin.




Coffee jelly and vanilla ice cream with a sprig of mint. There were many more choices on the menu.

Another Stop Along the Way

This is the welcome table at the entrance of a rest stop along our way. On the wall is a device that is used for people who are having heart trouble or a heart attack.




Each area has its specialities and each rest stop sells them as souvenirs. Each item has the name of the place printed on its packaging. There are boxes of cakes and cookies neatly wrapped. This is a small rest stop so the selection is not very big.



This is a local sweet wrapped in a dried leaf. This picture was taken at a food stall like the one in yesterday's post. These sweets were sold individually. Later on our trip I saw these at a grocery store. They were all tied together and sold as a bunch.

Peel away the dried leaf and you find a green mochi, glutinous rice, with anko, sweet adzuki bean paste, inside. Yummy.




At rest stops along the highway and at some tourist attractions, you can use a complimentary stamp in your own notebook or a souvenir stamp book. It looks like a lot of people practiced here before stamping their books.




There is no charge for using the stamp. It's a nice souvenir and collection. We usually go back to Texas in the summers and rarely travel in Japan by car so we haven't done this.

Boy's Day Treat

This is kashiwa mochi. It's available around Boy's Day. It is glutinous rice filled with sweet bean paste then wrapped in an oak leaf. Sounds yummy, huh? It actually is. Especially with green tea.
Kashiwa is oak. Mochi is the round "cake". I've heard people call it a rice cake when they are translating or explaining it in English. That sounds better than glutinous rice, but Americans know rice cakes as puffed crunchy rice. (I've seen that sold here, but you put it in a bowl of boiling water to make a hot cereal.) Mochi is rice that has been pounded until it is soft and sticky. The bean paste is made from adzuki beans that are sweetened. Mochi is sold throughout the year and is presented in different ways. The oak leaf is special for Boy's Day. The leaf is not eaten.