Category: Culture

McFlurry Strawberry Shortcake For A Limited Time Only

Encouraged by the commercial sector, the secular celebration of Christmas is popular in Japan, though Christmas is not a national holiday. Gifts are exchanged and children’s presents are left next to their pillow at night. Christmas parties are held on and around Christmas Day; the Japanese type of Christmas cake is often a white whipped cream cake with strawberries.

The most famous dessert made with shortcake is strawberry shortcake. Japanese-style strawberry shortcakes use a sponge cake base, and are a favorite Christmas or birthday cake in Japan.

[McDonald’s] McFlurry is a vanilla ice cream dessert that has pieces of candy, fruit or cookies mixed into it.

You’re Eating Sushi All Wrong

Nigirizushi (握り寿司, lit. hand-formed sushi) consists of an oblong mound of sushi rice that the chef presses into a small rectangular box between the palms of the hands, usually with a bit of wasabi, and a topping draped over it. Unlike sashimi, which is almost always eaten with chopsticks, nigirizushi is traditionally eaten with the fingers, even in formal settings

Wasabi is often served with sushi or sashimi, usually accompanied with soy sauce.

Soy sauce is a condiment produced by fermenting soybeans with Aspergillus oryzae and Aspergillus soyae molds, along with water and salt. All varieties of soy sauce are salty, earthy, brownish liquids intended to season food while cooking or at the table. Soy sauce has a distinct basic taste called umami (旨味, literally “delicious taste”) in Japanese.

HottoMotto Unaju Only 500円 for a Limited Time

Unagi (うなぎ) is the Japanese word for freshwater eels, especially the Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica. Unagi is often eaten during the hot summers in Japan. There is even a special day for eating unagi, the midsummer day of the Ox (doyo no ushi no hi).

Kabayaki (蒲焼) is a generic Japanese term for a dish of seafood which is filleted, boned and dipped in a sweet soy sauce-base sauce before broiled on a grill. In general, kabayaki refers to the dish made with unagi.

Hokka Hokka Tei (ほっかほっか亭) is a bento take-out chain with over 2,000 franchises and company-owned branches throughout Japan. Hokka Hokka Tei [was] the major brand name of Plenus Co., Ltd., which used to be engaged in office equipment sales before it changed industries to the food industry in 1980 [and then in 2008 split from Hokka Hokka Tei to form the HottoMotto bento chain in 2005.]

Taiko (太鼓) means “drum” in Japanese (etymologically “great” or “wide drum”). Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums (和太鼓, wa-daiko, “Japanese drum”, in Japanese) and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming (sometimes called more specifically, kumi-daiko (組太鼓)).