A hot summer evening

Saturday the 27th August 2019 was 土用の丑の日which is read as doyou no ushi no hi. It is the day of the ox in mid summer and supposedly the hottest day of the season. Apparently people in Japan eat eel on this day. There is a theory as to how this practice started but it is generally believed that “eating items  that start with the same vowel as ushi no hi, such as unagi, gives one strength to survive the summer”.https://wow-j.com/en/sp/Allguides/other/tips_manners/01801_en/ H wanted to have some eel so we went to a supermarket to get a fillet of grilled eel. Depending on the origin of the eel a piece  could cost anywhere between BND20 to BND30. It comes with topping sauce and seasoning. 

I don’t usually eat eel but have grown to be fond of it eversince I moved to Nagoya, thanks to its famous eel dish Hitsumabushi. I’ll save that for another entry. The marinade is slightly sweet and has a slightly sticky texture but suits the eel well. The pictures were taken before the eel was topped with the sauce but having it as it with spring onions was the ultimate combination for me. And the portion hit the spot. Ahhh, it was a good evening. 

Frozen noms: Char sao bao!

It is one of those days where I feel like having a quick dinner instead of cooking from scratch. I had a look in my fridge and saw that there is a pack of frozen char sao bao (barbecued pork buns), hereinafter referred to as "CSB", that I had bought earlier this week. 

I moved to Nagoya from Tokyo five years ago and have been living in Kasugai city since then. AEON mall is my usual go-to for grocery shopping as its supermarket offers a pretty comprehensive selection of ingredients and there is a also an adjacent outlet that sells imported foodstuff. Although I was never a fan of frozen food as it was never a mainstay in my mother's kitchen. However, there was a "World Dining" section that caught my eye and I decided to have a closer look. Basically as the name of the section suggests it offers popular frozen dishes from different countries. I am a huge fan of CSBs and meatbuns in Japan don't really suit my palate hence I was delighted by the find. The CSBs are a product of Taiwan.

Apparently today is a good day to try them out.

You get a pair of CSBs in the pack which can be steamed or re-heated in a microwave oven.

Of course I'd go for steaming. Hahaha. Once in the steamer it is a 17 minute wait.

I knew that these buns won't taste like the authentic once the moment I took the lid off the steamer. The smell of the buns suggest that the filling has been tweaked to be more agreeable to the local palate. 

The skin has the texture of a chinese meat bun and has a good consistency for frozen food. The filling is typical of a CSB filling but somehow has a "Japanese" taste to it. For BND5.50 they were pretty good and were just the right portion for one person. On my next trip to the supermarket I'll get a pack for H and see what he thinks of them.