Another thing that I have found to be grounding for me is making food for myself! Going out to eat in Osaka is indeed amazing, there are so many restaurants around and we eat good every single time we go out but sometimes its also nice to go home and make myself some yakisoba.
Let’s talk about the grocery store. Filled with amazing food especially a large variety of yummy frozen foods, snacks, and meats. Grocery shopping is definitely a feast for the eyes. Meat and fish are comparably cheaper here than in America. Also, pre-prepared/ready to eat meals like sushi assortments and beef gyudon with rice bowls are cheap too.
Something important to note is that different varieties of fruit are hard to come by! There will be oranges, and strawberries, and bananas for the most part but other fruit like blueberries and grapes are rare. And if they do have them, its pretty expensive! I wonder if this changes in the Spring or Summer. Also, different leafy vegetables that are typically used for salads are rare, or will be pretty expensive for a single usage amount. The same goes for cheese, being a little bit more accessible but also expensive like a hunk of brie is ~$10. I believe its because of Japan’s location, its difficult to outsources these kinds of produce.
I’ve been finding myself stocking up on lots of veggies like bok choy, napa cabbage, getting different kinds of ramen packs (which for some reason I feel like is a bit healthier here, I just have a feeling). I also usually get some sort of meat like pork belly strips or beef.
Frozen foods is great to stock up on and super quick to make like dumplings, fried chicken, fried rice, meat patties, seriously the frozen section is incredible! I feel like everything is delicious and flavorful and affordable.
I try to get a different assortment of snacks like chips and cookies each visit so I can keep trying new things! I’ve gotten great finds. I’m gonna be real once I got Oreos and I felt guilty about it but I was having a tough week lol. They were good.
Overall, I think I’ve been cooking a lot more here than I did back at home!
Here’s a quick lil recipe:
- Boil water and add soy sauce/seasonings (sometimes I’ll add marinade thats supposed to be for meat) to water
- Add pork belly strips to boiling water and stir around a little bit, leave for a minute or two and take out before fully cooked
- Add cut bok choy to the water, cook for a minute or two.
- Add ramen noodles and sauce packs and add pork belly back in.
- Cook for about 3 minutes and take out. Sprinkle some scallions and serve!!
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I definitely want to cook more. I’ve been watching a lot of videos from Tasty Japan and I really want to try to make omurice!
I think it would also be cool to try to make sushi and onigiri one day.
Here is a link and look how cute!!