So, last weekend we went to Mitsuwa. I was being an airhead or a ravenous beast (pick only one) and forgot to take pictures, but the details were: Autumn Japanese Food Fair. We went [...]]]> (I finally get to post all the backlog of food entries I’ve been meaning to talk about)

So, last weekend we went to Mitsuwa. I was being an airhead or a ravenous beast (pick only one) and forgot to take pictures, but the details were: Autumn Japanese Food Fair. We went and looked around various Japanese dish shops, then went to the main fair and got some Shrimp, Cheese, and Sardine Satsuma-Age, Kaiseki (Salmon, Tuna, Fluke, and Ikura) Futo-Maki, Crab and Mackerel Chirashi Sushi, and Kake Udon (Cold Udon with tarako caviar). Man! I was just hungry. I ate and ate and then shopped. Seriously, I don’t know why there are no pictures.

I used to go to Mitsuwa all the time, back when it used to be called Yaohan, under different management. Their food court was always my favorite thing and I would always get their child’s ramen lunch set or tarako caviar spaghetti. I would stock up on Mitsuya Cider and various Japanese pastries, like sugar toast bread (which is literally bread toast with milk and sugar crusted on the edges, which is DELICIOUS. My mother would travel to NJ weekly to feed my father and myself. Sometimes I would tag along to get the weekly Japanese comic Ribon and Japanese imported candies. Love it.

I’ve stopped going these days, because, it’s such a journey. And although they have tons of stuff, it isn’t really any cheaper than NYC Sunrise Mart. It’s nice to go once in a while, for the whole experience, though. You get a bus at Port Authority, pay $3 one way, and shop. Next door there is a strip mall with Bed Bath and Beyond and Target. ; )

We scored these beautiful ceramic bowls ,3 for $10. Ryan fell in love with them and they go with our white plates pretty well. They have a hand painted lapis lazuli colored circle, which is quite beautiful. I wanted a ridiculously saccharine mug with a big frog on the handle to bring to work with me, you know, so I can sip on that during some important board meeting. I can run off some numbers while stroking my CUTE widdle froggy poo! That’s how I roll. But it was something ridiculous like $12 bucks and I couldn’t spend more than $5 on something to amuse other people. I guess other people’s happiness isn’t worth more than $5 to me! :P

Back to the topic at hand… food… the real booty here is the meats. They have great organic pampared beef cuts flown all the way from Japan. They also have FRESH sashimi grade fillets. They also have first crop rice grains, which my mother covets like a crazy person. I think she got another HUGE bag of Tamaki Gold First Crop rice. She’s like a rice hoarder… Just like I hoard fresh laundered towels from Ryan.

But seriously, the beef are pampered… they’ve been massaged, cared for, groomed, and they party with Paris Hilton. No joke. With the piece of bovine carcass I bought, I am that much closer to the covered in pink socialite! Score. So we bought a packet of modest slices of Kobe beef. (You see that plate, that’s what you get for $8) I gave Ryan a hard time about it, “WE ARE GOING TO EAT THIS! It’s a sin not to! We are not going to let Paris’ BFF get freezer burn in our awfully full back-hole of a freezer.”

So last week, a day or after, I put Ryan in charge of grilling it on our frying pan seasoned with just salt and pepper. And it was DELICIOUS with stripes of flavorful fat and tender meat. It seriously needs no marinading, and we were in heaven. We really don’t eat beef more than once a week if at all (usually consumed in delicious burgers), so it was a nice change of pace. Ryan cooked delicious rings of onions that we topped on our rice. (I think he used butter, salt and pepper… maybe some garlic powder?) It was SO good. Love the onions.

What did my lazy butt do? (HEY! I had a LONG day at work…) I cooked rice. And for the record, it was awesome. I cooked it this time in chicken stock and dashi. (you might want to add a little more liquid in this case) So there.

We also had an appetizer of the fishcakes/Satsuma-Age that we got at Mitsuya’s Autumn festival. We ate the cheese there, but we had the shrimp and the sardines and they were pillowy, soft, and good.