On Sunday, the girls and I decided to go to the local Japanese supermarket, Mitsuwa. I love non-American markets since they expose me to so much cool stuff I never see at Vons or Ralph's.

The stated task was to buy a new rice cooker. Our old Hitachi rice cooker had served well for 10 years, but the feet were coming off and the bottom was beginning to rust. Michele's two stated feature request in a new unit was non-stick coating and 'keep warm' mode.

If you don't have a rice cooker and you eat rice, you NEED to buy a rice cooker. Perfect rice, every time. And it's the simplest gadget around. Dump in rice, dump in water, push button, done.

Of course, we bought a ton of snacks and other treats while at the store.

The good stuff from Mitsuwa

I was happy to find the new Roots line of iced coffee. I had never tried them before. Jake up at 8bitjoystick had tried them, and I was jealous.

Currently I am drinking Roots Aroma Black, which Jake descibes as "the black tar heroin of the canned Japanese coffee". He's right. Only a true iced coffee addict could stomach this.

The can has the following quote: " The Waist-Wave Can provides optimum heat control combined with the HTST PROCESS in the pursuit of the authentic coffee flavor". I think HTST mean High Temperature Short Time. I don't know how it relates to iced coffee, but it sure makes it strong.

You can see the Sanyo rice cooker to the right. I gave it a test run and it was perfect. Maybe tonight I will make some curry and test it on a bigger batch.

I also picked a pack of Black Black gum. It's not the same as licorice Blackjack gum, in fact I'm not sure what it tastes like.

Posted by michael at November 04, 2003 12:46 PM