McDonald quality fries @ Tokyo Bento

The bento boxes were Ok, but this time I tried the fries, which is slightly unusual to find in a Bento place, there was fried chicken a few shops away with fries, but I picked these fries because they are sprinkled with Perilla (Ji-So in Chinese) and these are the fries you get at McD’s.

Initially I thought they were sprinkled with seaweed, but they turned out to be Perilla (Ji-So). I have never tried it before, but in Asian cuisine they use a lot of it.

When I looked it up, it seems that Basil is also called Ji-So in Chinese, but Ji-So doesn’t taste like Basil.
Basil is mostly used in Italian dishes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perilla

The picture of Perilla is like a nettle leaf, and the reason for confusion is that Basil is Lor Lack in Chinese, and the Perilla is also called Japanese Basil, hence when I looked for Perilla, results of Basil also turned up.

Anyway, the fries were nicely fried, golden yellow and not over done, they were seasoned reasonably with salt, however I could not taste the Perilla despite there was quite a fair amount on the fries.

 

 

 

 

The best and only musubi I have tried so far

I have never been keen on Musubis because I used to think they taste bland as it is mostly made of rice.

In Hawaii they have spam musubi.

I decided to try this place when I found out they had Pizza flavoured musubi and the soybean chicken meatball soup.
I really wanted to try the pizza musubi because I thought it would be fun having Risotto in musubi form.

After taking the effort walking to Brim, there was no Pizza flavour that day, so I got the Mentaiko musubi, Scallop musubi, XO sauce musubi, Yukuri (akajiso – purple perilla) musubi, wasabi octopus musubi and the soup.

I ate the XO Sauce musubi and the Wasabi musubi last because it had the strongest flavour.
I started on the Yukuri first because it was just plain rice with akajiso herbs.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Yukuri (akajiso – purple perilla) musubi:
I was surprised the rice was flavoured and there was akajiso pieces evenly distributed within the rice.
This was the first time I could taste the purple perilla because the taste of the rice did not overpower the perilla.

Purple perilla musubi

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Mentaiko musubi:
Again it was plain rice with a piece of mentaiko in the middle.
The rice tasted nice with or without the mentaiko, and it was soft and moist.
When I got to the mentaiko, it was hard and dense, but it had a nice salty tone to enhance the rice.

 

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XO Sauce musubi:
The rice was evenly mixed with XO sauce, there were pieces of dried scallops and prawns.
The texture of the rice was also soft and moist.

XO sauce musubi

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Wasabi octopus musubi:
This was nice too, but it tasted the same as a giant gunkan/Temaki made with Wasabi and octopus.

Wasabi octopus musubi

 

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Scallop in vinegar musubi:
The label saids "trabeculae" which is an interesting translation, but I think they mean scallop.

 

There was generous pieces of small scallops in it, and the taste was similar to the XO Sauce musubi.

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★
Soybean, chicken meatball Soup:
I loved the soup and could not get enough of it.
On the menu it is called Collagen soup.
Although it claims to have collagen, I did not expect the soup to have collagen in it.
It was did not taste of soymilk even though it contained soymilk.
The taste of the soup was similar to chicken in cream sauce but in liquid form.
There was generous pieces of spinach and chicken meatballs.

 

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Brown sugar warabi:
I really liked this because it is different from mochi, because it is made from starch and less chewy.
However the brown sugar powder was slightly too sweet.

Brown sugar warabi

 

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

Restaurant: 華御結 Hana musubi