Written by Dave

This will be the first possibly many Japanese food posts. For starters, we both slept well and we are mostly over jet-lag. Free brekkie at our hotel was great fun, a buffet full of many traditional Japanese treats – fish, rice, oddly cooked eggs and of course miso soup. I even tried the natto – fermented soy beans – odd.

Brekkie aside, the real star of today’s post is the infamous Japanese rice triangle.

Wikipedia puts the first known rice triangle at 721 AD. In this post, however, I am not talking about the traditional, generic rice triangle. I am talking about the “1-2-3” version that you find today in every convenience and grocery store in Japan. When Nancy was here in the 1980s for college, she didn’t remember finding the 1-2-3 version. We only discovered them when we traveled here in 2001.  What makes the 1-2-3 version special is its packaging.

Back in 2001, we were completely baffled by the 1-2-3 packaging. We were in transit through to Hokkaido and needed a quick bite. We bought a 1-2-3 and proceeded to completely mangle it trying to open the package. We made such a mess that an elderly Japanese woman took pity on us and showed us how to open them – that’s a big mess when you consider how reserved and polite Japanese typically are.

While the 721 AD version of a rice triangle is tasty, it didn’t store well on a connivance store shelf. Having the seaweed touch the rice makes the seaweed soggy almost instantly. Soggy seaweed is nowhere near as tasty.  Sometime in the 1980s Japanese engineers took on the case of soggy seaweed and invented the current triangle packaging.

It’s pretty clever actually. They inserted a thin plastic film between the seaweed and rice. When you open it correctly following the 1-2-3 steps noted on the package, the plastic is removed and you get crunchy seaweed. There is a little extra plastic waste but the texture and taste are fantastic. A former Japanese colleague of mine was not sure if he should be proud the engineering or ashamed for the extra plastic. Based on their proliferation and how tasty they are, I’m going with proud on this one.

Beside rice and seaweed, there is filling inside the rice – salmon, tuna, corn, soy bean, something pickled and a whole bunch of other options. I like the salmon best and can just about pick out the Kanji (Japanese) symbol for my favorite. Nancy knows enough Japanese to avoid the sticky soy bean version and keep me out of trouble. All of this yum, for the princely sum of $1 USD for the salmon and as little as $.60 USD for many of the vegetable fillings at the typical convenience store, and a stunningly cheap .49 JPY or 33 cents at the bulk food store. Wow!

Enough writing, see below for photos of a 1-2-3 in action.  It will all make more sense…

Tomorrow we start riding. We have a short ride planned to the ferry where we will leave Honshu – the largest island and travel to Shikoku – the fourth largest island. We’ll be on Shikoku for a week or so. Weather looks good – it’s hot and humid but nothing like it was a month ago. Highs should be around 85 and lows around 70. There are some clouds about but no rain forecast for a week or so.

And one more food photo. On our wanders today we hit an everyday Japanese ramen shop. We could get used to this being our everyday meal – yum.