while roaming the aisles of the supermarket

My breakfast this morning was Tofu Salad (Satoshi's was Pasta Carbonara). My family in Hawaii has this for dinner sometimes and we sometimes make it to take to pot-luck parties. Usually we put canned salmon, onions, tomatoes and lots of watercress, bean sprouts and a cut up block of firm tofu (soybean curd). I made it a bit simply with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, carrots and tofu. The dressing I used was the same dressing I used when I made my seared ahi-avocado salad.

Do you like to roam up and down the aisles of the supermarket? I do!! A nice thing about the upscale supermarkets in Japan is that they bring in products from all over the world. I really enjoy seeing new items at the supermarket.

I was first introduced to this brand of tea, BOH (I think it's pronounced "bow") about 2 years ago when I received it as part of a Christmas gift from my host-sister, Tomoko. The tea that she gave me was a black tea called Cameron Highlands. This brand of tea is grown in Malaysia. As I roamed the aisles of the supermarket today, I came across a new line of this brand called, Seri Songket Collection. Because the Cameron Highlands was good, I decided to get one from this new collection. I chose the Lemon and Mandarin flavored tea (because it sounded really good and mainly because it was the flavor that was ON SALE).

I had it with lunch today, and it was really good! A very light lemon and mandarin orange flavor--it doesn't over power the tea. On the box it says to drink it black(or as the Japanese say "straight") and hot or over ice with a slice of fruit.

Another tea brand that caught my eye while walking the aisles of the supermarket was Janat. I've seen this tea being sold at our favorite cafe, so I was happy to find that it was also ON SALE at the supermarket today.

According to what I could read on the internet in Japanese, before the French Revolution, there was a commerce trader named Dores--his grandson , Janat Dores started Janat Tea in 1872. On the tin, it says Paris, but I couldn't seem to find a website in English or in French (not that I can read French). So, it may be that this is product can only be found in Japan...hmm...the tin is really cute though, it has 2 cats on it.

The tea I got is called Moon Valley (no. 1030), it is a Darjeeling tea with a hint of muscat (grape). I tasted this tea during my afternoon tea and it was really good, a hint of sweetness, but the main flavor of Darjeeling wasn't lost.

With tea this afternoon I had a "yukiichigo" which means "yuki" (snow), "ichigo" (strawberry). My aunty came upon this dessert while roaming around the train station shopping arcade near her hotel when she visited us 5 years ago. The one we had back then was really light and fluffy. There was a piece of sponge cake at the bottom, a strawberry in the center and whipped cream around it (sorry the picture is a bit dark). The whole thing was wrapped in a very thin mochi (rice cake).

I found this version, again while roaming the aisles of the supermarket...I bought it and envisioned the same light and fluffiness of the first "yukiichigo" I had, only to be disappointed because the cream wasn't whipped--it was actually a bit on the heavy side (definitely PMS-ing...)