Monday, September 03, 2007

Battera Oshizushi from Osaka

Battera

This was cool. In contrast to the hand-pressed version of sushi common today, oshizushi is an older Osakan variety made by pressing rice into a wooden rectangular box. The vinegar and strong odor of the fish in this battera that I got tonight may not be appealing to everyone, but I liked it. And the coolest thing about it was that it was only 350 Yen (US$3), wrapped up nicely in layers of clean wrapping paper and available for pick up at various train stations.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A heads-up from a regular reader: The food issue of The New Yorker, out this week (the Sept. 3 & 10 issue), contains a Calvin Trillin piece on visiting Singapore for the specific purpose of eating.

Enjoying your posts as usual.

I live in a part of the U.S.A. where one can readily find 20 types of maki at a sushi place, each one containing miso mayo or pineapple or some other exotica, but no other evidence that food from any part of east, west, or south Asia has progressed beyond our cutting-edge 1982-era understanding of it.

Here's to "green curry," moo goo gai pan, tempura shrimp Philly-cheese BBQ maki, underspiced chicken tikka, and...well, that's about it, really.