Onigiri

One of my fave discoveries is onigiri – a rice snack wrapped in seaweed. Stuffed with anything from preserved veggies to salmon, this tasty palm-sized piece of heaven has become almost a daily necessity.

You can buy this at a supermarket, a convenience store and I’ve heard there are shops that just sell onigiri from floor to ceiling. Imagine that – thousands of seaweed wrapped rice balls lining the shelves. The closest I’ve come to witness such onigiri madness is in Shinagawa where I chanced upon a shopping mall food section where there was a counter that had at least a hundred onigiris displayed neatly in the glass cabinet.

Maybe it’s the cold or I’m just exercising more these days but the stomach rumbles for attention every few hours. There are only so many sandwiches I can eat, so onigiri saved my palate from utter boredom.

From plain tuna mayo, I’ve become more adventurous and am trying others. I still can’t read labels for shit (except I can tell ‘hong yu’, or red fish, is salmon) so I’ve taken to just grab a colour I’ve never tried. The only words I can read are written in fancy hiragana that says ‘onigiri’. I’ve tried ones with salmon eggs, cooked salmon strips, eel and a brown gelatin-like pickle (shown below).

It’s genius how they package the onigiri such that the seaweed doesn’t touch the rice. A plastic sheet separates them. How do you open this? There are instructions to guide you such that you can gracefully pull out the plastic – and voila – you get your onigiri with crisp seaweed in your hand.

Washed down with fragrant ocha, this munchie is something I look forward to having. Mmmm…oiishi desu ne….

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