Twentythree

Easy recipe shows how to grill a mushroom so it tastes just like meat.

There are a lot of places where you can pick up Japanese recipes and cooking tips, but when they come from a manga, we always sit up and pay attention. So when the main character of Otsuki from food-focused manga 1-Nichi Gaishutsuroku Hanchou (literally “One-Day Outing Foreman”) shared a delicious way to grill shiitake mushrooms in the latest chapter, we knew we had to try it out.

▼ All you need for this easy recipe is a pack of mushrooms, a pan, and some condiments.

According to Otsuki, the key ingredient to making a delicious grilled shiitake is one simple step: do not flip the shiitake over while cooking. If you avoid doing that, you’ll have juicy, delicious mushrooms that almost taste like meat, with Otsuki describing it as “meat disguised as mushrooms”.

▼ It’s also a good idea to start with large, good-looking, fresh shiitake, and to prep them, simply cut off the base of the stems.

▼ Then place the caps facing down in a pan, and slowly grill over a medium heat.

Again, the one vital step to remember is that the mushrooms must absolutely not be flipped over. According to Otsuki, most people would think to flip, but that is a common mistake.

▼ If you resist the urge to flip and wait a few minutes, you’ll begin to see the magic happen.

Gradually, clear juices will start to emerge from within the mushroom, collecting inside the cap. In the manga, this juice is likened to the juice that comes from meat while it’s being cooked, and it’s fascinating to watch it form. It’s also the reason why the mushrooms should not be flipped over, because doing so would mean all those delicious natural juices would spill out and be lost in the pan.

According to Otsuki’s cooking method, seasonings such as soy sauce or salt should be added directly into the pooled juices, so we followed his advice and added a few drops of soy sauce.

Otsuki also says you don’t need chopsticks to eat the shiitake – instead, pick them up by the base of the stem, taking care not to spill the juices.

▼ We feared they might be too hot to handle, but thankfully, the base wasn’t that hot at all.

As we went in for a taste, we realised the hardest part about these mushrooms is eating them. It’s difficult to maneuver them into your mouth without the juices spilling, so we recommend holding a small plate underneath to catch the liquid as you bite into them. When we did eventually bite into it, a rich umami-packed broth burst out from inside.

▼ Thick meaty, and so, so juicy, it was hard to believe this was a mushroom.

▼ The shiitake was so insanely delicious it was worth cracking open a can of beer for.

It was truly hard to believe how much flavour was in the mushroom, with barely any modifications to it. Even when we tried one with nothing but a sprinkling of salt, we felt as if we were biting into a fancy dish at a restaurant.

The shiitake are said to work with all sorts of condiments, including a knob of butter, or a topping of basil sauce and cheese. However, what we recommend trying is yakiniku sauce. Since the food-loving manga character described shiitake mushrooms as meat, we decided to try it, and it turned out to be a fantastic pairing.

More than soy sauce or salt, the yakiniku sauce attains an elite level of deliciousness, elevating the mushroom into meaty main meal territory, making it more than just a side dish.

The sauce works remarkably well by giving each mushroom a yakiniku-like flavour, but without the heavy feeling you get from eating meat. You don’t have to feel guilty about eating them either, and the mouthfeel is rich and satisfying, due to the chewy texture of the shiitake.

Though mushrooms obviously aren’t meat, they are a fantastic substitute, and eating them grilled like this is a great way to discover just how meaty they can be. It’s surprising how different cooking methods can highlight different textures and tastes, and thanks to the advice of a Japanese manga character, we now know the best way to have our ‘shrooms.

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Purin, like you’ve never seen, or tasted, before.

Marugame Seimen (known as Marugame Udon overseas) has been outdoing itself with new noodle innovations recently, giving us all sorts of surprising creations, from shakeable noodles to udon doughnuts. Now the super popular noodle chain is pushing the boat out even further, with the announcement that it will soon be serving Udon Purin.

Purin (“pudding”) is Japan’s take on crème caramel or flan, and its signature jiggly, creamy texture has made it one of the country’s most beloved desserts. Curious to find out what a purin made from udon noodles would taste like, we headed out to a pre-tasting event ahead of the official 7 July release.

As soon as we arrived, staff revealed the secrets behind the new purin, showing us how it’s made by mixing together finely chopped udon and then kneading the mixture together before slowly cooking it. It’s then chilled to achieve its signature chewy texture.

▼ Condensed milk and sugar are used for the flavouring.

Marugame Seimen says it developed the unusual dessert as part of its vision for “a summer where the ways to enjoy udon are expanded”. Each Marugame Udon Pudding is prepared in-store, meaning supplies are limited, and it will only be available at select stores displaying the “うどんプリン” (“Udon Purin”) sign, as shown below.

After seeing the process behind its creation and learning more about it, we now had a better understanding of this new weird fusion dessert. The big question, though, was how it would taste, because with no eggs, milk or steaming process like a traditional pudding, we had no idea what the resulting purin would look or taste like.

That’s when four varieties arrived on the table for us to taste: Blue Hawaii and Anmitsu-style, which cost 340 yen (US$2.12) each, and Mango and Anko Kinako, which cost 290 yen each.

Each variety consists of three layers – a pudding base, then jelly (or red bean paste), and the topping, which looked like jelly. Starting with the Mango, we dove in expecting it to be similar to a mango milk dessert…

▼ …but this was like no other dessert we’d ever tried before.

The purin was incredibly sweet and flavourful, and the texture was very chewy, with tiny pieces of udon reminding you that noodles were hidden inside. The chewy texture didn’t appear to come from gelatin, making it closer to the texture of mochi (pounded rice cake), and with its intense sweetness, it seemed similar to a Southeast Asian dessert.

▼ It was like pudding, but also not quite like purin.

The Blue Hawaii was even more eye-popping to look at, with the same purin texture and flavour, but a more refreshing summery taste, thanks to the fruit topping.

Anmitsu is a traditional Japanese dessert made with kanten (agar jelly), sweet syrup, and toppings like red bean paste, and here the nods to that dessert gave it a familiar appearance on top. Taking a spoonful with all the layers created a very flavourful bite, adding a traditional flair to the chewy purin.

The Anko Kinako (red bean paste and roasted soybean flour) had a more nutty flavour profile, thanks to the generous serving of kinako, which customers sprinkle on top for maximum freshness.

The Marugame Udon Pudding has a very unique flavour, and an even more unique texture, making it the chewiest purin we’ve ever tasted. Still, it’s a treat we wouldn’t say no to, especially in the summer months, so it’s definitely worth trying next time you stop by for a bowl of udon.

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Dragon Quest Slimes appear at Yoshinoya, and the restaurant is trying to make sure they go home with actual fans.

Considering that dragons make up only a small portion of the games’ collective bestiary, you could say that the primary appeal of Dragon Quest is the questing. So it’s fitting that tracking down the Yoshinoya Dragon Quest meal, and its included exclusive Slime figures, is a quest in and of itself.

Cool fan promotions like this are a dual-edged sword, in that they don’t only attract genuine fans looking for some extra fun with their food. In the modern world, where e-commerce makes reselling things easier than ever, they also attract swarms of scalpers who, if not countered, will swoop in, scoop up the entire stock of items, and then hawk them online at grossly inflated prices.

This is something that’s been aggravating fans for quite some time, and thankfully the businesses running such promotions have finally started taking stronger steps to at least reduce scalping opportunities. In the case of Yoshinoya’s Dragon Quest Walk Set gyudon/beef bowl combo meal, some Yoshinoya branches are limiting the number they serve each day, ensuring that the figures won’t be completely gone on Day 1, and also diminishing how lucrative a scalping run can be at any one location.

▼ “Today’s stock of Dragon Quest Walk Sets is sold out. Sales will resume at 10 a.m. tomorrow,” says this notice posted at a Tokyo Yoshinoya on the collaboration’s launch day.

Also, while the Dragon Quest sets were scheduled to go on sale July 2, either by design or because of other circumstances, some Yoshinoya branches didn’t start offering them until the following day, and such vagueness might also have made it harder for scalpers to know which restaurants were worth staking out.

Then there’s the strategy employed by the Yoshinoya branch where my quest for a Yoshinoya Slime figure took me.

This branch has self-order touchscreens for takeout orders on the outside of the restaurant, but when I swiped through the options, the Dragon Quest Walk Set was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t listed under “limited-time offers,” “recommended items,” or “beef bowl sets.”

There weren’t any Slime-illustration posters advertising the Dragon Quest tie-up either. However, there was a text-only notice posted near the entrance saying that this branch was limiting Dragon Quest Walk Set sales to eat-in customers.

▼ 店内飲食のみ = eat-in dining only

This was a bit of a bummer, since if you get the Dragon Quest Walk Set to-go, it comes in a Slime plastic takeout bag, and the Styrofoam takeout bowl has the Dragon Quest Walk logo on it. That said, those are both disposable items (if you carry a hot beef bowl home in a plastic bag, the smell of the meat will get soaked into the plastic, making it tough to reuse), and in addition to being more eco-friendly, limiting the Dragon Quest Walk Set to eat-in customers discourages scalpers. Yoshinoya tables/counters aren’t big enough for a single person to order several meals at a time, and if the staff were to see that someone still had plenty of untouched food while claiming to need another Dragon Quest set, it’d be a pretty clear sign they’re scalping and that it’s time to cut them off.

So what comes in the 932-yen (US$5.85) Dragon Quest Walk Set? Naturally there’s a beef bowl…

…a green salad with a packet of mayonnaise dressing…

…and, most importantly, a Yoshinoya Slime figure!

There are four possible figures you can get right now, and looking around the restaurant, absolutely no one was waiting until they got home to see which one they got, so let’s see what’s inside.

Hey, not bad! According to Yoshinoya, this little guy is called the “Tsuyudaku Slime,” with tsuyudaku being a word used to describe gyudon served with extra sauce. So in addition to being in Yoshinoya’s orange image color, this Slime is extra liquidy, and he has an overturned Yoshinoya bowl on his head.

Given their franchise mascot status and generally low threat level, it can be easy to forget that Slimes can be aggressive, and they’re carnivorous as well, as confirmed in the video promoting the Yoshinoya/Dragon Quest collaboration. As such, it’s advisable to keep an eye on your new Slime as you’re eating, at least until you can establish dominance in the relationship, so that it doesn’t steal your food.

▼ No…

▼ I said no!

▼ …OK, fine, we can share…

In terms of value, this is a pretty sweet deal. The figure isn’t particularly big, but it’s of very good quality. The Slime itself is made of nicely weighty and sturdy rubber, and the bowl on his head is smooth plastic. There aren’t any unsightly seams, bubbling, or other molding oddities, and the only markings are very subtle raised text reading “©Yoshinoya Co. Ltd.” And “©SQEX” (for Square Enix, Dragon Quest’s developer/publisher).

If you got a figure like this from a gacha/capsule toy machine, which usually cost 400 yen, it’d be above-average in terms of finish and aesthetics.

Considering that the Dragon Quest Walk Set is 932 yen, and that Yoshinoya charges 498 yen for an a la carte gyudon and 162 yen for a salad, that means that you’re essentially paying just 272 yen for the Slime figure, or arguably even less if you’re eating inside the restaurant, since Yoshinoya provides free water and, at some branches, complimentary green tea too. The Yoshinoya I ate at even had power plugs and charging cables, though that might be a special service due to how close the restaurant was to a Shinkansen station, meaning they probably have a lot of long-distance travelers among their customers.

▼ The little “Currently away from my seat” placards are a nice touch too if you need to get up to get a drink refill or use the bathroom.

▼ Professional eating-themed-food-guy tip: To subtly signal that you’re not a scalper, try to wear something that establishes your genuine love for fantasy RPGs.

▼ OK dude, since you ate some of the beef bowl…

▼ …you have to help write the article.

So yeah, it might take a little legwork, but tracking down the Yoshinoya Dragon Quest Walk Set is a worthwhile quest to experience (and the food itself is as tasty as always at Yoshinoya). Round 1 of the collaboration is set to run until July 15, and then a new batch of four figures will be available between July 16 and 29.

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