Japanese loungewear brand designs new range of medical worker uniforms

Scrubs, lab coats and nurse’s uniforms designed with comfort in mind. 

Ever since the pandemic hit, loungewear has become the fashion trend of the season, with more and more people around the world now working from home and looking to stay comfortable while they do it.

Not everyone can stay at home, though, and for key workers on the frontlines, this past year has been wrought with stressful moments and long workdays. However, Japanese loungewear brand Gelato Pique is attempting to make those workdays a little less stressful by bringing its fashion and comfort expertise to the medical world with new uniforms, created in conjunction with white coat maker Classico.

This is actually the fourth collaboration between the two companies, with past collections selling out due to popular demand. This year’s range looks to be popular as well, so let’s take a look at the new items set to put smiles on the faces of medical workers.

The Curved series (priced at 11,490 yen [US$109.95] to 35,490 yen) includes tops, dresses, and tailored coats, with cuffs and pockets decorated with “a cupcake-inspired curve”.

The Four Lines series (11,490 yen to 35,490 yen) also covers tops, dresses, and tailored coats, with a focus on fine lines to add “elegance and casual cuteness”. This range is set to go on sale in August.

▼ The Line Zip Up (11,490 yen) features two lines on the cuffs and pockets.

▼ The Print top (9,990 yen) comes with an original animal pattern by Gelato Pique.

The Nylon Smoothie cardigan (5,990 yen), popular for its gentle texture, comes in two types: “line” and “long“. This style of cardigan is available as part of Gelato Pique’s regular loungewear range, but this one, made exclusively for nurses, has a lighter design.

And due to requests from a large number of nurses, this year’s range includes a Soft Pen Case (2,890 yen), which slots snugly into the pocket and has small partitions for storing small items like pens and disinfectants.

All items in the range, set to go on sale from 3-4 March unless otherwise mentioned, have been specially designed with respect for the work of medical professionals. While it’s easy to overlook the effect clothes and uniforms can have on a worker’s state of mind, the popularity of this collaboration reminds us that if you’re able to lift the spirits of key workers, they’ll be able to lift the spirits of those they care for too. 

That’s a goal worth caring about, so here’s hoping more fashion brands around the world are able to find ways to brighten the world of medical workers, not just during the pandemic, but well into the future as well.

Related: Classico
Images: @Press
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Make apple pies on the stovetop with new cooking gadget from Japan

Centuries of Japanese craftsmanship reinvent the way we cook pies.

In Japan, businesses with centuries of craftsmanship behind them have been adapting their products in recent years to suit modern lifestyles and keep their craft alive. Japanese company Oigen Foundry, which specialises in Nambu cast iron ware, is one example, as their expertise in making iron teapots since 1852 has now seen them expand into the world of modern kitchen goods, covering things like pots, pans and now… the Apple Pie Cooker.

This specially made kitchen utensil has been crafted using Nambu cast iron techniques, a traditional craft originating from the Nambu domain, located in and around modern-day Morioka City in Iwate Prefecture. Centuries of metalwork techniques have essentially gone into the creation of this neat little cooker, and not only is it shaking up the iron world, it’s shaking up the cooking world too, as it allows you to make apple pies on a gas stovetop instead of in the oven. 

The idea for the gadget came from Chef Sasamori, who works at Italian restaurant Osteria Enoteca Da Sasino in Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture, an area famous for apples. Having used Oigen’s pots and pans in the kitchen before, Sasamori wanted to know what it would be like to make apple pies in cast iron, and after suggesting the idea to the company, the Apple Pie Cooker was born.

▼ The cooker makes up to two pies at a time.

Easily divided into two separate parts, the cooker is convenient to clean and features gorgeous design details, with not just the shape of the fruit moulded into the iron, but the stem and leaf detail as well.

▼ This allows you to make the most adorable apple pies!

According to Oigen, pie-making is easy, as all you have to do is pop a frozen pie sheet into the mould, place apple compote or even your favourite jam on top, and layer with a final sheet of pastry. Then close the lid, hook the two handles together with the attached clasp, and wait until your baked goods are ready.

▼ Each cooker comes with a recipe and instructions so you can make perfect pies every time.

Oigen suggests experimenting with a variety of fillings and ingredients like bread instead of pie sheets for different textures and flavours as well. The cookers retail for 9,350 yen (US$89.31) and can be purchased online or at the Brick cafe, where the pies made in the cooker will also be on the menu for diners to order.

The Apple Pie Cooker is a fun new way to cook pies, and a fun new way to appreciate the revered craftsmanship of Nambu iron specialists from Japan’s northern region. We’re definitely going to be adding one of these to our kitchen this winter, where it’ll be right at home with our stovetop sandwich press, a “god-item” for solo diners.

Featured image: Oigen
Insert images: Oigen (1, 2)
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189-year old Kyoto tea merchant creates matcha pizzas

But the non-tea toppings are the even bigger surprise.

Being in business for 189 years gives you a chance to experiment with your product lineup, and that’s exactly what tea merchant Itohkyuemon has been doing. Sure, Uji matcha is still the company’s flagship product, but in recent years it’s also offered green tea ice cream, curry, and white wine, and next month it’s set to embark on an all new culinary endeavor with matcha pizza.

With the special pies going on sale right around Valentine’s Day, you might assume they’re dessert pizzas, given how popular matcha sweets have become. But nope, these are main dishes with mozzarella cheese and two different sets of additional topping to choose from.

The major matcha content comes in the crust, which is made with a mixture of Uji matcha powder and Sacco Rosso flour from Naples. Considering how common herbal seasonings are on pizzas, and if you broadly define an herb as an edible leaf, matcha pizza actually doesn’t seem that crazy. What’s likely to be a bit higher hurdle, though, are the other toppings, which are pickled Kyoto vegetables made in the local Kyo-tsukemono style. The Gobo Hakusai Pizza is a non-tomato sauce pizza with crunchy burdock root and crisp Chinese cabbage, while the Suguki Hirona Pizza uses two different types of Japanese turnips.

Unexpected as the combination may be, Itohkyuemon, which spent seven years tinkering with the matcha pizza recipes to get them just right, says the resulting combination of rich, tart, and bitter flavors is a stimulating treat for the taste buds. Both matcha pizzas go on sale February 13, priced at 2,990 yen (US$29) for a bundle of three through Itohkyuemon’s online store.

Related: Itohkyuemon online store
Source: @Press via Entabe
Images: @Press
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Nissin develops instant-yakisoba-flavored instant yakisoba UFO【Taste Test】

The alpha and omega of special-edition flavors.

Japan has a long tradition of making certain foods taste like other foods, from sake-flavored KitKats to yogurt-flavored sake to yogurt-flavored-sake-flavored KitKats. It’s beginning to feel like it’s all been done before.

However, Nissin, the makers of UFO instant yakisoba, have shown time and time again that they refuse to be confined by the limitations of common sense. The culmination of this philosophy has been their latest creation: normal-UFO-flavored UFO.

Seems simple at first, but when you think about it, the fundamental dilemma becomes: How do you make a normal-UFO-flavored UFO that’s not just a normal UFO?

▼ A normal UFO

The answer is their latest creation White Rich Rich Rich Sauce UFO, which is just Rich Rich Rich Sauce UFO…but white! It even has the slogan of “Pointlessly white!”

▼ Left: White Rich Rich Rich Sauce UFO, Right: Rich Rich Rich Sauce UFO

The package has a colorless manga-theme to go with the food’s new off-white look and promises the exact same taste as normal UFO on the package.

In a press release, Nissin said that it took them over 100 attempts to get it just right. The sort of makes sense since us humans possess a sense of taste that’s easily swayed by our other senses. So radically changing the color of the food might create a bias in the eater’s mind and make an otherwise normal-tasting UFO taste differently. This means they would have to actually adjust the flavor to compensate for that mental bias and thus make it taste normal again.

Or they could just be joking. It’s really hard to tell with these people.

▼ A typical UFO commercial so you know what kind of company we’re dealing with here.

Anyway, we were able to get a preview bowl of White Rich Rich Rich UFO to see if it really does live up to the hype of tasting like nothing special. Our reporter P.K. Sanjun set about to prepare both a bowl of this latest creation and ordinary UFO for comparison.

The ingredients were the same and after adding and removing the boiling water, each bowl was identical.

But after adding the sauce they became drastically different. Actually the sauce on the White Rich Rich Rich UFO wasn’t so much white as it was invisible. It just looked like a bowl of dry noodles and spices.

First P.K. tasted of the normal UFO. Although he likes it, he doesn’t eat instant yakisoba too often, so it was important to get calibrated.

Next came the all new normal-UFO-flavored UFO.

▼ “Haha! It’s really just normal UFO!”

When asked how it tasted, P.K. could only reply that it was exactly like regular UFO, no better and no worse. He wouldn’t even describe this as a “twin” of normal UFO because even twins have certain distinguishing characteristics. No, this was a straight up sci-fi clone of UFO in terms of taste.

And so, those wizards at Nissin have done it again. They have somehow harnessed the science of flavorlogy to overcome our innate bias when it comes to the color of food…or they didn’t really do anything at all. We’re not sure.

What we do know is the White Rich Rich Rich Sauce UFO will go on sale on 1 February. We can’t really think of a good reason to buy it, but I suppose the famous 20th century mountaineer George Mallory – when asked why he wanted to buy instant-yakisoba-flavored instant yakisoba – said it best: “Because it’s there.”

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Nagasaki teens find missing elderly woman by simply striking up a conversation on the bus

In this case, chatting up a stranger was for a good cause. 

In Japan, public transportation isn’t usually the place to hold small talk or answer your phone. Granted you may get the occasional gaggle of teenagers shuffling onto the train or bus in mid-joke, but otherwise full-blown conversations can be rare, especially between strangers.

In a country where sticking out isn’t necessarily viewed in a positive light, it can be daunting to overstep any etiquette that has been socially conditioned into you since a young age. But for these two high school students in Nagasaki, breaking decorum led to an unexpected but happy ending.

▼ To break the silence or to not break the silence… sometimes that is the question.

On December 23, the teens were riding the bus home in the town of Shimabara when they noticed an elderly woman who seemed extremely perplexed and confused about her surroundings. While some strangers would think it wiser to ignore the woman, especially to avoid the unfortunate situation of being accidentally accused of ill intentions, the teens jumped to action.

They offered to disembark the bus with the elderly woman, and the high school students then escorted her to a local police box. Not only did she have dementia and was wandering around town for awhile, but her family had reported her as missing and asked officers to conduct a search for her.

▼ Especially in these times of social isolation, this is a very good reminder to keep in contact with your elderly loved ones!

Police officials have since lauded the high school students, commending their brave actions and even hosting a small ceremony where the Shimabara police chief presented a thank-you letter to the teens. Even though having a small conversation on the bus seems like a minor thing, in Japan it’s unusual to break the silence between strangers, but in this case it was thanks to the courage and initiative of these high school students that the elderly woman was able to quickly reunite with her family.

▼ Extra thumbs-ups and kudos!

At the end of the day, as we brace ourselves for the final stretch before a post-COVID-19 world, let’s be sure in the meantime to check in on the elderly members of our communities whether it’s at home, nearby, or senior centers-turned-casinos. After all, one conversation can save—or find—a life.

Source: Yomiuri Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
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Japanese ramen chain gives us chocolate with our noodles to celebrate Valentine’s Day

Mr Sato takes us on a dance with the devil, but will this turn out to be a sweet memory? 

Valentine’s Day in Japan is a celebration of chocolate, and in recent years ramen chain Kourakuen has been joining the celebrations with a limited-time treat on the menu: Chocolate Ramen.

Lovers of chocolate can be a discerning bunch, though, so for this year’s iteration of the sweet noodles, Kourakuen has teamed up with confectionery giant Lotte for a release that’s said to be even more flavourful than ever before.

▼ We decided to be the judge of that, so our Japanese-language reporter Mr Sato headed down to his nearest branch for a taste test as soon as the new ramen was released.

▼ There are two types of chocolate ramen on the menu: the Devil’s Chocolate Ramen (left) and the Angel’s White Chocolate Ramen (right).

Because this is a tie-up with Lotte, customers who order the new noodles are able to receive a free sticker, just like the ones included with Lotte’s Bikkuriman chocolates. These stickers, however, are exclusive to Kourakuen, and tie in with the original Akuma (“devil”) vs Tenshi (“angel”) sticker series which debuted in 1985 and went on to became phenomenally popular.

These seals are still popular today, as the ramen chain had a special offer where customers who ordered both the devil and the angel bowls would receive a special Pink Zeus sticker. Limited to ten per store, these had already been snapped up by customers, despite Mr Sato arriving at midday, just four hours after the offer began.

▼ “Remaining Pink Zeus stickers: 0”

Mr Sato had grown up collecting the stickers as a young boy at school, so he was pleasantly surprised to discover they were still so popular. There was a part of him that wanted that Pink Zeus sticker, though, so with the same tinge of disappointment as a child discovering a common sticker in their Bikkuriman, he took a seat at the counter and ordered the Devil’s Chocolate Ramen. 

▼ The “Super Devil” sticker he received after ordering wasn’t all bad.

After a short wait, Mr Sato’s devil sticker was joined by the Devil’s Chocolate Ramen. The broth was an unusually dark colour that made it look like beef stew, but this was actually the chain’s famous soy sauce ramen, slightly altered with the addition of cocoa oil.

▼ While the familiar toppings of char siu and green onions were there, Mr Sato spotted a dash of grated ginger and a square of chocolate on top as well.

▼ Lowering his head to the bowl, he could make out the faint scent of cacao, suggesting this would be a very sweet ramen experience.

However, when he took a sip of the broth, Mr Sato was pleased to discover this wasn’t really sweet at all! In fact, he had to take another sip straight away because it tasted like there was no chocolate in it. After the second sip, though, he could definitely taste the cacao flavour, and when he combined it with the ginger, it added more of a flavourful punch, creating a well-rounded, refreshing aftertaste.

▼ The noodles helped to spread the deep flavour of the broth throughout the palate.

Kourakuen is also offering diners the option to add more chocolate to their noodles, with a “chocolate chaser” tube on sale for 100 yen (US$0.96). Mr Sato decided to give this a try to see if it would sweeten the meal, squeezing every bit of the paste out onto his noodles.

▼ He created a pool of chocolate in the middle so he could get a good mouthful of the stuff while he ate.

This time, he dragged a heap of noodles through the sauce to get as much chocolate in his mouth as possible. However, Mr Sato was surprised yet again to find that it still wasn’t nearly as sweet as he thought it would be. Sure, it added another layer of richness to each mouthful, but it was so perfectly balanced he wouldn’t be able to distinguish it as chocolate in a blind taste test.

This is a great ramen Mr Sato recommends trying at least once, because even if you’re not looking for love this Valentine’s Day, there’s a good chance you’ll fall in love with these noodles. Both chocolate ramen varieties are priced at 640 yen and are on the menu at Kourakuen branches around Japan from 28 January to 17 February.

If you prefer to have your ramen to-go in a paper cup, though, there’s a rival waiting in the wings, without the noods, that’s waiting to please you as well.

Related: Kourakuen location list
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Celebrate 50 years of McDonald’s Japan by walking through history, from 1971 to today【Video】

McDonald’s Japan takes a look back on the last half-century while saying thank you to customers.

Can you believe that McDonald’s Japan is 50 years old this year? The company founded in May 1971 as Nippon McDonald’s Holdings, Inc., and since then it has grown exponentially to offer its delicious staple and limited-time-only menu items all across the country, as well as to supply us at SoraNews24 with endless opportunities for quality journalistic content.

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, they’ve dedicated a section of their website to commemorating their 50-year history, and also posted a time-hop video retrospective.

The video covers the company’s history from the opening of the first-ever Japanese branch in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district, shown here.

From there, the video takes us past other milestones for the chain in Japan, such as opening its first Japanese drive-through location (in 1977), the introduction of its beloved Tsukimi “Moon-Viewing” Burger (1991), the start of its home delivery service (2010, seven whole years before Uber Eats could bring you your McDonald’s fix in Japan), and the introduction of mobile ordering in all branches (2020).

McDonald’s Japan’s 50th anniversary website also features a section titled “Memories,” with a photo-enhanced a timeline of important moments in the chain’s history. For example, did you know that the first McDonald’s branch, which was located on the first floor of Ginza’s Mitsukoshi shopping center in Tokyo, had to be constructed in 39 hours, in between the shopping center’s operating hours so as not to obstruct its business? If you’re interested in learning about how quickly McDonald’s opened branches throughout Japan, when Chicken McNuggets were introduced, or when they started selling value sets and Happy Meals, you’ll find it all here.

▼ June 1, 1990, was the monumental day when McDonald’s Japan started offering bacon potato pies.

The website’s “Road Trip” section allows you to drive a car along the path of McDonald’s Japan’s history. As the car that you control speeds along a highway for each decade, there are several points you can click on that will take you to different segments about the historical context of each decade, as well as the history of each of McDonald’s staple menu items. It’s like walking through a McDonald’s museum without even leaving your home.

▼ The Memories and Road Trip sections of the site can be found here.

There’s still a lot of content that hasn’t been unveiled yet, with updates promised throughout the year. McDonald’s restaurants will probably start offering 50th Anniversary menu items and special deals too, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for those too as the months go by. In the meantime, if reading all that makes you hungry, you can run to your nearest McDonald’s and enjoy the currently limited-time-only Chicken Burger with Rice Buns and Touch manga collaboration menu items to satisfy your “Makku” (or “Makudo” depending on your region of Japan) cravings!

Source: McDonald’s 50th Anniversary Site via Narinari
Top image: YouTube/マクドナルド公式（McDonald’s）
Insert images: McDonald’s 50th Anniversary Site
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