Act 1: Kenshin - Himura Battosai: A Few Quick Words About Shopping for Japanese Ingredients with Your Chinese Friend

"140 years ago in Kyoto, with the coming of the 'Black Ships' there arose a warrior called Hitokiri Battosai.  Felling men with his blood stained blade, he closed the turbulent Bakumatsu Era and slashed open the age known as Meiji.  Then he vanished, and with the flow of years, became a legend.  This tale begins in the 11th year of Meiji, in the middle of Tokyo."

Book:  Rurouni Kenshin by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Recipes:  The Complete Book of Japanese Cooking by Emi Kazuko

When I announced that I wanted to cook Japanese, I asked my friend Yan to take me shopping in Chinatown.  She speaks Chinese and knows all the best shopping markets there.  We work together and over the years we have come to enjoy taking trips downtown after work for some delicious meals in restaurants that Yan seeks out.  We haven't been able to get together for those meals as much lately, so it was a nice way for us to resurrect our habit and get me the ingredients I wanted all at the same time.

We picked a date, I made a list, and we headed out.  My list had things like umeboshi, and daikon, and shoyu, and mirin on it.  I just copied them out of the cookbook the way I would have copied out a shopping list for eggs, and flour, and milk.  I guess I was  trusting that it would be obvious.

Of course it wasn't because the Chinese names for these foods are in Chinese and the Japanese names aren't always written out in Western characters, and of course, neither Yan nor I can read Japanese.  We were at a complete loss for many of them.    We were straining our eyes, searching the Japanese aisle for Shoyu, when Yan made the discovery that it's simply soy sauce. I felt extremely foolish and didn't want to waste any more of Yan's time. We shortened the list to what we could discover easily, and we went on our way. 

Words of advice:   All of the cookbooks I bought have entire chapters dedicated to the different ingredients and what they look like.  I have since discovered that it's wise to read them before going to the store.

Yan was very patient and helpful throughout the whole process and I made sure to thank her with a tupperware full of my first dish.  We took some pictures of us in the store, but I lost my phone before we could upload them.

You'll just have to take my word for it, it was a lot of fun.