Castle Mischief: December 19, 2011 - More Far East Market Goodies

Esther met me today after work for a 3 mile walk on the greenway to earn points for our wacky insurance program. Think of it like an insurance RPG. You earn points, you gain levels. So yeah, we were grinding for levels just like all the kids playing War of Warcraft except by being outside and moving our butts around. (Not that there's anything wrong with WoW or MMOs in general. I spend plenty of time grinding for favor in Dungeons and Dragons Online.)

I have to admit it was pretty cool seeing all the work-people in a not-working-place wearing their not-at-work clothes on the greenway.

After the walk we returned to... FAR EAST MARKET!!! Esther wanted to grab some goodies for a get-together at the house tomorrow as well as the non-hot version of banana ketchup. Things kind of got out of control at some point and well, we went a little mochi crazy. More on that later. Look at me! I brought my phone inside the store and took pictures with my fancy-man camera app!

Here are just a few of the things at the market:

Ohhhh yeah. The BIG FREAKING bottle.


Jars! Full of what? I don't know!

Food! Frozen!

Yes, that's a fish in a jar. Did not buy.

Ah... good old pandanus. Wait, what?

Because I know that you're wondering what I'm wondering... pandanus is a plant that kind of looks like a palm but is not closely related to a palm. The leaves, flowers and fruit is used for...

You know what? Just read the Wikipedia article. Here it is. Right here. CLICK THIS LINK.

Mochi

Some mochi jumped into our basket and came home with us. What is mochi? (Hint: click link.) What's mochi like? It's soft. Very much like the apricots we bought recently. Soft like a baby's butt. Soft and powdery. Imagine a fresh clean baby butt covered in fine powdered sugar, now shrink it down to the size of the palm of your hand. That's what a mochi feels like. All similarities, thankfully, end when you bite into one.

What does mochi taste like...?

The flavor made his hair explode.

She can "stop anytime she wants".

Safe for braces!

Rock star approved!

They're unbelievably good. Sweet, but not sweet like most American candy. The outer texture is like uncooked dough and the filling is slightly chewy like fig or dates. Flavors differ- green tea, taro (CLICK), red bean paste, etc. You know, stuff that nobody puts in food in a place like Minnesota, for example.

NEW STRANGE BEVERAGE OF THE WEEK! (This may have to be a recurring event on the blog.)

On the left is "Yeo's Chrysanthemum Tea Drink" that Esther chose on our last trip to the market and repeated the act again today. Me, being the brave soul that I am, purchased something new and different. I'm calling this "hawthorne berry drink in red can" because I'll be damned if I can find the name of it in English anywhere on the product. If you happen to speak the language printed on this can, please respond in the comments section and tell me the proper name for this unique liquid.(Banana ketchup hiding in the back.)

But what does it taste like? I had a sip. It was... familiar yet I was unable to put my finger on it. I passed the can to Esther but she would not put her lips to it, exclaiming "this smells like an ashtray, I am not putting this in my mouth." Which is how she describes barbeque sauce. That's it! This cool, refreshing can contains the flavor of cold barbeque sauce. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just seemed out of place. It has plums in it. It's because of the plums, right?

I want to like you, but your flavor is stolen from another foodstuff.

In other news, the crossvine tea experiment is coming along well. I dried some of the leaves we collected over the last week in the oven last night and brewed a pot of tea this morning. The flavor is mild, but sweet, almost floral. I'd like to make it a little stronger, a little more potent so I'll do some research into that soon.