Cooking can be hard. After a long day at work, no one wants to break out the hibachi. Thankfully, the wonderful Japanese instant food market can come to your rescue! Plus, it’s cheap, quick to make, and makes wonderful souvenirs. 1. Ochazuke – (Green Tea Over Rice) jp.fotolia.com/ Don’t let the name fool you –…

There are abound 1,300 factories in Japan that make sake and of all I’d like to introduce the top five Japanese sake brands that are extremely famous not only in Japan but overseas too. Juyondai This sake brand has an almost cult status in Japan as well as in the rest of the world. Juyondai…

Humidity in Japan is pretty high so sometimes it feels colder than dry air, the reason being that high humidity in lower temperatures increases the conduction of heat from the body so Japan`s winter can be quite rough in some areas. The last thing you feel like doing after freezing through a work day is…

When the current year draws to a close, the Japanese are busy with preparing for the upcoming oshogatsu (お正月) by cleaning up their houses, purchasing or preparing food to be cooked and eaten during the New Year holidays, travelling to their hometowns to reunite with their families or taking a much-deserved break overseas with their…

When I order a meal in Japan, quite often my chosen dish is accompanied by some unidentified slop that makes me think… what was that? More often than not, it turns out to be a type of vegetable that is unfamiliar to my Western palate. So what are these strange vegetables – what do they…

Eating sweets can make you feel guilty. However, you don’t necessarily have to feel so guilty when you’re craving for something sweet. There is a wide range of desserts that you can find in Japan that’s not so high in calories and can be a healthier alternative. In Japan, you can get not only traditional…

It is no secret that the Japanese love to drink. With a strong economy and a recent history of importing and exporting to other countries, as well as having brews of its own, Japan has been able to provide its people different varieties of delicious and exciting drinks. Beer, nihonshu (rice wine), umeshu (plum wine),…

Discover the essence of Japan’s highest quality plum. Have a taste of the new Ume Sake Kit Kat! Sake Kit Kat In 2016, Nestlé first introduced Sake Kit Kat – a white chocolate Kit Kat that came in a unique bottle-shaped packaging embodying the “isshobin” or the traditional sake bottles. Then, in 2017, the Masuizumi…

When it comes to Japanese delicacies, the rice variety “mochi” easily takes one of the top places. Imagine sweet and sticky rice cake combined with rich and delicious chocolate, and there you have the world’s best “rice chocolate,” namely the “Mochi Mochi Chocola” released a few years back by BOURBON in Japan. Mochi Varieties jp.fotolia.com/…

Through the relentless effort of various communities and institutions, Kumamoto, Japan continues to recover from the devastation it has suffered brought by the earthquake that struck the region in 2016. Nestlé lets us lend a helping hand to these efforts by creating Kit Kat flavors specifically for Kumamoto! Kumamoto Tea Kit Kat On the same…