Spherical Ice, Etc.
Whenever I get out of town for a weekend, I do some minor shopping. Not at designer stores. Not for clothing, usually. Not for toys or even omiyage. Lately, it’s been for ingredients. And food prep stuff. When I went to Hiroshima to see Beauty & the Beast (the Broadway Musical) in Japanese, I had foodstuffs on my mind too.
I was originally hunting for tortillas, cilantro, and any kind of foreign candy that drew my eye. I came away with 24 flour tortillas, some taco seasoning, a big bag of shredded coconut, some tandoori chicken seasoning, lima beans, and 2 ice sphere trays. I bought the ice trays at the Tokyu Hands I passed by on the way to the Promart grocery store, where I picked up the other stuff. They’re cool - they imitate something I’ve seen in a restaurant or two. Instead of a bunch of cubes, you put one sphere in your glass, just smaller than the diameter of the glass. When there’s liquid poured in, the ice melts more or less evenly, keeping the spherical effect all nice until you’re done. It’s a gimmick, I know, but it’s cool!
Suffice it to say, I am still hunting for cilantro (which is called coriander here - just specify that you want the leaves / herbs, not the part that we call coriander / spice in the U.S.). I’ll be checking Imabari shortly. Now I’ve added a skillet or griddle to my list of things I want to grab. Why? I’m tired of running to Okayama or Hiroshima to buy my flipping tortillas! And now that my favorite Mexipan restaurant is closing, I am determined to learn how to make them from scratch myself. If I can get it down, I promise to share the knowledge. 
(If I get my friend at the Mexipan place to teach me the recipe for pumpkin tacos, on the other hand, I’ll be selling it to you…mwa ha ha ha. I kid. Maybe.)
Anyhoo, in celebration, I made myself a nice quick dinner of a lemon pepper coconut chicken sandwich, sweet corn, and cinnamon apples. Mmmm. I knew that ground chicken meat could be good for something. And more experimentation is called for!