LWIF EP18: What Japanese Lunch is Like (Chahan)

Shoko and Aiko make some lunch, which includes chahan (Japanese fried rice), viking salad (バイキングサラダ), and peach jelly for dessert.

Shoko was the one who made up the menu, which we tore out of her notebook and put on the fridge.

Shoko's menu (which she didn't exactly follow)
Shoko’s menu (which she didn’t exactly follow)

She only made the チャーハン (Japanese fried rice) and サラダ (salad) part of the menu. Here’s what she actually put in the fried rice:

  • Sesame seed oil
  • Onions
  • Cooked rice
  • Egg
  • Soy sauce
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Jako (雑魚 – dried minnow a.k.a baby fish)

She also had carrots and bonito flakes (かつおぶし) in the recipe, but she couldn’t find the bonito flakes and she decided not to use the carrots.

The most difficult part of the recipe was the onions.

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There were a few tears shed.

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The fried rice had dried minnows in it, which I had avoided eating to this very day. But how could I deny trying the food that these two little girls made. The fish tasted like fish (duh!), but not too fishy, so it was better than I was expecting.

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I had no clue what バイキングサラダ meant until writing this post, when I figured out it meant viking salad. It’s called that as you can take as much as you want. Is this insensitive to vikings?

When all was said and done, the lunch looked like this:

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Mugi-cha (roasted barley tea), chahan (Japanese fried rice), and viking salad.

To finish things off, we had some peach jelly for dessert. Squeeze a little bit out and eat! But don’t do it like me (I tried to suck it out). The jelly used to come in little cups, but because the jelly is thick, it could get stuck in throats and caused some deaths amongst children and seniors. The new packaging limits the amount you can push out. Little bites people. whereimfrom_019_lunch_to_speedgrade.00_07_23_10.Still004whereimfrom_019_lunch_to_speedgrade.00_07_29_28.Still005

There are lots of different lunches that can be made, so I’m sure we’ll make some different lunches in the future. Any requests?

What’s lunch like where you’re from?