fruits

Eating Yubari King in Hokkaido, Japan (The World’s Most Expensive Fruit)

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Yubari King

Yubari King melons are dubbed the most expensive fruit in the world. One of them sold for 2,000,000 yen (which is about RM 80,000)! They come from a town called Yubari (thus the name) in Hokkaido, Japan. The melons are grown in greenhouses and given “hats” to prevent sunburn. smirk

Yubari King Melon

We’ve heard so much about these fruits that when we saw them in Sapporo, we immediately jumped on the chance to check them out. You can get them by the slice for 300 JPY (about RM 13) or 800 JPY (around RM 35) for a few chunks. This is a very small and thin slice but it was one of the sweetest fruits that has ever passed my lips!

Eating Yubari King

The juicy orange colored Yubari King melon is so sweet that it surprised me! It was the sweetest fruit I’ve ever tasted, no exaggeration. It’s hard to describe just how sweet it actually is, but it’s not the sugary kind of sweet that puts you off, but a mild, yet intense fruity sweetness that’s very satisfying.

Yubari Melon

Yubari (the town that grows Yubari King Melons) is located close to Sapporo so you can’t actually get such good quality for such low prices elsewhere. There are several grades of melons too – these eating ones are relatively reasonable priced from 4,000 JPY to 10,000 JPY (or about RM 300 average) per melon.

Yubari King Melon Japan

However, the ones for gifts are priced from 22,000 JPY (about RM 900) onwards since the highest grades are completely free from blemishes. It’s customary to give 2 of them at once too! I’m glad we got a chance to try out these melons, I would highly recommend eating a Yubari King melon if you’re in Hokkaido.

Preparing fennel, cooking kale and an all-fruit Cape gooseberry, avocado, date and apricot wrap!

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fennel

We got a nice bulb of fennel while grocery shopping during the weekend. It was primarily due to the placecard they had – it sounded good so I bought it. It’s not the cheapest thing at RM 31.90/kg and my love is so good that she knew the fennel I was holding would be around RM 6 before I went to the weighing machine.

fennel price

It turned out to be RM 6.76 but close enough for government work! smirk

I like this vegetable – I had to watch a YouTube video to know how to properly cut it (there’s a bit of root inside that requires a wedge cut with a sharp knife) and I gave it to Ling raw to see if she liked it for my next cooking experiment.

cleaning fennel

It tastes like liqorice, you know, the black candy that’s sold in a long string. It’s due to the strong aniseed flavor, which can be quite intense when eaten raw but goes away when you cook it.

kale

The bunch of curly kale is a US import and quite expensive at RM 52.49/kg. The two stalks we got cost RM 20 and it felt pretty light to me. Kale and fennel are things we haven’t tried before so I wanted to cook it.

curly kale

It was done two ways – I already knew I wanted to steam mine but my dear stir fried hers with some shallots and oyster sauce and I must say, it tasted really good! This kale in this dish alone costs RM 10 though but well worth it.

stir fried kale

Back to the fennel, I wanted to add it into this new all-fruit wrap that I did for breakfast but I totally forgot about it. It was still an interesting experiment though.

fruit wrap

You will need:

  • Natural dates with branches
  • Avocado
  • Nutella
  • Apricots
  • Tortilla wraps
  • Cape gooseberry (known here as Physalis)

apricot avocado dates wrap

The interesting bit about this all-fruit wrap is that everything except for the Cape gooseberry can be split in half and has a seed inside – the avocado, the apricot, and the dates.

avocado

I like eating good dates – these are Tunisian ones still on the branches, semi-dry and premium ones sold under the “Black Amber” label.

dates on branches

I basically put the avocado (with bites taken out of it coz we were hungry) on first and then added the apricots and dates.

fresh apricots

All of these are split in half by hand and the pit thrown away. I just arranged the halves of the respective fruits on the tortilla wrap.

physalis

The Cape gooseberry is sprinkled down the middle for an acidic, citrus-y bite. I’ve seen a lot of high end Japanese bakeries use this as a decoration and the shroud (the leaf like things on the side) is *not edible*. I wonder what the people eating those pastries whole would feel like. Heh.

Physalis (which is what Cape gooseberry is marketed as here) is a nice berry though – it’s yellow and the larger it is, the sweeter it becomes.

cape gooseberry

I finished off the wrap by putting a bit of Nutella on top of the avocado (it tastes great together) before chilling it in the fridge for 5 minutes and wrapping it up.

The dates provides the saccharine sweetness, with the apricots bringing it’s own mild nectarine fructose into the mix, and the avocado gives off a smooth mouth-feel with the Cape gooseberries there for a sour bite.

avocado nutella wrap

I can’t say it’s a successful wrap coz there’s not enough “moisture” inside – I think adding yoghurt would do wonders for it. It’s still a nice experiment even though I totally forgot about the fennel.

I used all of it for a nice cottage pie, as well as my version of the kale – coming up in the next post! 🙂

Jony’s or Jonah’s Fruit Shakes – which is the original?

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jonys shakes boracay

Jony’s Boracay’s Original & Famous Fruit Shakes. Well, that’s what it says on the signboard anyway. Heh. Jonah’s Fruitshakes is the original place to go if you’re craving for a mango fruit shake, spawning a host of imitators, usually with variations on the name like Jony’s, Jody’s etc.

Note the slight difference in spelling?

yellow cab

That’s how it works in Boracay, I saw 3 (!!!) different Yellow Cab Pizza while I was there too. The above is the original. There’s also a hilarious one which dubs itself Tapsi Cab (with similar font and colors) which is basically run out of someone’s house, but it actually served pretty decent burgers at a really cheap price.

…so who cares, as long as it’s good? 😀

point 1

Back to Jony’s Fruit Shakes, it’s part of Jony’s Beach Resort and it’s located at Point 1 at White Beach. It’s actually a pretty nice place to chill and enjoy the sea breeze. They also serve food from different parts of the Philippines as well.

It’s rather overpriced and commercialized (saw a huge group of Chinese tourists come in) but I reckon that’s the price you pay (smirk) in places like Boracay – which was why I avoided the overrated and over-mentioned Ibu Oka franchise in Bali and asked in Denpasar for place where the locals go for babi guling instead.

jonys original fruitshakes

The restaurant attached to Jony’s Fruit Shakes is called Maya’s and I would give it a wide berth if I were you. The food is very mediocre and there are better choices around for the equivalent of RM 25-30 per dish restaurants. Go for the shakes, not the food.

tilapia

Crispy Fried Tilapia
This comes with 3 dipping sauces and is from the Luzon area. It’s pretty good – freshly fried and crispy, bit it’s the dip that makes the dish work…and seafood in Boracay is super fresh!

adobong manok

Adobong Native na Manok
I actually wanted goat kalderatta (a Panay dish of goat stewed in coconut wine) but they ran out of that, so I went for this one instead. It’s supposed to be a festive local dish of chicken simmered in soy sauce, spices and vinegar with organic chicken liver mousse.

I was really hungry then so it tasted good but in hindsight it’s really below average and quite forgettable. Except for the chicken liver mousse. That is superb!

…now for the shakes!

boracay fruit shakes

Just look at the sheer variety they have to offer. You can custom make it yourself too – simply request for the stuff you want and they’ll mix it for you.

jony mango fruit shake

This is a Mango, Pineapple and Banana fruit shake. PHP 100.
It’s really good. The tart and sweet mango is balanced by the smooth banana and pineapple lends a tang to it. The shakes costs about RM 8-10 each, depending on what you want.

banana nutella shake

Bananatella fruit shake. I don’t even know if this can be called a “fruit shake” anymore. Heh. It’s a mixture of bananas and Nutella! Now, isn’t that awesome!

I really loved the fruit shakes at Jony’s but you’ll have to drink it really, really fast. I really don’t know if Jonah’s is better, but Jony’s does an awesome fruit shake! It’s wonderfully thick and difficult to suck up the straw at first but that’s the optimum time to drink it coz the minute ice particles inside will dilute the drink down as time progresses.

It’s subject to entropy as all things are. 😉

fruitshakes boracay

Drink up as soon as you’re served! It’s loaded with calories and sinfully delicious, but it’s also sensational – a sublime beach drink. 😀

Kiwi fruit rice with yoghurt

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a.k.a. Drooling Smiley Face Kiwi Fruit Rice with Fish Roe and Pork

kiwi

My girlfriend bought a lot of Kiwi fruit weeks ago – there were 8 of these French green kiwifruits and she’s eaten only one during all that time. I’m not a fan of fruits in general so it remained uneaten for several days.

french kiwifruit

I noticed the furry little things in the fridge during the weekend and thought it’ll be a waste to let it rot. I decided to remedy that by cooking something that sounded good – Kiwi fruit rice! 🙂

kiwi fruit rice

It was the perfect solution!

You will need:
Kiwi fruits
Yoghurt
Fish roe
Kwe Hua meat
Century eggs
Rice

meat

Yes, this is another variant of my preserved meat meals. Heh! However, I decided on going for presentation this time – I’ll make a smiley face out of this sweet and savory meal!

fish roe

I’ll like to call this Drooling Smiley Face Kiwi Fruit Rice with Fish Roe and Pork. I’ll explain the “drooling” part later. 🙂

I used 3 kiwi fruits and sliced it into circles.

slicing

That was a mistake. I should have peeled it before doing so coz it became rather hard to remove the skin after slicing.

sliced

Told you I wasn’t good with fruits. >.< kiwifruit

Anyway, I mixed 2 cups of rice with 3 kiwi fruits, one lonely fish roe and a piece of waxed meat before turning the rice cooker on.

prep

That’s the beauty of this – there’s no additional cooking needed, everything is done by the rice cooker. 🙂

done

It was ready after 10 minutes. I originally made it to look sorta like a face but then I realized I could make it look MORE like a face by arranging the fish roe as the “nose” and the waxed meat as the “mouth”. That leaves the “eyes” – century eggs. 😀

The finishing touch was some fresh yoghurt – this is the plain unflavored ones, don’t use the flavored ones, it’ll ruin the taste of the dish.

yoghurt

I dabbed a generous portion on the waxed meat “mouth” to look like it was drooling. Food is all about presentation as well. 😉

I took a tentative scoop of rice…

kiwifruit rice

…and was amazed. The fruity citrus tang of the Kiwi combined with the sour yoghurt and rice tastes exceptionally delicious! It’s very refreshing! It’s tastes like…a beach holiday with the warm sun on your back and the cool breeze from the sea coming in.

It tasted like what an oasis would seem to someone wondering in a desert for 2 days without water.

The waxed meat and fish roe provides a savory twist to it. I ate one mouthful of the kiwi + yoghurt + rice and alternated it with waxed meat + fish roe + century egg + rice.

eating

It’s like having a main and a dessert in one dish!

It is surprisingly good, I kid you not! Let your adventurous palate roam with this unique dish and check it out for yourself.

smiley face

You can also forgo the meat and just cook Kiwi fruit rice and pair it with yoghurt for a dessert dish – I’m sure it’ll taste equally good. 🙂