February 17, 2016

mmm-yoso!!!, the food blog you are reading, has posts alternately written by Kirk, Ed (from Yuma) and Cathy. Kirk wrote most of the posts you read this year, then he went on vacation. Cathy and Ed have been posting in the interim.

A few months ago, Kirk wrote a post about one of the restaurants in the Food Court at Mitsuwa Market. It so happened I had also been to Musashiya that week and had a (blurry) photo of my meal. A few weeks later, I had occasion to return and then a few weeks after that, The Mister and I returned. Each meal was small and I figure if any of you came here with someone else, you don't have to order food at the same place, just like at a Food Court.

Looking forward when walking in, the grocery store is directly in front of you. Directly to your left are Santuoka and Musashiya. (Directly to your right used to be Matcha Love, a great place for tart ice creams, but it is gone).
Each has a large display of plastic food replicas, making ordering simplified (or overwhelming in my case); some people point at what they would like to eat, as they do with a Denny's menu. I digress.Musashiya, owned by Mitsuwa, (similar to the way Seafood City owns Grill City locations inside the Food Court areas inside their stores) has several meals which are less than $10. This one is chicken teriyaki. They make the sauce from scratch and it isn't too sweet nor is it salty. Just enough. Everything you see comes with it: the potato salad, sliced cabbage, pickles, miso, rice and in the bottom right corner, a piece of tamagoyaki, a layered omelet made with rice vinegar and sugar, which I consider 'dessert'.Santuoka also has a variety of primarily ramen choices for under $10 (the small and regular sizes; the large is closer to $12)( flavors of broth offered are shio, shoyu, miso and spicy miso) and on this (rainy) day, I chose a small bowl of shoyu ramen. The broth flavor is rich and satisfying and the noodles have a good 'tooth'. Eventually there was a day when The Mister could join me and we stepped inside the Marketplace. On the right side there are prepared boxes of meals, along with a microwave if you plan on eating in the food court after paying. There are also two islands of prepared meals and desserts.There is also this fascinating machine (which wasn't working the last two times I was there) that has push button ease (and toppings on the pans to the right) for some instant miso.Eventually we agreed on the above purchases- chicken karaage, Japanese potato salad, seaweed (all sold by the pound) and a chirashizushi bowl (on top of sushi rice) ($8) and a can of hot tea ($1.29). Heated tea cans, as well as refrigerated ones are inside one beautifully designed appliance, also against that right wall.