Summer Food from Our Kitchen 冷やし中華 ＆ かき氷はじめました
Hello everyone. We are back from the summer vacation. Did you miss us? Or have you been back to our store already? It is the middle of July already. It has been really hot lately. Did you know the earth reached the hottest day ever recorded 4 days in a row the beginning of this month since records began in 1979, and even higher temperatures are expected in July and August as El Niño strengthens? We hope you all are doing well without having a heat stroke.
As many of you must be familiar with the menu at our restaurant, we have some seasonal dishes for the summer to beat the heat - Hiyashi Chuka noodle salad and Kakigori shaved ice. Have you tried them? They both are very refreshing and help you to survive this season. Do you have any ideas what they are? Don't worry. We will introduce the details of them today. Our Hiyashi Chuka and Kakigori have unique flavors, so even if you are familiar with those dishes themselves, you might find interesting by reading and then trying ours!
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Hiyashi Chuka Noodle Salad
Hiyashi Chuka is a type of dish using chilled Chinese noodles. The noodles are topped with colorful ingredients and served with cold sauce (and some condiments at some restaurants). It is eaten throughout Japan as a summer noodle dish.
At Maido, we offer the noodles with kale, which are rare for Hiyashi Chuka. It is actually hard to find the restaurants that offer Kale Hiyashi Chuka even in Japan. The flavor is not strong, and they are easy to eat. Over the noodles, there are thin sliced egg omelette, imitation crabs, cucumbers, lettuce, and cherry tomatoes. Isn't it almost like eating a salad over the noodles? Hiyashi Chuka goes well with some condiments such as red ginger, mustard, and mayonnaise, but even without them, ours is very tasty. As we mentioned above, the dish is served with cold sauce. Soy sauce flavored sauce, miso flavored sauce, and sesame flavored sauce are the most common kinds of sauce, and we offer soy sauce based sauce.
Eating our Hiyashi Chuka is a healthy option for you, as the noodles are made with kale, topped with different kinds of things, and the sauce has ingredients including soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and vinegar. Kale is extremely nutritious, with twice the vitamin A content of carrots, more than twice the calcium content of milk, and a wealth of other vitamins, minerals, chlorophyll, gaba, dietary fiber, folic acid, and protein, making it the best single vegetable in the world. Wheat, egg, sugar, cucumber, lettuce, cherry tomato, and soy sauce have a cooling effect on the body. And as everyone knows it, vinegar is very good for your body. The health benefits expected from vinegar include suppression of postprandial blood sugar elevation, reduction of body fat and visceral fat, lowering of blood pressure, and recovery from fatigue. Those health benefits make it one of the foods that should be actively incorporated into the diet. The dish also contains a lot of nutrients and has health benefits such as boosting immunity, preventing cancer, preventing anemia, maintaining healthy eyes, maintaining healthy bones and teeth, relieving constipation, mental stability, anti-aging, and beautiful skin.
Why don't you try this amazing refreshing cold noodle dish in one of these hot days with less appetite? It will surely save you from the heat!
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Kakigori Shaved Ice
Kakigori is an icy treat made by shaving or crushing ice into small pieces and pouring syrup or other ingredients over it. It is sometimes topped with condensed milk, red bean paste, etc.
At Maido, we offer two different kinds of Kakigori - matcha green tea with condensed milk and calpico syrup with assorted fruits including pineapples and oranges. Matcha with condensed milk flavor is pretty common, which means it is everyone's favorite everywhere, as the combination of the richness of matcha and the sweetness of milk makes it very tasty. Meanwwhile, the calpico flavor is quite unique. Calpico is a lactic beverage with a sweet, tangy, and refreshing flavor produced by the natural process of lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and fermentation. It is tasty and also provides nourishment. It has been loved by people in Japan over 100 years. Calpico drinks in many flavors including strawberry, peach, lychee, mango, and melon have been very popular at our store, and we use the concentrate of the Calpico original flavor for our Kakigori. With the assorted fruits, the flavor gets even more refreshing!
Kakigori is said to be more effective in lowering body heat than ice cream. When the body temperature rises too high during the hot summer, eating kakigori can quickly lower the body temperature. Since you are eating ice, you are simply rehydrated. And the syrup (sugar) helps the digestive organs such as the stomach and intestines. It hydrates the body, quenches thirst, and replenishes energy.
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In the next newsletter, we will introduce the history of Hiyashi Chuka and Kakigori.
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There is a lot of food items, housewares, stationery, and gifts available at the store and our online store, Maido! Kairashi Shop, where you can place your order for shipping or store pickup!
Happy shopping. :)