Konnyaku: A Super Versatile Ingredient That Improves Your Health

Konnyaku Jelly
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S.H.O.W. LLC. (Simple Healthy Organic Wealthy) will be at the Soul Food Festival tomorrow to introduce their konnyaku products. Konnyaku (also known as konjac) is a type of yam native to some parts of Asia that's becoming popular for its health benefits. It isn't widely known about here but is commonly used in Japanese food such as in shiritaki noodles, oden, sukiyaki, and fruit jelly cups. Flavorless and virtually calorie-free, konnyaku is high in fiber and can reduce cholestrol and blood sugar as well as improve immune systems. It's an ideal diet food as well. Because it is over 90% water, gelatinizes quickly and expands to many times its size, it gives the consumer a feeling of fullness and is thus an ideal food for weight control. S.H.O.W. LLC. comes from Gumna Prefecture in Honshu Island, where about 90% of all Japanese Konnyaku is made.

Make Your Pet Smell Great with This Product From Kumamoto!

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We have a vendor from Kumamoto that will be offering not human food, but a treat for pets! PGT Trading features the Dumiel Health Supplement, which can be added to pet food to improve the smell of their ...umm, waste. Beside reducing dogs' waste and overall odor, the limonite component in Dumiel also improves metabolic and hair conditions and helps prevent anemia in dogs. This limonite originates from Mount Aso in Kumamoto prefecture, Kyushu. Limonite contains natural minerals such as iron, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, manganese, sulfur, and aluminum, which help improve canine health conditions, prevent diarrhea, anemia, stress, and obesity. PGT includes limonite in many other products, including those for bath and beauty, and livestock or farming supplies. Products include Limo Soap, mineral feed for livestock, and a desulferizing agent.

I think it'd be nice if cats can also take this, since they do their business indoors. Want to find out more, stop by the Soul Food Festival this Sunday and ask them!

Locally-Made Sauces and Spices from Hita City!

Yuzu Rich Sauce

Coming from Oita Prefecture, Hita City, located in the center of northern Kyushu, will be presenting an array of tasty bottled specialities made with local ingredients at the Soul Food Festival. Hita City itself is famous for its mountainous landscape, flowing rivers, cedar forest, romantic fog, the annual Gion Festival and the Sapporo beer factory, making it a popular tourist attraction.

It's Gobbling Time! Fantastic 4 Brings Kyushu Munchies Tomorrow!



Ikinari Dango
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 JapanTown’s Soul Food Festival presents Fantastic 4! Hailing from Kumamoto Prefecture, Fantastic 4 is bringing to the festival some popular local dishes that are all part of a trend in Japan called B-class gourmet. B-class gourmet is a term for foods that are ordinary and common, yet popular for being delicious and flavorful.

Hide-Chan Ramen Guarantees Satisfaction with Authentic Tonkotsu

Another Fukuoka shop joins our Soul Food Festival: Hide-Chan Ramen! Hide-Chan is a small ramen shop specializing in tonkotsu, or pork bone ramen, that is part of the group of restaurants (ie. Soba Totto, Yakitori Totto, and Totto Ramen) owned by Bobby Munekata. The chef, Hideto Kawahara (a.k.a. Hide-Chan), hails from Hakata, Fukuoka, known far and wide for its tonkotsu ramen. Made from boiling pork bones, fat, and collagen for hours, tonkotsu broth is characterized by its intense pork flavor and rich, almost milky consistency, and cloudy whitish color. The noodles in this soup are usually thin and straight and usually topped with chopped scallions, red ginger, tree ears, and of course, pork (cha-su). The interesting thing about Hakata-style ramen is that you can choose your noodle's level of firmness as well as the level of fat in your broth. If you want seconds of ramen noodles, you can order another helping by asking for kaedama.

Anything to Keep You Stylishly Mess-Free

JapanTown is pleased to introduce Anything, makers of custom maekake. Made of thick cotton cloth with long straps that are tied around the waist, maekake are aprons traditionally worn by craftsmen, laborers, and store staff. The name maekake derives from the words mae, or front, and kakeru, meaning to hang.

They aren't as common now but recently, maekake have been making a comeback as a fashion statement and as another form of advertising for companies. More practical in some settings than a T-shirt with the company logo, maekake have been attracting the attention of people outside of Japan.

Check Out Takeo City For Authentic Bite of Kyushu

Yabusame Horseback Archery

JapanTown presents Takeo City! Located in Saga Prefecture in northwestern Kyushu, Takeo is a popular tourist destination for its enigmatic performing arts, beautiful mountain landmarks and scenery, unique dishes, and soothing bathhouses. Takeo contains a wide range of mountains, including Mount Hachiman, which is over 3/4 of a kilometer high. These mountain ranges contain hot-spring bathhouses that have been a tradition for hundreds of years. These mountains are also home for some incredible landmarks, including some famous okusu trees over 3000 years old, the Saga Space Museum with its space simulations, and the Kofuku-ji statuettes of the Buddhist guardian gods. Takeo also hosts several annual traditional performances such as yabusame, horse-mounted archery dating back 800 years, and the araodori dances, which have been performed for over 400 years.

Is Soy Sauce the New Wine? The Answer is at Fukuman Soy's Booth This Sunday!

There's a bar in Fukuoka whose walls are lined with bottles of every vintage and origin imaginable, all brewed to perfection. Except it's not alcohol in those bottles; it's soy sauce.

Bar Fukuman Soy Sauce is the modern reincarnation of the old company Fukuman Soy Sauce, which first opened in 1821 selling sold top-quality sauce to shops in Fukuoka. Closed for 50 years, it was resurrected in 2009 by the soy sauce sommelier Daichi Ohama, who continued making Fukuman soy sauce using its traditional recipes. The only thing he changed in the new Fukuman shop was that he established a bar devoted exclusively to to this essential Japanese condiment.

Kamaboko Burgers, Sticks, and Dumplings at the Soul Food Festival!

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Does the word kamaboko ring a bell? If you're familiar with sushi or Japanese ramen, you might know what kamaboko is without knowing the name. Kamaboko is fish cake made from a centuries-old technique of curing and steaming seafood puree. Small slices of pink-dyed kamaboko loaves, usually half-moon shaped, are commonly seen as a common ingredient in many Japanese dishes. With a firm texture, it can be steamed, deep fried, barbecued or poached and used in soups, salads, casseroles, you name it. Kamaboko is easily moldable and can be found in any form, even Hello Kitty.

With stores across Japan, Shiki Kamaboko is a company that specializes in transforming kamaboko into innovative and non-traditional forms, such as sticks, burgers, dogs, and dumplings topped with Yuzusco. If you got a craving for fishcake but with a different flavor, stop by Shiki Kamaboko's booth in the Soul Food Festival this Sunday or a kamaboko dog or dumpling!

Discover a New Exotic Condiment: Yuzusco!

The West has pasta, the East have noodles; America has bourbon, Japan has sake, so what is Japan's equivalent of hot sauce? A recent phenomenon in the condiment world is Yuzusco, a spicy liquid yuzu seasoning. The name Yuzusco is shortened from "yuzu suko," which is a summary of its ingredients: yuzu peel, vinegar (su) and pepper (ko). Yuzu is a citrus fruit that is used primarily for the rind that tastes kind of like lemon and orange.