Mitsuwa Marketplace #2

Ever since my husband and I went for shopping at Mitsuwa and had lunch there the first time, it has become a regular fun activity for us to do. We go shopping for Japanese groceries there about once a month, and get some lunch. I love the variety of options and affordable prices. Here are the three more visits from the previous times (you can read about it here: http://www.foodlovergirl.com/mitsuwa-marketplace/ ).

The first one was Wateishoku Kaneda. We visited this spot already, but with their massive amount of offerings, you can go back there again and again, and you can order something different each time.

This time, we ordered Grilled Mackerel Plate ($9.75) and Mixed Fried Plate ($9.50). They both come with rice, miso soup, two side dishs, pickles and a dessert.

The Grilled Mackerel Plate was pretty good, other than the fact that they made it waaaay to salty. If it wasn’t for that, it would’ve been great. The fish was juicy and flaky, great flavor, until masked by the over-saltiness. Hopefully they will use less salt in the future.

Mixed Fried Plate caught the attention of my husband, who absolutely loved their fried oysters from the previous visit. This one came with fried shrimp, fried oysters, and fried salmon.

They were all nice, my hubby was happy. Fried salmon was flaky and juicy, fried shrimp was plump, fried oyster was juicy and tasty. I am glad it came with two fried oysters, as that was my husband’s favorite.

It came with the three sauces, tonkatsu sauce, which is a bit on sweet side, tar tar sauce, and mustard sauce. It was great addition to each fried items.

The two side dishes of the day was macaroni salad and edamame. The salad was creamy and tasty. Edamame was good too. They are not great, but it is always good to have a little extra sides.

Miso soup is nothing really special, but good to have a nice hot soup with the meal. I always enjoy Japanese pickles, they had cucumber pickles on this day. I really like cucumber pickles, so it was great. Love the crunchy-ness of it.

The dessert was quite interesting. I actually didn’t know what it was at the first glance, but it was a lychee! I love lychee, so I was excited, but not the easiest thing to eat with the shell still on it. It was still very tasty though. There are so many other dishes we can try at Wateishoku Kaneda. I am sure we will be going back for more and more…

 

The next place we went was Hannosuke. This is another spot that we already tried before, but we wanted to try something different from them again. This time, we ordered Original Tempura Plate ($9.98) and Small Tendon and Soba ($9.98).

The Original Tempura Plate comes with white fish, two shrimps, soft boiled egg, nori (dried seaweed), and vegetables, all fried. Also miso soup and a dipping sauce for tempura.

They had a good amount of tempura, lightly fried and tasty. Fish was flaky, shrimp was plump, and veggies were nice too. They had eggplant tempura, zucchini tempura, and something else that I have forgotten…sorry. This plate set also came with ginger, a nice little pallet cleanser.

Fried egg was on a bowl of rice, and it was very nice. Soft boiled, and then fried, still giving us egg porn on the rice.

 

Small Tendon and Soba comes with small tempura bowl, cold soba, soba dipping sauce and ginger. The tempura’s are two shrimps, soft boiled egg, nori, and one kind of veggie.

The soba was nice, not the best, but it was nice. Good amount of firm, chewy texture and refreshing for a hot Summer day. It came with a small amount of scallions, which I dropped into the soba dipping sauce, I like the flavor the scallion with soba.

The tendon, or tempura donburi was a good size. The veggie was a zucchini. The egg, again was cooked nicely for egg porn. It had sweet sauce on the tempura, a bit too sweet for my liking but it was still very tasty.

Then, we finally visited one spot we haven’t tried, Edomae Chirashi Sushi. They have a few kinds of chirashi sushi, which is a rice bowl topped with sashimi and other seafood. They don’t have waxed version of the food for display, but photos of the dishes. Because of the type of cuisine, these are more expensive than other eateries at Mitsuwa.

We ordered Jewelry Box Standard ($9.95) and Jewelry Box Platinum ($18.95). They do look like jewelry boxes, beautiful and shiny. The rectangular containers are kind of small, but the ingredients on the top looked really nice and fresh.

Jewelry Box Standard is called Edomae Style, and had tuna, ikura (salmon row), cut up Japanese egg omelet, salmon, cucumber, cut up octopus (cooked), and a couple of more ingredients. The quality is top notch, very fresh and flavorful. This one, other than “Salmon Bara Chirashi” is the cheapest item on their menu, and I thought it was a great value for the quality.

I liked how they had both sashimi pieces and chopped (minced) tuna. It gave extra texture and flavor. The container itself was more shallow than I thought, therefore the quantity was less than it looks… I still think it is a great value though, for its quality and the varieties of toppings.

Jewelry Box Platinum is simply the Jewelry Box Standard plus shrimp (cooked) and uni (sea urchin). The item that is bringing up the price so high is not the shrimp, but the uni. It is an expensive item, and was very, super fresh. It does not come with a lot of shrimp or uni, but they were both excellent. Again, quality over quantity here. These were really great, we enjoyed them entirely. I would definitely go back to get the Standard one again, as I don’t really need to have the shrimp or the uni, and it is super affordable.

We also went to another spot we haven’t visited before, Omusubi Gonbei who specializes in Omusubi, or rice ball. They open earlier than other restaurants, so if you get there too early and hungry, you can try these guys. It is interesting how gourmet rice balls are becoming popular, who can justify their high price point for rice balls nowadays with its good demand for them.

This place, like all the others in Mitsuwa, is cash only. They have ATM machine if you forgot to bring cash. They offer many varieties of gourmet rice balls, and they are made with Japanese seaweed. They all looked really good, it was not easy to choose.

 

We went with The Bomb ($3.80), Cha-Shu-Pork ($2.40), Fried Oyster ($2.90), and Spam Riceball ($3.50). They are all pretty good size, and the even though it is more expensive than traditional rice balls you can buy for less than $2, it was better than some others. For instance, the ones from Hanamizuki Café are more expensive and smaller in size (you can read about it here: http://www.foodlovergirl.com/hanamizuki-cafe/ ).

The Bomb looked like a bomb, and it was the biggest of them all. Since it was the most expensive, it should be big… It is made with spicy tuna, salmon, and kombu (kelp in a sweet soy sauce). It had good amount the filling, which I was happy to see. The sauce from the filling seeping into the rice made it extra tasty. Yes it was the bomb!

Cha-Shu-Pork is made with braised pork with rich soy sauce. The pork is shopped up, and the rice is mixed with the chanky pork and white sesame. It was pretty tasty, with the sweet soy sauce mixed thoroughly with the rice, and good amount of pork chunk. Comforting and addictive.

Fried Oyster come with spicy tartar sauce. Deep fried oyster is dipped in sriracha, and drizzled sauce on top. Now, nothing was drizzled on top as you can see… I think the description doesn’t really match here. Instead, it had a spicy sauce on the bottom, and in the middle with the fried oyster. This one wasn’t really well made, as one side of the rice ball was almost falling apart with not enough rice on that side.

It was good regardless, the sauce went really nicely with the fried oyster. I am not sure if it was worth the price tag on this one though.

Spam ball came wrapped, as it is a bit oily, so it will prevent it from falling apart before you eat. It is made with salty deep fried Spam and sweet egg omelette. It has a brush of maple syrup, which gives extra sweetness and rich flavor.

It was a good size, again, much bigger than the one from Hanamizuki Café. It was very tasty and I really enjoyed it. I liked the combination of the meaty Spam and soft, sweet egg omelette. Very satisfying.

 

Since they were all good, and we were not too full, we decided to get a couple more to share. First choice was Spicy Tuna ($1.90). I liked the price for this one! It was still a nice size, great deal!

It had a good amount of topping, separated from the filling. It is made with a combination of sriracha, tabasco, and mayo. It was spicy but not so much. With the mild flavor of mayo, it had a little kick to it, without being too spicy. I was very tasty, and had a good amount of filling in the middle.

The second and the last rice ball we had was Mentaiko ($2.20). It has salty and spicy cod roe filling, which also on the top as well.

I felt like it had a good amount of mentaiko on the top, but not so much filling in the middle. I wish if it had more filling in it. I like spicy cod roe, so this was still nice, but the ratio of rice and filling was not satisfactory… I did like their gourmet rice balls, I liked the big size, and I thought the quality was high. I can see the price point of their items are not so bad when you consider the size and quality. I would like to try more of their rice ball creations.

We had several enjoyable trips to Mitsuwa. No doubt we will continue to shop and have lunch here. We still have eateries we haven’t tried, and so many dishes we want to try from all of them…

Mitsuwa Marketplace – 595 River Rd, Edgewater, NJ 07020

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