Taberu Rayu Two

Taberu Rayu is at every supermarket I visit in Japan. What started as one product by one company has exploded to many variations. One of the most interesting ones I have come across is the basic taberu rayu without the oil.

As you can see by looking inside the jar, it's very different from the original version. The SB Foods website says that it is 20% less calories and 40% less fat than the original version.

Here it is simply on rice. We love it. Much better than the oily version which makes the rice greasy and hard to eat. The SB Foods website offers many recipe ideas for this product. Even if you don't read Japanese you'll be able to sort out several of the recipes just from the photos.

Also see:

Taberu Rayu

Gotta Get - Taberu Shoyu

The popularity of taberu rayu has been a great food trend to observe. First was to see all of the copycat versions imitating the original taberu rayu. Now, there are many new products that are similar in style but made from totally different ingredients. One of our new favorites is this Saku Saku Taberu Kobashi Shoyu from Kikkoman.

We love it over seafood, like this scallops.

The oil based condiment is made with freeze-dried soy sauce flakes, fried garlic, fried onions, sesame seeds, almonds, and more spices. Over rice it was good but we found it a bit oily. The bottle suggests putting it over boiled vegetables or stir-fries. We also had it over steamed greens which was better than the rice. However, our favorite is over sake-steamed fish. The contrast of the crunchy condiment and the juicy, flakey cod was perfect. Seasoning also a perfect match.

Kikkoman has two other similar products. Taberu Shoyu Yuzu-fumi which is seasoned with yuzu and a Taberu Shoyu Torigara Su-pu Aji that is flavored with chicken soup.

It is sold in a glass jar. 105 grams for 350 JPY.