Mitsuwa Marketplace - Special Events - Costa Mesa, CA

The Mitsuwa food court is not very vegetarian friendly. The Japanese food places have pork broth or fish broth or some type of meat juice in it. During special events however, there were some simple foods to try.

Inari Okowa

Okowa is glutinous rice with vegetables and/or meat. In this case I just asked for the ones without meat. The one in the center is their famous chestnut okowa. The other two are red bean. Usually inari has sushi rice but they put okowa in it instead. It's quite delicious. It's soft and chewy and the chestnut flavor was good. You can also use the okowa to make rice balls and it's very tasty. Something different that I've never had before. The people that made these were from Hokkaido. Hope to see them again at another special event.

Onigiri (Rice balls)

Speaking of rice balls, I had some onigiri at another one of Mitsuwa's special events. The only ones that didn't have meat were this one and the ume plum one. I didn't choose the ume plum because I was afraid it would be too sour. I think for a vegetarian it's probably better to make this one at home and add veggies and stuff to it. This is just plain rice with some soy sauce and what tasted like tea leaves. It was okay...but I liked the okowa better. There is more flavor to the okowa as this rice ball is kind of plain. There were other onigiri with meat that looked much tastier because it had nuts and other food in it besides just plain rice.

I usually check their website to see if there are special events coming up. Even though main dishes pretty much don't exist for a vegetarian, there are lots of sweets to eat. These goodies are considered not so healthy because it is mostly made up of plain white rice. =( Can someone make a brown rice version? That'd be great!

Mitsuwa Marketplace

http://www.mitsuwa.com/english/index.html

Okowa and Onigiri eaten at:

Costa Mesa Store

665 Paularino Ave.

Costa Mesa, CA 92626

714-557-6699

Food places open daily from 11AM - 7:30PM

Crepes de Paris - Irvine, CA : Caramel Crepe

I have been around crepes for the longest time but never had an urge to try them. While others around me ate them with glee and asked me if I wanted to try some...I never felt the inclination. I'm not really into cakes, cookies...you know those types of sweets but I do enjoy the occasional treat if made to my liking. I don't like the super sweet heavy desserts (except a good cheesecake). I like the light fluffy airy desserts. I once had cake in Japan and it was delicious. Perhaps if I grew up on Japanese cake I would love cake. Anyway I digress. Below is the crepe I tried.

Caramel Crepe

This wasn't on their regular menu. I think it was a special item. The crepe was soft...like a really thin pancake. Yup, just like Ricky Bobby said. I don't like the doughy-ness of pancakes...so this was much better. However I think I should try a different flavor as the caramel is really really sweet. This was a good start to getting an idea of what a crepe tastes like. I shall hunt down other places and try their crepes out. There's so much you can do with crepes...as a meal and as a dessert.

Coffee

Root Beer Float

Had some coffee and a root beer float with the crepe. Hmm...maybe the root beer float made everything really really sweet? Not the greatest idea. Heh heh. This meal is obviously considered not so healthy. It is an indulgence of sugar on sugar.

Crepes de Paris

http://www.crepesdeparisinc.com/

The location this crepe was eaten at:

Diamond Jamboree Center

2700 Alton Parkway, Suite 125

Irvine, CA 92606

949-727-2096

Mon - Thurs 8AM - 10PM

Fri - Sun 8AM - 11PM

Homemade Fruit Salad

The breakfast of...people who like fruit and yogurt.

Half mixed Fruit Salad

The above bowl of fruit contains organic blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. Added a few spoonfuls of plain yogurt and drizzled some agave on top.

Fruit Salad before mixing

The above bowl is similar to the previous bowl except I added some oranges.

Mix and devour. Simple breakfast. Just add what you like and subtract what you don't like. One of my favorites to make...especially if I can find organic berries on sale!