Japanese groceries

So I am sharing the house, with a South Korean girl, also from BC, who incidentally is going to also sublet my Vancouver apartment for one month, while I am here in Japan. So, she can read Kanji, Chinese characters, - since they use some of those as well, in South Korean. And she is quite familiar with a lot of Japanese ingredients, I imagine, like I would be, if I went to India. So, I am taking the opportunity to learn what some Japanese ingredients are, so I can start cooking Japanese food, and perhaps some S. Korean as well.

Here is sesame paste

Mirin, a sweet sake used in cooking. This is all mirin

Tsu-u, soy sauce based sauce

Kombu - a thick seaweed like kelp, that gives the umami taste, which is actually identified as a new taste, in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter, since the 1980's. This is used to make dashi stock and when you bring the soaked kombu to near boiling point, in the process of making dashi, you get this amazing aroma of the ocean, like what you get when you are in a warm beach... Yep, you guessed it, I am going to be making a lot of this... just for the aroma...

Katsuobushi (bonito flakes) - these large flakes, 1cm*2cm, is what needs to be used for the dashi. The tiny ones that you spread over okonomiyaki won't work for the dashi - eventhough it is the same thing. I didn't realize making dashi stock was so easy, so now I don't have to worry about buying dashi powser laden with MSG.

These are sauces that you can use to marinate meat.

Okonomiyaki sauce - the stuff you slather over your okonomiyaki as you grill it.

And of course soy sauce, straight.