ちょうどそれを食べなさい (Just Eat It)
And now for a stroll through our local Japanese grocery store.
No meat, no life. Yeah vegetables are a large part of any Okinawan's diet, but that doesn't mean meat gets pushed to the side in favor of some bean sprouts. Oh heeeeeeeell no. Instead the two kind of happily coexist in one omnivorous universe. This here is beef, but what you don't see right next to it is tons and tons of pork. You also don't see the super miniscule chicken part of the meat aisle. C'mon, son! Everybody knows fried chicken is better than pork chops. And I'm not just saying that to fulfill a black stereotype, either.
Speaking of vegetables, the price of veggies (and fruits) in Japan is kind of outrageous. And you don't get a hell of a lot for what you pay, either. Almost 300 yen for a handful of small ass potatoes? Nearly two bucks for three small ass onions? With prices like that you'd think grocery store shoplifting would be the number one crime committed in Japan.
This is the sausage I use in my world famous fried rice. There's a couple of brands out there but they all kind of taste the same, so I settled on this slightly cheaper one.
Can't make fried rice without rice, can you? It generally comes in bags like this in sizes ranging from 2kg (around 4 lbs) to 5kg (about 10 lbs). I learned on my last grocery store trip that the rice here is actually graded on a number scale, with higher numbered rice equaling higher quality (and subsequently a higher price). Generally I get a 3-4kg bag of rice rated at 68-70, although I'd really like to get some higher numbered rice to test out the validity of this claim.