Hi everyone. Nice to meet you all.
A couple of days ago I moved into a dormitory in Tokio. At this moment I have very little knowledge of Japanese cooking (today I made for the first time a simple Sansai Udon
), but hopefully that will change in the next couple of months.
Luckily I have access to a kitchen and since there are several supermarkets and grocery stores nearby I have plenty of opportunity to experiment.
Now there was one thing I was hoping someone could help me with. The tricky part when shopping for ingredients is that my knowledge of kanji is a bit limited and it takes some time for me to figure out what and where everything is. This hasn't really been a problem yet (it takes some time, but I usually manage to figure it out alright). There were two products I was wondering about though.
The first one (oddly enough) is rice. Most of the supermarkets have a pretty large selection of different types and brands. I would like to buy one of those large bags (like 5 or 10 kg), but I have trouble telling the difference. What can I do to tell them apart?
The other one is cooking oil. I know the kanji for oil, so I usually manage to find the section where are the different types are on display, but at that point I get stuck. With the exception of the really clearly labeled ones (like olive oil) I can't tell which is which. Which one should I buy for example if I want to fry vegetables or egg?
Is there anyone who can help me on my way?