Wednesday's Lunch: Fish

Today was a very typical school lunch for me, meaning that it can be summed up in one word: bland. Probably the tastiest thing about it was the rice, and then only because it was special rice. We get a little metal tin of plain white rice every day except on very rare occasions. Maybe twice a year we get something a little different. Today we had hijiki rice. Remember hijiki from Monday? The type of seaweed? Well, it's back and it (along with a couple of mystery elements I couldn't identify) has been mixed into our rice to add a bit of flavor. Take a look:

I know it doesn't look exciting, and it's not, but compared to everything else...

Main Dish: Katsuo Yakihitashi (Fried Bonito)

Bonito is a kind of fish, for those of you who may not know (I certainly wouldn't have). Actually, it's a kind of mackerel. The name here means that it has been dipped and fried (not deep-fried, mind you). What was it dipped in? I can't say, but I would guess soy sauce if I had to. This isn't something we have particularly often. At least, I don't think so anyhow. We have a non-descript piece of fish for our main dish so regularly that it's hard to keep them straight. It tastes all right though, and has maintained a bit more of the fishy flavor than Monday's tuna, which is kind of nice. Not bad, but nothing I would ever order off of a menu.

Side Dish: Ohitashi (Soy Spinach)

So, I could taste some soy on the fish, but when I eat the dish that is specifically supposed to be seasoned with soy sauce I don't even notice it. Hmmm... This name is a little misleading in other ways because spinach was probably the most minor of all the ingredients. There were definitely more bean sprouts in there than spinach. I genuinely like the flavor of spinach which has worked out well for me since we have it at least once a week. Too bad this dish didn't taste like spinach. Or anything else for that matter.

Soup: Maitake Jiru (Maitake Mushroom Soup)

When the broth is the tastiest ingredient in your soup, you have failed at making soup. This contained two types of bland mushrooms and some tofu. Yeah, tofu can be really good. It is remarkable at absorbing the flavors of whatever you cook it with. Of course, if the things it's being cooked alongside of are also flavorless, then you just get some floppy, bland, white stuff. There was also a slice of sasakama, which is the little flowery looking thing. This is a small disc shaped item made from kamaboko (steamed fish paste) that you almost always see in soup here. I like them, although there are plenty of people who can't stand to eat it (Liesje included). But somehow, today's soup was so boring it sapped what little flavor the sasakama might normally have right out of it. This kind of soup (and its several, nearly identical, mushroom-based friends) is a mainstay of school lunch here. I would say I eat something basically like this twice a week. No wonder they drink their soup here instead of using a spoon; they just want to be done with it.

Total Calories: 633

As usual, there was nothing in today's lunch that I disliked and I was able to eat everything with no trouble. However, this was a very typical lunch in that there was also nothing in it that I actually liked either. Something basically the same as this is served at least once a week, and I've had similar lunches three times in five days before. This is the chili-mac of Japanese school lunch: fried fish with soy, spinach and something else, mushroom and tofu soup. So boring. Soooo booooring.