IMPORT STORES HAUL!

Here is an amazing photo of the fruits of my cycling all over Kyoto this evening, presented on the lovely pale brown blanket which was part of my rental futon set. 

I visited La Cave de Yamaya near Karasumaoike station and Meidi-ya, which Google Maps told me was just near Karasumaoike but was actually in Sanjo just outside the Teramachi undercover shopping street, about 5 or 10 minutes' cycle away.

 The purpose of this expedition was to find Dairy Milk chocolate, one of the more ordinary targets of my increasingly weird British food cravings. The other day it was lemon curd and today it was Heinz tomato soup, neither of which I have eaten in years. Neither of the shops I visited had it but I'm told the import shop near Kyoto station does. Tragic although this was I got some Lindt which is arguably just as good.

Any of my English-speaking friends in Kyoto will have been subjected to my moaning about wanting salt and vinegar crisps for several weeks now. I was hoping to find Tyrrell's - admittedly a very long shot but luckily La Cave de Yamaya had this American brand instead. You might notice that in the picture the packet is open since I just couldn't wait...they are similar to Kettle Chips you get in the UK and very nice! Next time I will go for the intriguing pizza flavoured Pringles.

Also pictured: brown penne pasta - spaghetti is readily available in Japan, although strangely, pasta shapes are more expensive and not so easy to find. Both stores had an excellent selection although La Cave was much cheaper. I got some pesto to go with it, for the Cambridge student special (or is this just Homerton?).

The weird brown object is a muffin made with brown rice from Meidi-ya which has a small bakery section. 

As for the packet curry and the jelly sweets I mainly bought those because I was so excited to find something vegetarian! Gelatine-free sweets are not common even in the UK so obviously I had to have them. An annoyingly large number of foods here are not OK for vegetarians including vegetable soup (or basically any kind of soup - chicken extract) and soy meat (!!! also chicken extract). WHERE IS THE NEED I ask you.

I will definitely be visiting these shops again for a massive jar of pasta sauce once my pesto runs out, Speculoos biscuits and possibly some Nutella if I'm in a really bad mood...