HYPER JAPAN 2012 Christmas

The summer holiday season is approaching fast and Yakult is offering an exciting competition.

The winner of the Sushi Awards 2012: UK Sushi Roll Championships, sponsored by Kikkoman and S&B, has been decided! The accolade goes to Dragon Volcano, by Chef Kok Haw Lee of Tsunami restaurant. Dragon Volcano was an explosive combination of tobiko, tempura flakes, spring onion and shredded chilli, with king prawn tempura, avocado and cucumber. It was finished with a distinctive carrot, onion and mayonnaise sauce. The stunning presentation, complete with dry ice, made Dragon Volcano the stand-out sushi in this year's amazing line-up.

Dassai 23, from Asahi Shuzo, swept the board at the inaugural Eat-Japan Sake Awards: Top Brewery Taste-Off last night, winning four out of seven categories after a massive three-day public tasting.

There are various kinds of super cute and gorgeous gift-wrapping styles for St. Valentine’s Day in Japan. To the Japanese, gift-wrapping, called ‘tsutsumu’ in Japanese, is one of the most important parts of gift-giving, and great care is taken in wrapping gifts, not only on St. Valentine’s Day, but also on occasions like birthdays, or even just when giving out cakes or sweets baked or made for pleasure.

We hope you all have a sweet and lovely St. Valentine’s Day with your precious ones.  You’ve already learned about two popular chocolates called ‘Giri-Choco’ and ‘Tomo-Choco’, which are usually gifted by women to men with whom they are acquainted, colleagues, and so on (Giri-Choco) or to female friends(Tomo-Choco) on St. Valentine’s Day in Japan. (find out further information about them here)  So today, we would like to introduce you to Japan’s special chocolate gift called ‘Honmei-Choco’, which is given by women to their boyfriends, lovers, or men about whom they are serious.

The Taste Discovery Zone in the Eat-Japan area at HYPER JAPAN will present a series of demonstrations on Japanese food and drink that you can take part in absolutely free!

Eat, drink and discover new flavours and dishes in these brilliant interactive demonstrations. Each demonstration will be around 30 minutes long, led by a Japanese food expert, and finish with a chance for participants to try out the finished dish. You can only book places on the day, and seats are limited to 30 places for each session, but you can stand and watch even without a ticket. Click here to see the timetable.