As I mentioned in my previous post, I had an amazing dinner at Shin Kushiya last week. The piping hot yakitori reminded me of my trip to Hokkaido, when I was stuck in the van with some friends because the snow was too heavy, and we were eating hot bento lunches with assorted yakitori…mmmmm…

Although I missed it then, I heard that there was also a fantastic time eating hot sweet potatoes out in the cold during the Tokyo leg of the trip. I particularly loved the grilled sweet potatoes I had as a dessert at Shin Kushiya, so I went to Isetan at Shaw House and bought Japanese sweet potatoes to try and recreate the “hot-grilled-sweet-potato-in-winter” experience that I missed.

I was about to buy the usual kind (purple on the outside, yellow on the inside) when the promoter was telling me about a different kind (murasaki imo, literally translated as ‘purple potato’) that was available only in season. On the outside, it looked the same, but was purple inside, and was sweeter. At least that’s what she said.

So I, being the sucker to try new stuff, got a kilo of the purple potato (for $2 per 100 gm!)

(Fun Facts: I did a little Googling, and found that it is a favourite of Okinawans! No wonder…since an Okinawa fair was going on at Isetan that day. Apparently, it is hard to find murasaki imo even in Japan! They are only sold when in season at selected Japanese supermarkets, and even then, are gone in a flash…it’s a good thing I got them then!…errr…i think…)

Anyhow, i was lazy to go buy lunch from downstairs…and I would’ve been stuck with $20 worth of sweet potatoes…so I cut the sweet potatoes into slices, fired up the grill, and had a fun time grilling lunch!

I brushed on some olive oil on the sweet potato slices, and sprinkled some salt on them as they were grilling (just like what they do at Shin Kushiya). If I had some honey, it would’ve made a nice, sweet, crunchy coating!

It was really simple and yummy too! Washed it down with genmaicha and for a couple of hours, I was transported to winter in Japan…even though it was probably like 50 degrees Celcius in Singapore.

Somehow, it was a really fulfilling day…*beam*