My mother is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed in Summer 2003 and finished chemo in Summer 2004. We planned a big trip for the three of us (Betti, Jim, and Jordan) to go on a safari in Africa in the fall of 2004 so she would have something to look forward to through her treatment. With her new lease of life and up close encounters with Botswana‘s wild life, she decided that she wanted to go on a trip every year! Who were we to argue.
The 2005 trip was to Japan. We brought along my dear friend Deb as Zucker child #2. It’s always best to have a buffer. And I limit my portion of the trip to 10-14 days. The folks can go for as long as they want, but any more daily family time with me is ill-advised.
There’s an entire novel’s worth of stories to write about this trip. But the topic I’m going to discuss here is our favorite snack discovery, Onigiri. They are little triangular pockets of rice stuffed with various fillings and wrapped in nori seaweed. You can find them anywhere there, from gas station convenience stores to high end markets.
Sunny Blue has recently opened on Main St. in Santa Monica, bringing these treasures right to my back door! (well, across town, but still…)
They call them omusubi, or onigiri (pronounced with a hard “g”).
I tried the beef miso, spicy salmon, and tuna mayo. (Which I’d rank in that order). They didn’t have a wide variety of flavors (or my favorite – ikura!) but the ones they had they made well. The rice was warm and the nori was nice and salty and crispy as it should be. At less than $3 a pop there’s not much better in the afternoon pick me up department.

Onigiri to go from Santa Monica's Sunny Blue