米・麺・パンどれかひとつ選ぶなら？

This week's gift: an inari sushi specialist from Nishi-Azabu

This week's backstage gift was inari sushi from a Nishi-Azabu shop a friend had recommended. Made bite-sized so actors could eat them backstage without smudging their lipstick, the pieces came in a wide range of flavors: simmered bluefin tuna, toasted nori, black-and-gold sesame, walnut, and mentaiko with crunchy pickled plum. With a refined taste built on good dashi and restrained sweetness, the two hosts raved that it was "rich people's food" and "the best gift you could ever receive." They were struck by how different it was from the cheap, upside-down inari sushi they'd been given as gifts in the past.

Hanami styles differ from person to person

Anri's style of hanami is to gather in a park with fellow female comedians from her generation, laughing so loudly that passersby notice. She said she loved it when people brought homemade bento or donuts to share. Tanabe's acquaintance, by contrast, books a cafe seat with a cherry-blossom view months in advance and enjoys the moment quietly over tea — someone who, they heard, prioritizes going "with people you enjoy being with" over whether the blossoms are even in bloom. Both hosts admired this as "lovely." They also noted that they've both stopped taking photos of cherry blossoms and fireworks lately, having come around to the idea that "it's more beautiful just to look at it with your own eyes." They concluded that the real appeal of hanami, now that they're adults, is the rare chance to eat bento and snacks outdoors.

Unforgettable flavors from Hong Kong and Taiwan

In Hong Kong, they encountered a dish where a springy, chewy dough wrapped around youtiao (Chinese fried dough) with shrimp inside, served with a distinctive combination of three sauces — two kinds of soy sauce and a sesame sauce. They were surprised by the unusual way of eating it but ended up impressed by how good it was. In Taiwan, they were moved by a dish where fried dough is dipped into a warm, not-sweet, almond-tofu-style white soup. After returning to Japan, they mentioned this to a Taiwanese staff member at Yoshimoto, who insisted "no such thing exists in Taiwan," leading to a bit of a friendly dispute. They later found a similar shop in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.

A school-lunch email from a listener

The hosts read out an email from a young listener going by the radio name "Ninniku Mashimashiko." She wrote that her school lunches include crepes, blueberry tart, steamed buns, fruit, and a dish called "miso potato," a local specialty of her parents' hometown. The two hosts looked it up on the spot and discovered it's a B-grade local delicacy made of potato in a flour batter topped with sweet miso sauce, exclaiming that they wanted to try it. Anri reminisced about "komatsuna cake," a moist, delicious dish that used to appear in school lunches back in her hometown of Edogawa Ward. From there, the conversation moved on to memories of lunch duty, being the student who announced the day's menu over the school PA system, and dishes like ABC soup, wakame rice, curry-flavored fried liver, and coffee-flavored Tanabata jelly.