Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Japanese soy sauce company near Seattle

The other day, my elderly Japanese neighbor told me about a local Japanese soy sauce store in Bellevue which is a 30 minutes drive from Seattle. I love to have Japanese soy sauce from a small producer. I asked her to take me to the store. The maker is Kamada Soy sauce or Kamada America. Unfortunately we found out the store portion was closed. I decided to knock the door to the office to find out if we can order the soy sauce today. A Japanese lady opened the door for us. My neighbor told her that she learned about their soy sauce from her friend who owned a good Japanese restaurant and used to buy their soy sauce before. She loves their soy sauce and was disappointed to find out the store was closed. The lady from the Kamada America was apologetic that orders need to be made by fax or internet. She gave us order form. I asked if we can fill the order information and pay it today. She was kind to accept my proposal. I ordered Koikuchi Soy which includes 7 small boxes(200ml) of original soy sauce and Gourmet set which includes Dashi soy, Ponzu and Salad soy. Dashi is concentrated version of Japanese soup, Ponzu is generally made of citrus fruit, vinegar, Japanese soup and soy sauce, and Salad soy seems to be soy sauce based salad dressing. It is costly ($15.75 +shipping for Soy sauce set 1400ml ) comparing buying soy sauce (less than $10,for 1000ml) made by major company at the grocery store. My neighbor told me she only uses this soy sauce and Dashi for the special occasions.

My orders were arrived yesterday. I poured Dashi soy sauce over my fried tofu and made teriyaki fish with original soy sauce. Kamada's koikuchi soy sauce or original soy enhanced the tofu taste and fish was delicious. Only thing that I may warn some people is that Dashi soy sauce contains MSG as most Asian soup does. Kamada’s Original soy sauce is darker brown than one made by a large soy sauce maker. Its ingredients of the soy sauce are Soybeans, wheat, water, salt, and alcohol. According to the box, it was made of organic soybeans and produced using Japanese traditional method. Although I need to test this fancy soy sauce for my various recipes, so far I love using Kamada soy sauce and convenient Dashi to my cooking.

4 comments:

gilda92 said...

Fumiko
Interesting article about "home made" soy sauce. Do you know the South River Miso company in MA?
www.southrivermiso.com
They make organic miso by hand in the farmhouse tradition. I buy all my miso from them. They will deliver to Canada in the winter but not in the summer--too hot. Their 3-year miso is great, and their sweet white miso amazing!
Gilda

gilda92 said...

Fumiko
On a completely different subject: I just bought a Zojirushi Thermal cooker. I used it yesterday to make vegetable soup. Wow!
Do you have any experience with thermal cook pots? I'd love some expert advice.
Gilda

fumikob said...

Hi, Gilda.
I often use my rice cooker and crock Pot. Unfortunately I have no experience using Thermal Cooking Pot. Zojirushi America website(http://www.zojirushi.com/ourproducts/restaurantproducts/snaeb.html). , Zojirushi Stainless Thermal Cooking Pot is listed as one of ‘Restaurant & Hospitality products’. You have a fancy professional cooking tool saving energy! This may be great way to cook beans. I was thinking of using crock pot to cook beans after I learned that tender cooked Kuromame (Black soy beans) from my Japanese neighbor was cooked in her crock pot.

fumikob said...

Gilda
I didn’t know about South River Miso Company. It is interesting to learn American couple decided to make Miso in Japanese traditional way. Hikari Miso website shows large company's Miso production line: http://www.hikarimiso.com/process/index.html.
My mother in Japan makes her Miso from home grown soy beans. It was healthy and delicious and lower in salt.