WTF?! I’ve been interested in getting some real wasabi for years, but I’ve never heard of this place even though I LIVE IN HALF MOON BAY.
Thanks - but my experience here in KY is that it grows OK for a year or two then begins dying out. Haven’t harvested any roots to date.
Might try a different location.
Thanks for this list! I actually bought #5 at a Mariano’s a couple of weeks ago, It his me EXACTLY like the “Wasabi” I get at places like Wu’s House.
Yes, I’ve heard that the delicate growth/survival properties of Wasabi are very challenging challenging. I guess that’s why they use “pseudo Wasabi” in restaurants.
I believe they’re talking about horseradish in that post, but you’re right. For the longest time, it was thought that it could only be grown in Japan, or at least that’s what a mid-2000s Saveur magazine article profiling an Oregon-based company that cracked the wasabi-growing code wrote. It’s very temperamental.
A heist movie where a ragtag band of messageboard misfits conspires to steal a fortune in rare delicacy sinus roots right out of the soil. Intrigue, betrayal, romance. ***.5 - Rated R, not suitable for younger or more sensitive viewers.
But have you ever COOKED with it? 
Well, darn. I went out to Mitsuwa after work on Thursday but got skunked. Here’s the empty spot, I wish I could have described the flavor!
Oh, wow, that’s disappointing! I hope you didn’t travel a long way. It would be a long round trip disappointment for me in that regard.
Oh, my kids love Mitsuwa and (several miles east) Hello Tokyo (a kind of Japanese discount store, maybe like a Five Below but most stuff is more expensive.) Mitsuwa’s food court is fun. I love it too, but it’s a bit of a haul from Midway to Arlington Heights. Luckily, lots of stuff to enjoy even if what you’re looking for is missing. We bought some very thinly sliced wagyu a5 for like $30-40 at, what was it, $120/lb or something like that to try. If you’ve never had the ultra-fatty, legit a5 wagyu (I think it may have been marked kobe), it’s an interesting treat. One young daughter called it the best steak she’d ever had; the other said she preferred regular steak. I have to say, if I’m going to eat quantities of steak, a nice prime dry-aged ribeye is by far my preference, but for little tiny slices, two or three pieces of a5 is quite nice.
Thanks for the info. I have had Kobe beef “sliders” and, I must say, it’s not worth the $120 a pound price to me because of the taste. It’s not a “bad” taste, just different in a way that I don’t really care for. I’ll take a good Angus any time.
Those are probably American Kobe, which is a different beast. Ground American Kobe is like $10-12/lb. A clue would be how much you paid for those sliders, but I remember “Kobe” being around in the mid-2000s at a lot of middle-of-the road bars where you can get a Kobe burger and a can of PBR for $10. That was not Japanese A5 $120/lb+ meat. American Kobe is often a cross between Wagyu and Angus. I honestly couldn’t tell much of a difference. I remember liking them fine, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had any burger advertised as Kobe or American Wagyu. True Kobe beef is only available at a few dozen American establishments, to my understanding. So when I say the beef may have been labeled “Kobe” at Mitsuwa, it’s really more for marketing purposes. But Wagyu A5 does have a consistent and established meaning, or at least it should.
The main issue I had with the Japanese Wagyu is that it is, unsurprisingly, so very, very rich. I love fatty food, but this was even a bit much for me to eat in quantity.
ETA: I looked back at two pictures on my camera roll of Mitsuwa’s Wagyu taken a couple years apart, and they did not have “Kobe” on the label, just “Wagyu” and they were at $127.99/lb and $119.99/lb.
I was unfortunately not in a food browsing mood during my visit and now regret that I didn’t look at ANY meats. I did spend quite a long time looking at housewares. I also completely forgot about the book & stationary store near the front. To be honest, my Mitsuwa visit was distracted by the Guitar Center immediately across the street and I was in a hurry to get out of there.
Hello Tokyo is a favorite of mine but be sure to check Jungle of Niles next time. It’s in the same strip, a very weird store. There’s also a newer Daiso-branded Japanese dollar store in the same plaza as the (enormous) Niles Super HMart, nearby at Oakton & Waukegan.
No big deal, I was driving the camper from Mexico City to Vancouver so took the quick detour to check the store for you.
Oh, we are familiar with them, too. We have some kind of palm (I think) in the front room from them.
This is generally true. Fortunately, around here the restaurant chain “The Keg”, which makes proper super-hot horseradish that they serve with their roast beef specialty, distributes their horseradish at retail and you can buy it in supermarkets. It’s the only kind I buy.
As for wasabi, I have a couple of very small tins of wasabi powder, but checking the ingredients, it’s just the imitation stuff. It consists of ground dried horseradish, plus some mustard seed and colouring. Imitation though it may be, it’s very hot and a fine addition to store-bought sushi or smoked salmon.
Aw, thanks! 
That’s quite a drive!
I work out in the subs just west of O’Hare. Looking again at a map, Mitsuwa is almost due North of work. It’s a little out of the way so I hope I forget all about this wasabi hunt.
Back to horseradish: I saw some refrigerated (edit: not at Mitsuwa), a little glass jar with a plain paper label, ingredients hr, vinegar & salt. It looked like it meant business and is like $1.19.
There was also a refridgerated creamybone (typo retained, lol) with soybean oil and other junk, $3.49. I like those, too, but it really is a different thing.
I also noticed several shelf stable Polish import jars