Author: derviropor1979

First off, I have been to Japan many times, and have even lived there in for a year. I have had authentic Japanese food from their convenience stores (Lawson's, 7/11, Family Mart), their many restaurants, and have tried my own hand at making them. I...had wanted to order from here because I was especially excited about their donburi, curry pan, onigiri, and melon pan. I wanted a taste of Japan since it doesn't look like I (or anyone) will be travelling there any time soon. However, I was actually majorly disappointed. The donburi was a tempura donburi. Even with covid, and it having to be delivered, I feel that the batter used for the tempura was not well made. Usually with any tempura, the fried batter feels very light, not greasy, and does not leave me feeling sick. This tempura did. The batter felt very heavy, was greasy, and made me feel greasy on the inside. The curry pan was especially disappointing. Given its huge size, you would think you're getting your money's worth. Instead, you get 75% dough (that isn't even soft in the inside, it feels almost tough like it's been sitting out for a while) and 25% filling. If you Google authentic curry pan, you'll see you get more meat than filling. I was looking forward to this the most, so this sorely disappointed me because it's like you're eating mostly tough dough for $4.50. I didn't even finish it. The only thing that was redeeming about this was its crunch. And finally, the onigiri. Wow, was this huge too. The rice felt hard, and similar to the curry pan, it was more rice to filling. (80% rice, 20% filling.) What's more is that the filling (I had the tuna mayo) was very dry. Regular onigiri in Japan are actually small and thinner in width. The ones at Dwarf were made almost with the idea, "if it's bigger, it'll be better" so as to justify the price. Not true at all. You can buy smaller onigiri in Japanese convenience stores for about $1.25 each, and you get an equal ratio of rice to filling. If I wanted to pay almost $4 for what was mostly rice, I'd make my own rice at home and have tuna on the side. That was definitely a waste of money, and I doubt I'll be coming back. So again, I ask: is it really authentic? And if it's not authentic, is it really worth the money? I'd say it isn't. Either do your research on good Japanese food in Winnipeg, or wait until covid is over and save enough money to one day go to Japan to try the real stuff.