Whassaaabbiii

Wasabi is that lovely green pasty stuff in sushi. It's a type of horse radish, and often brings that sinus-clearing nose burn. Now, true wasabi affienados claim that true wasabi is much more subtle, with less of the burn.

Real wasabi, the kind still in the original root, is quite expensive. For about $5 you can get a few inches of wasabi root. As I am a cheapskate, I have made do with the powder.

But!! When Aaron n I ate lunch at a soba shop in Kansai Airport, we were given an entire wasabi root to grate into the soba! The extravagence continues-- each table has a stack of little wasabi root-sized take-out bags! Yes, you can take home your wasabi root and continue the luxury. So cool. Probably can't get it through immigration overseas, though.