In December last year, I posted about my latest culinary obsession; My Boom of Chinese Chili Oil mixed with garlic, onion and other tasty stuff ( 具入りラー油) which can be put on basically anything to spice things up quite a bit (post here). I still love the stuff and in the Salaryman-Sunshine household, we probably work our way through one can a week at least (and it's only me having it since it's a bit too spicy for Mrs. Sunshine). In the corner of my eye, I've been noticing how this trend I started with my post has started to snowball out of control with one of the big morning shows (Mezamashi TV) doing a feature on this stuff about a month ago about how popular it has become and how great it goes with most stuff, also various cooking shows have featured how to make this by yourself.
This, I don't really mind, it's nice to see that people share my taste in food here in Japan, but recently when we've been out shopping groceries and I've been looking to stock up on the stuff it's been sold out. Since I always have a bit of back-up, it hasn't been a real problem until recently, when, after checking several weeks in a row, no store has had the stuff in stock. Since the stock level now had reached critical levels (basically only left to spice up one more meal) Mrs. Sunshine-Salaryman tried to procure it through the Internet, checking both Amazon.co.jp and the company that manufacture my favorite brand (and other brands online shops too) and was met with "SOLD OUT" signs everywhere...
Now I'm at running out of options and might face going cold turkey on the stuff until production can be geared up to meet the growing demand out in the market... If only I wasn't such a trendsetter... Maybe I should go up to Saitama or somewhere out in the countryside where the big city trends takes half a year or so to reach, I'm sure they have plenty of stock up there left in the supermarkets...
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5 comments:
Is the guy in teh comercial good looking by japaneese standards or is he just a celebrity?
I guess reshipping it from another country isn't an option, eh?
http://www.amazon.com/Lee-Kum-Kee-Chiu-Chili/dp/B000F04SRQ
The shipping is expensive even here, though.
Also, some stores here will go out of their way to make customers happy, including ordering and reserving some of a product just for you. Have you tried asking if they'll do that for you?
Manboy - Hmmm no idea who is to be honest, but looks more funny than handsome...
William - Well, I'll give it another few weeks, but then I might try direct import... I mostly buy it at supermarkets and I don't think the problem is that they've stopped selling it, it's more that there's bigger demand than supply at the moment, so probably won'T help to ask nicely even if they want to help...
Doesn't hurt to try, though. Thinking it won't do any good here is what enables my mom to reserve things that are going to sell out. Everyone else deals with empty shelves while she take home a whole case of whatever is on sale. Hehe.
Plenty of stocks at the shop located in Ueno station. 598 yen.
Small shop selling imported food stuffs (name is Coffee), 1 floor down from Hard rock
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