Yuri T.
Yelp
This tiny Japanese grocery store is in Japantown, about a block away from another grocery store, Nijiya Market. I have known this place for a while, but I hadn't frequented the place until I started living in SF last year. One day, I was trekking over to Nijiya Market and passed right on by this place. I stopped here on a whim and found that it sells various flavors of onigiris (rice balls), made on site. It also has other "homemade" lunch boxes and sides in the back of the store. Some of them are also good (e.g., potato salad - using Japanese kewpie mayonnaise!), but mostly, they seem overpriced.
I have also tried to buy regular packaged Japanese food (ranging from snacks to ramen noodles) when Nijiya was too crowded, but mostly, I couldn't bring myself to buy them here because everything was at least $0.25 more expensive (some things almost $1 more) than at Nijiya. OK, so I understand that perhaps being a small grocery store, it may have to pay more to stock the food, but who is actually willing to buy the same exact items available cheaper at a nearby place, where the extra $ would add up as you buy more? Not me. So over time, I've learned to only buy items that I could buy here.
So on Friday (1/29/21), I came here looking for tasty onigiris, since it was early enough in the day. I have come here in early afternoons many times in the past, only to find nothing or only a couple of them left with not my favorite flavors. Apparently, the store makes the onigiris in the morning and do not replenish. When I got there around 10:45 am, there were still plenty left. :) After a brief deliberation, I chose Beef Miso and Spicy Clam - happy because I was getting to try Spicy Clam, a flavor I have not seen/had here before. However, I found after the visit that I did not get the Spicy Clam after all - how tragic!! I pieced together what happened from the photo I have taken of the onigiri tray. Someone at the store apparently placed extra Tuna Mayo onigiris, which were in the next row to the Spicy Clam, onto the Spicy Clam section. Because I didn't think I had to check the individual label on the onigiri, I ended up taking the wrong item!! Although I like Tuna Mayo onigiri fine, it was such a disappointment. I wished the servers actually took care to keep the onigiris in their designated flavored locations...
OK, so now I will explain why Super Mira's onigiris are so appealing, even though they are again more expensive than at other stores (at $3.25, while other grocery stores charge $2.30-2.95). Mira has traditional flavors like Plum or Kombu, but also relatively creative flavors like Hotate (Marinated Scallops) and Spicy Clams. And it does not skimp on the filling. For example, Tuna Mayo had a huge scoop of tuna included in the onigiri. And the fillings are usually quite tasty - even Kombu, which is usually not my favorite. My only complaint in terms of onigiris themselves is that it doesn't have enough rice! A regular Japanese person living in Japan should have an experience of purchasing at least a few onigiris, typically at convenience stores. And I am sure that he/she would not have experienced witnessing extra folds of seaweed at the corners of onigiri, suggesting that the rice "ball" itself is too small for the seaweed (for those of you who are really curious should check out my review of the Clovery Bakery, where you can see the photo of its onigiris). Compared to the filling, I presume rice is cheap. So I am really curious - why skimp on rice, while being generous on the filling...? As someone who places importance on the proper ratio, I really want to know the logic behind it. :P
Not getting on the item I looking forward to trying made this visit not a pleasant experience.