Fruit Tomatoes (2009-03-13)
Furutsu tomato (fruit tomatoes) are highly prized and highly sought after tomatoes here. They are hard to come by and more often than not, are only seen in high-end restaurants. One fruit tomato usually costs a few bucks in specialty shops and I'm not sure I wanna find out if they're really worth their price.
But then came the fusoroi furutsu tomato!
I found a shop in Tsukiji (
) selling these little gems by the box online
for just 1500Yen/US$16.3! My head instantly flashed "Must Try!
Must Try!", so I ordered a box together with a small box of Annouimo from them.
The website does say although their shape is not perfect, the taste is
in no way affected, alright!
They arrived neatly packed and cushioned. The tomatoes were
hard like apples, perhaps they're not fully ripe yet? Eaten raw,
we were quite disappointed. The skin was tough and the flesh was
no sweeter than a common tomato from the supermarket.
I then skinned and halved one and seared it in a hot pan and it just
turned into something sensational! I've never eaten tomatoes that
taste like THAT! The tomato flavor has deepened a thousand times
and it's become very very sweet. Was it the searing process that
has completely changed the chemical make-up of the fruit? (last time I
checked, tomato is a fruit, not vegetable)
Anyway, we are just overwhelmed by their flavor and fragrance and sweetness. If the shop continues to sell them at a third of the market price, I plan to continue buying from them.
Back to top
