KOMONO, Mie -- A restaurant that specializes in jinenjo Japanese yam dishes has developed a new drink featuring tororo grated yams that can be slurped up through a straw.
Called Suutoro, the drink was developed while the restaurant Chacha in Komono, Mie Prefecture, was temporarily closed due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
It's hard to keep tororo fresh, so the restaurant created a prototype bento box in which tororo was kept in a separate container and poured over the rice.
During this process, and inspired by popular tapioca drinks, the restaurant eventually decided to develop "drinkable tororo rice."
Suutoro uses the same secret soy sauce-based sauce as for the tororo, but features a different combination of mixed rice.
Originally, a mixture of 70% polished rice and 30% rolled barley was served to customers. However, Suutoro uses 100% mochi sticky barley for a crunchy texture.
The drink is prepared by combining broth with grated yams and mochi barley in a drink container and topping it with finely chopped takuan pickled daikon radish and seaweed.
Like a tapioca drink, it's drunk through a wide straw.
It's important to enjoy Suutoro slowly, as there's a risk of choking if it's drunk too fast.
"I want everyone to see the potential in tororo dishes," said store manager Katsumi Ito. One serving of Suutoro is 500 yen before tax.
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