Okinawan Goya Shikuwasa Honey Soda by Karii (and a small feature on Jimami Tofu)

I had a few exposures to Okinawan cuisine previously, including the time I posted about Peanut Tofu (Jimami Tofu) from Nirai Kanai, but it remains a very unusual and underrepresented type of Japanese cuisine overall, especially outside of Japan like in Singapore. So since it's so rare, I made it a point to try some unique offerings when a new Okinawan eatery Karii popped up at Suntec City. It was a satisfying visit as I found a couple of new treasures that tickled my brain and tastebuds.

The first was a drink, called Goya Shikuwasa Honey (Soda). Goya is the Okinawan word for what is known as bitter gourd in Southeast Asia and shikuwasa is also known as the Okinawan lime. It differs from other lime varieties by being relatively complex in flavour - floral in aroma and bitter, and also slightly sweet when fully ripe. Other sites describe it as a cross between a lemon, lime and tangerine, not as bright as a calamansi, but deeper and darker due to its citrusy bitterness. Combine these two fruits together with honey, soda water and salt, and you get this amazing drink.

Okinawan Goya Shikuwasa Honey Soda by Karii

My first simple reaction as soon as it hit my palate was that it was incredibly refreshing and well balanced - no complaints whatsoever.

When I break down what was so satisfying about it, I would say that it has a highly unusual and perfectly balanced combination of all the 4 major tastes - sweet, sour, bitter and salty. If you want to add "spicy" as well, that might possibly be represented in a fashion by the bite of the carbonated soda water.

The Shikuwasa fruit is itself already incredibly complex, with sweet, sour and bitter elements, blended together in its herby citrus notes. To me, the shikuwasa flavour was a cross between a calamansi lime and a yuzu. It had a distinct and prominent floral citrus fragrance, much more fragrant and delicate than local calamansi, Vietnamese lime used in soda chanh or lemon. So it's closer to yuzu in that respect. But it also had a very deep and dark element with bitter woody notes not found in calamansi, lime or lemon, but found in some measure in yuzu. This in itself was a fascinatingy delightful experience that carried the entire drink and totally worth the price.

The goya and honey were perfect and thoughtful complementary elements, with the goya deepening the woody bitterness of the shikuwasa and the honey refining its sweetness. The slightly grassy and green goya broadened out the woody dark base herby notes of the shikuwasa very delicately. And the honey broadened the brighter top notes of the shikuwasa's floral notes and sweetness.

Although there are so many complexities, because of how they spread out in the palette of taste, they neither clash with nor mask each other, but fully complement each other for a very full experience. I think it also helps that there's nothing overpowering the heart or body notes such as milk or anything, so everything is very well balanced and equalised, and these delicately complex top and base notes aren't overpowered by anything big in the middle.

The overall balance of the 4 tastes also felt very even. The most prominent was probably the salt, but it didn't feel overpowering. Sweetness came in just under the salt, and the bitterness and sourness just under that.

As you can also see from the photo, the goya was blended or crushed, not juiced, so there were little bits of goya pulp and fibre floating around. It provided an interesting occasional vegetable crunch here and there, and it was in just the right amount - enough to play and stimulate your teeth with but not enough to disturb you or stop you from chugging the drink down if you're thirsty. 

I usually avoid carbonated drinks like a plague because of how bad they are for the teeth, and because I dislike the bite of the gas and the discomfort of gas in the stomach. But this is one carbonated drink I'm seriously thinking of ordering again.

Apart from that, I also got the Sata Andagi (Okinawan donuts) in original, purple sweet potato and Okinawan brown sugar flavours, which I will feature next time, the mozoku tempura (which was terribly and I didn't feel worth featuring) and the jimami tofu, which I touch on below.

Here's a photo of everything I ordered.

Okinawan Goya Shikuwasa Honey Soda, Jimami Tofu, Sata Andagi and Mozoku Tempura by Karii

And here's a screenshot of their online menu featuring the items I ordered (click to enlarge). You can see the prices of each. S$2.50-2.80 for the snacks and S$6.80 for the drink, then you need to add on the taxes and service charges that come with dining in. The bill came up to around S$18.

Karii Menu - screenshot of page 1

Jimami Tofu (or peanut tofu or peanut curd)

Jimami Tofu at Karii

Finally, I would have featured this separately if I hadn't covered it before, because it was so delightful and refreshing that I finished it despite already feeling quite full. I would say that it is the best cold tofu I've ever had, better even than any cold agedashi tofu I've had. (My earlier post has more details on how it differs from normal soybean tofu.)

Firstly, similar to the one from Nirai Kanai, this one had that complex and rich but non-creamy taste of thickly boiled peanut soup with the peanut skin on - woody, earthy with a tiny refreshing hint of metallic notes. So in terms of taste, it wasn't as homogeneous as the normal soybean tofu, with less intense middle body notes, and a more spread out complex base of woody and earthy notes. 

Next, and this part seemed better than the jimami tofu I had at Nirai Kanai - the texture wasn't like tofu at all, but was like a stretchy and slightly chewy jelly, something like a diluted, light and refreshing konyaku jelly, but stretchy and with some bite like a warabimochi. Check out how the stringy sliver of jimami tofu that doesn't break even when pulled by the spoon in the photos below.

Jimami Tofu at Karii - stretchy texture
Jimami Tofu at Karii - stretchy jelly-like texture

Paired with the slightly sweet soy sauce (which reminded me of a Hong Kong style light soy sauce used for vegetables and fish) and the cold ginger with warm notes, it made for a very refreshing and complex experience in the mouth. Specifically, the refreshing elements would be the salt in the soy sauce, the cooling earthiness in the peanut notes, the herby fragrance in the ginger's top notes and the comforting chewy bite that made for an amazing combination. Great top note fragrance and earthy depth overall. And all these elements are complex in their own right, so they fill out the mouth very well.

If you're feeling a bit peckish and want to cool down over a savoury but light snack, definitely get this Goya Shikuwasa Honey Soda and Jimami Tofu together.

Discover other Okinawan, citrus or vegetable-based treats

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