Have you ever seen a smiley wasabi? Let me show you. This is Yang Mama Japanese stand up meal eatery and is located in a traditional market in Taiwan. Stand up meal 立食 originates from Japanese culture in the old days, with stalls selling tea to passerby's. Since it's a quick drink, no seating was available and customers would stand and drink it. Actually, this is very similar to say Italians having an espresso at a café in the morning, or Brits having a beer in the pub in the evening. Often they'd just stand at the counter to have their drink. Back to Japan, the stand up thing evolved over the years and more eateries began offering this type of service.
I'm not sure why Yang Mama calls her place a stand up meal as it was all sit down, albeit not many seats. Maybe she started off as a very small stand up place and just kept the brand. She even has her own cartoon character, and the tag line "it's worth standing because it taste so good"
This place is actually quite a well known eatery, just look at all the celebrities and politicians that have visited. The guy in the top right corner photo is the mayor of Taipei city, and the woman in the bottom right is the ex vice President of Taiwan.
Back to the food. I sat at the counter in front of the fridge and Yang Mama (on the left) was working in the other side. Although I couldn't see her working clearly, I got a pretty good view, plus sight of all the fresh produce.
The quality of the food was perfect, she didn't skim on quality just because she was located in a traditional market. Likewise the presentation was immaculate. I love Japanese food, and this was absolutely delicious. Price wise, it was cheaper than normal sit down restaurants of course, as it was located in a traditional market, and had none of the fancy decor.
I promised you a smiley wasabi at the beginning of the post. Here it is. Normally we're just given a blob of green wasabi. Here they moulded it into a little ball and imprinted a smiley face on top. How cute is that!!!
MARCH HPUD GUESSING CONTEST
Now you've seen how cute wasabi can be, it's time to show you how much a piece of good quality real wasabi plant will cost. The answer to my March HPUD Guessing contest is NTD300.
This month I had a very good turnout of 31 entrants. However due to my bad, I didn't get around to responding and upvoting some of your comments, so sorry for that. I have rectified that by upvoting either your recent meaningful post or comment where possible. Of course, I know you all join my monthly HPUD Guessing Contest because you love to engage and have some silly fun, and not because I upvote your entry comment 😉
Back to the results, we have 5 correct entries this month. Congrats to 
Thanks again to everyone who entered this month and your diligent detective work to try to work out the correct answer!! I hope to see you again next month.
