Sunday, August 1, 2010

Tucked away in a corner of the Jumeriah Centre is Oishii Nippon.

At first glance, the small store looks more like an art gallery or a very discreet beauty salon - until you step closer and realise that the counter
in the front of the store is offering fresh fruit.

It’s the front for a delivery and take-away service that offers Japanese fruits as beautifully packaged and wrapped gift baskets. Oishii Nippon is sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to promote the country’s tasty and quirky fresh food.

Say it with an orange
The tradition of giving fruit baskets as presents for all occasions from thank you gifts to celebrating a pregnancy or a general festive occasion, goes back centuries in Japan. The fruit baskets were given by nobility to symbolise respect and warmth and the silk and hemp furoshiki cloths were originally used to wrap treasure in.

Fruit of the loom
Oishii Nippon’s gift baskets come in seven different sizes of boxes and baskets, but each one is tied in a stunning cloth furoshiki, which can be kept long after you’ve devoured what’s inside.

If you thought Japanese food started and ended with sushi and rice, think again. Japan is rightly proud of the fruits it produces, which are grown in special conditions that use the minimum amount of chemicals as possible.

Not treated as a mass market, the growers ensure that each piece of fruit is as sweet, juicy and nutritious as possible. Japan’s love of technology still gets a look in, as the fruits are scanned with lasers to ensure what’s in the inside is as perfect as the outside.

Your five a day
The baskets include Japanese Nashi pear which is sweeter and rounder than normal pears, Mandarin oranges, Kyoho, Kaiji and Rosario grape, Earl’s melon and persimmons.

Earl’s melon is an active anti-ageing agent and can help prevent colds and skin problems and persimmons (which looks a little like an orange tomato but has a crisp texture) are fab for detoxing and reducing high blood pressure. Finally, a gift basket that is good for you!

The staff in store are, in typical Japanese fashion, extremely polite and accommodating. All the fruits on offer can be sampled, and should be sampled - as well as being possibly the biggest and brightest fruit 7DAYS has ever seen, they taste divine. In a country where all our fresh food is mass produced and full of chemicals so it can be shipped halfway across the world, the fruits from Oishii Nippon taste more like refreshing sweets.

An apple a day...
Considering all the festive celebrations coming up between now and next year, Oishii Nippon is good to keep in mind, especially for those recipients who are watching what they eat, or for those friends (we’ve all got them) who have just about everything. If the sweet tasting super fruits were good enough for emperors of old, they’re good enough for your friend’s baby shower.

Sweet but pricey
A small wrapped gift basket containing only two pears and one persimmon costs dhs240 and a big wrapped basket with a melon, a pear, a bunch of Kyoho grapes and a persimmon costs dhs550!

Oishii Nippon can be found on the ground floor at the Jumeirah Centre, which is open Saturday - Thursday from 10am until  9pm and on Fridays from 4.30pm to 9pm. There’s also a branch in Abu Dhabi on the first floor at the Fotouh Al Khair Mall.