Our go-to to go food for parks.
Tamago-yaki. Mix an egg or two with some salt and sugar and some veggies like spinach for good measure. Use the special rectangular tamago-yaki fry pan that gives you a great way to pan fry, roll, fry, roll and repeat until you get a baumkuchen looking omelet. Slice into bite-sized pieces.
Tako-weiners. Slice the mini sausages you find here in half and then two cuts about halfway up at 90 degrees from each other. Toss in the fry pan or grill and watch at the cuts splay out and your left with an octopus (tako) looking sausage. Increase the cuts to four to get the true 8 legged beast.
Onigiri. Rice balls. We use a few different furikake mixes (rice toppings). Wrap with nori (seaweed). Recommend getting an onigiri press if you don’t have one already. Using some saran wrap around each rice ball also saves you a lot of sticky headaches later when you unpack the lunch.
Anything on top of these 3 just adds to the fun. All can be consumed with your hands or toothpicks, so utensils are kept to a minimum.
Cherry blossom season is just around the corner and you’ll find many folks with the above tucked away in their picnic baskets or furoshikis. Especially those with children. So grab your beer, any of the above, and few more delectables and enjoy this great time of year.