Where can I find real wasabi?

[Chicagoan]

I love sushi, but like in the USA... I find here that most wasabi is horse radish with green coloring. Anyone know of any Japanese stores that sell the real stuff?

[iancnx]

Try a Japanese restaurant!

[PiPiFFS]

You can buy it at the local farang food store here on koh Tao so I would imagine it it readily available especially the likes of tesco, Makro, Tops etc

[pgrahmm]

Rim Ping has what appears to be the same brand I found in the US....in both powder and tube.....

I can't find Chinese Mustard here......

A good dipping sauce is Chinese Mustard (Wasabi here) mixed with Catsup......

Introduced to the family/wife here - hot to them in a different way and they like it.....

Edited September 27, 2014 by pgrahmm

[Chicagoan]

Most Japanese restaurants don't use real Wasabi (besides, I want it for home consumption) and most grocery stores like Big C and Tesco don't sell the real kind, either. If you read the box... it's horse radish. They usually sell them at small Japanese food shops. Just can't seem to find any in bkk...

Thanks, pgrahmm... I'll check Rim Ping.

[Rooo]

Moved to foreign food forum.

[Ulysses G.]

I hear this a lot, but it tastes fine to me. I wonder if I've ever had the real thing and I've had it all over the world, including Japan. do they sell fake wasabi there too?

[Thanet]

I hear this a lot, but it tastes fine to me. I wonder if I've ever had the real thing and I've had it all over the world, including Japan. do they sell fake wasabi there too?

I was also surprised to read that wasabi is notoriously hard to grow, very expensive, and that most people have probably only ever had fake wasabi.

The real thing, is less powerful, so I read.

[Chicagoan]

The green paste that usually comes with your sushi is rarely real wasabi. It's a combination of horseradish, Chinese mustard and green food coloring. The imitation is now so widely used & demand so high that with the exception of some of the top-flight restaurants (even in Japan), you'll often find the horseradish mixture instead. I've read that real wasabi is served in only about 5% of the restaurants in Japan and in the USA... I've only found real wasabi in LA and NYC.

I'm not seeking wasabi for its taste (although it obviously does taste much better). I seek it because of its amazing healing properties. It has aniti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-platelet and anti-cancer properties. There's a chemical in it called isothiocyanate that stops the growth of cancer by causing apoptosis (cell death) to cancer cells. Actually, wasabi has over 20 different isothiocyanates.

Here's why you want to include wasabi in your daily diet: (copy & pasting)

Isothiocyanate extracts from Wasabi have been proven effective against stomach cancers (Tanida et al. 1991, Fuke et al. 1994, Fuke et al. 1997, Shin and Lee 1998, Ono et al 1998), lung cancer (Yano et al. 2000) leukemia (Nakamura et al. 2001) and breast cancer (Nomura et al. 2005).

Furthermore, isothiocyanates from other sources, but also shown to be present in Wasabi (Ina et al. 1990, Sakura et al. 1993), have been found to be effective against lung and esophageal cancers (Stoner and Morse (1997), prostate cancer (Chiao et al.2000, Scott et al. 2000) and breast, forestomach and colon cancers (Wattenberg 1977, 1981). Numerous studies (Stoner et al. 1998, Hecht et al. 1996a and b, Hecht et al. 2000, Chung 2001) have shown isothiocyanates to block the cancer inducing effects of compounds that are associated with cigarette smoke. Included in these findings is the observation that the isothiocyanates may be effective in preventing cancer induction in both smokers and ex-smokers.

[AyG]

Gourmet Market sells real wasabi paste in small sachets. Imported from Japan and kept in the chiller cabinet. The price is as eyewatering as the taste.

[Suradit69]

You can buy it at the local farang food store here on koh Tao so I would imagine it it readily available especially the likes of tesco, Makro, Tops etc

It;s available in jars at Friendship in Pattaya ... unless I missed it, I didn't see any reference to where the O/P lives in Thailand.

Because i haven't wanted to buy any, I didn't try to determine if it was "real," by which presumably the O/P means in compliance with some original recipe since the jar certainly appeared to be a real jar with real contents.

Sounds like the Chicagoan is from the North Shore suburbs where such things weigh on people's minds.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Suradit69

[Chicagoan]

I'm in Bangkok.

I like to buy "real" and not imitation. It has nothing to do with me being "from the North Shore suburbs where such things weigh on people's minds". I just think that if I could consume "real" wasabi with the benefits of it being effective in fighting stomach cancer and lung cancer (medical studies cited above), then I want the real stuff. If you have no problem eating horseradish with food coloring and being told it's really wasabi, then be my guest.

[Ulysses G.]

I guess I've never had the real thing in the last 40 years that I've been eating Japanese food. i don't even want to try it as I'm perfectly happy with the "fake" (cheap) stuff.

[Chicagoan]

Yeah... well... I'm sure you'd get used to eating cat shit if you eat it long enough.

[rice555]

google "wasabi oregon", top 3 sites, but wasabi.com has bulk powder at $500+ @ 3Kg.

Another place has fresh root and leaves and will ship, if you want the real thing.

rice555

[Ulysses G.]

Yeah... well... I'm sure you'd get used to eating cat shit if you eat it long enough.

Maybe you would. Most people would get sick once and stop.