The other day I found this fish-based treat in the snack aisle of a Japanese market that just opened in my neighborhood. Gotta love the packaging. It might look like a bad-ass gang tattoo related to murdering someone, but I'm pretty sure the teardrop coming from the pepper-person's eye is supposed to indicate that the dried slices of kawahagi, or file fish, are so coated with red pepper that they cause watery eyes and spontaneous combustion. Tonight I dug it out of the cupboard for a midnight snack. The package bears an English transliteration at the top edge, "Kimuchi-kawahagi." This I take to mean kimchi-flavored file fish. I didn't find it homicidally spicy. The translucent slices of chewy fish had just enough red pepper flakes to cause a pleasant tingle. Each bite had a perfect balance of fishiness, heat, sweetness and saltiness: all of which spells drinking snack. Add to this a sprinkling of sesame seeds and soon I found myself with a half empty bag. I think I'll save the rest for another night.
My friend the lovely Yukari Rymar took me shopping at the Japanese supermaker last week, and in addition to the okonomayaki which you'll learn all about in my next post, I bravely picked up an assortment of "dried fish snacks" on her assurance they were perfectly safe and that there was no "thing" one was supposed to remove before eating, such as the eye or "inner vein," an anxiety which had prevented me from buying them before. 
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