Kurt's Thoughts

Wait.  Give me a chance to explain before you click the back button.  My wife and I have made a discovery that may sound odd but stay with me and I think you might give this a try.

We’ve been eating “Organic Tofu Spaghetti” for the past couple years since we discovered it.  It went off the market for a little bit but much to our delight it’s back. 

Tofu Spaghetti looks and for the most part tastes exactly like normal spaghetti.  It comes in straight dried sticks that you boil in water.  It is a yellowish color when dry and whitish when soft.  There’s a couple of differences however that are noteworthy:

• FIRM
  Tofu Spaghetti has a firmness that’s really really nice.  It reminds me of the firmness of Japanese soba (buckwheat) noodles and makes spaghetti eating more “substantial” than softer noodles.
• PROTEIN
  There’s 8g of protein in each serving.  After all – it’s tofu, right?
• NO ‘EXPANSION’
  Have you ever eaten pasta or a bread and felt it “expand” in your stomach after your meal giving you acid indigestion or and upset stomach?  Not with tofu spaghetti.  This stuff doesn’t expand despite having elements of wheat in there.  (Semolina)

WHERE DOES ONE GET IT FROM?
Well, that’s a good question.  The problem is the only place we’ve seen it show up is through direct sales from the bakery to Japanese groceries in Southern California.  They don’t appear to sell through major Japanese distributors like JFC or MTC and they don’t have a web site making tracking down this stuff difficult.  We’ve seen it at Marukai in Torrance and at Nijiya in West Los Angeles.  (Only recently)

The manufacturer appears to be:

• LL Bakery Inc.  Torrance, CA 90502
  http://www.yelp.com/biz/ll-bakery-inc-torrance

ACCEPT NO IMITATIONS!
I have to say this because I’ve eaten this other travesty that claims to be tofu spaghetti and instead it’s just YECCH.  There’s a Japanese company called House Foods which I actually really like and eat many of their products. 

They produce something called Tofu Shirataki and it’s just AWFUL.  It’s nothing like the Tofu Spaghetti mentioned above.  It’s made from Japanese Konnyaku and Yam.  Now personally I like Konnyaku in nishime while many don’t. 

The problem is that I don’t like it as a substitute for noodles.  These Tofu Shirataki noodles are slimy, they feel weird in your mouth particularly when you chew them, and they just don’t taste right – even with ragu sauce all over them.

I’m telling you now, and you’ll say I’m right if you try it anyway, don’t bother with this stuff.  I calls itself spaghetti noodles but it’s not.  It’s more like gelatinous strands of tasteless goo.