Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, December 8 – When “International” restaurants are mentioned around us, it often just means other Asian cuisine: Japanese, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. The Chinese seem to LOVE Japanese food, so, living in China, we have the benefit of having quite a few Japanese restaurants around. Japan is known for its “cute” food and “sushi art” and we have a chain of restaurants around that make some cute ‘onigiri’ or rice balls. No, they doesn’t taste any different, but it’s fun to eat cute food :-) Tonight, Leah and I had these little panda bear rice balls with little octopi tied on their backs! You can buy all kinds of molds and nori (seaweed) punches to help you make your own cute food at home too :-) Here’s a You Tube tutorial to show you how to make some panda onigiri . You can buy the mold and punch on Amazon! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONlY7hP426g