Marumiya Tenshinhan Crab Omelette Rice Bowl 305g

This is a soft-set egg omelette over Japanese short-grain rice under a thick, glossy sauce, with the rice already in the box. The topping is soy, sesame oil and a stock of chicken, pork and bonito, a dried fish, thickened so it clings to the rice. If you want a hot Chinese-style meal out of the cupboard in about three minutes, this is it.

丸美屋 天津飯. Marumiya tenshinhan. Search that word and four of the first ten results are a Dragon Ball character; the dish is the older one. The name means "Tianjin rice", after the Chinese port city, though the dish itself was invented in Japan. If you know egg foo young you are close: the names share a root, and this is that idea served over rice.

What you're getting

• Not the sweet-and-sour one. This is the thing to know before you open it: Japan has more than one tenshinhan sauce, and the one Australians tend to picture, the red, tangy, sweet-vinegar sauce, is a different one. Read this pack's ingredients and there is no vinegar, no ketchup and no tomato in the topping at all: it is built on soy, sesame oil and a savoury stock instead.
• The egg stays soft. Marumiya's own word for it is funwari, light and airy, and reviewers say it comes out of the microwave neither dry nor hard.
• The rice comes with it. Inside the box is a sealed bowl of Japanese short-grain rice and a separate pouch of topping: you are not buying a sauce to pour over rice you cooked yourself.
• The crab is crab stick: kanikama, a crab-flavoured fish cake, not crab meat. It is made with crab and the pack declares crab, so it is not safe for a crab allergy.
• It is a modest bowl: a 305 g pack, 160 g of it rice. Right for a desk lunch or a lighter dinner, and a big appetite will want something alongside.
• Allergens: contains egg, wheat, crab, sesame, soy and fish. Japanese labels don't have to flag fish as an allergen, so the pack names it only in its ingredient list (bonito, the crab stick's fish paste). If you avoid it, look for it by name in the ingredients. Chicken and pork are in it too.

Heating it, and one step worth getting right: peel the lid right off the rice bowl, tip the pouch of topping over the rice and level it out, then rest the lid back on loosely. It will not re-seal, and it is not meant to. The pouch itself never goes in the microwave. The pack's own guide is about three minutes at 500W, or two and a half at 600W: it also lists roughly a minute and a half at 1000W. If your microwave is more powerful than the pack assumes, use the shorter time and check the middle before you stir. Never use an oven or a toaster oven, never heat it with the lid still sealed, and skip the microwave's automatic reheat setting: the maker warns it overheats the bowl. There is a stovetop route too, and its rule is the opposite: the rice bowl goes into boiling water with its lid still on for about fifteen minutes, and the topping pouch goes in unopened for five.

It lives in the cupboard, not the fridge, nothing here needs refrigerating until you open it. The whole carton folds flat when you are done.

Curious about the crab stick itself? Our guide Seafood sticks: Japan's kanikama, and what's really in them explains what it is made of and why crab still shows on the label.