Rubber ducks in Osaka

Florentijn Hofman is a Dutch artist who has made a name for himself for his playful, big installations. He's most famous for his gigantic rubber ducks. The rubber ducks have invaded several cities around the world - and this month, one of them has been invited to the city of Osaka, Japan as part of their Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2013 Festival. One of Hofman's rubber ducks has already visited Osaka before. Here are a couple of photos (you can see more on his site):

I really like this one, with the duck set against the Osaka skyline at sunset.

But why am I talking about a rubber duck installation on a food site? It's because the Rihga Royal Osaka hotel has introduced a Rubber Duck Plate to commemorate the event. It features an omurice (rice stuffed omelette) shaped like its much bigger cousin. And it is adorable.

When I saw the image above, which has been on several Japanese news sites, I thought at first that the duck's head was a plastic one placed on top of an omelette, because it looked so perfect. I should have known better than to underestimate the capacity for creating edible kawaii-ness of Japanese chefs, whether professional or amateur. The head is also made of omelette!

I think the eyes are blobs of "sauce", and the beak is made out of glazed carrot. On a kawaii scale of 1 to 10, I give it an 11.

The Rubber Duck Plate costs 2,000 yen (about US $20), and is limited to 20 servings a day. It's available until December 30th at the All Day Dining Remone restaurant in the Rihga Royal Osaka. If you go and have one...I want to see your pics!

(h/t to Maki Ogawa who posted a link to this story of her Facebook. ^_^)

I really want to thank everyone for your kind comments to my previous post. I really don't want to talk about these things too much, because I know it's depressing to hear about other people's illnesses. But truly, your support really means so much to me. Arigatou, minasan. ^_^