As I’ve written before, I’ve been looking for a good source of pimenton, that lovely smoked hot paprika from Spain. And though it is very hard to find in Tokyo, I did find an importer who had some and was selling. It was, in fact, almost comically like a drug purchase.

I went to the importer’s office, which was really an apartment in a building in Kami-Meguro. It didn’t feel like a business at all, but like visiting someone’s home. When I was presented with the spice, it was not pre-packaged–it was put into a ziploc. And I almost laughed when they guy opened the baggie and invited me to take a taste. “Mmmm,” I thought. “Some good quality shit here. I’ll take half a kilo.” I swear, that’s how it came down. The illusion shattered when they gave me a printed receipt.

I’m not sure why they had to use the baggie, but it may have been because I wanted the picante, the hot pimenton, rather than the dulce, or “sweet.” Apparently most people in Japan who use the stuff prefer the sweet variety; the importer told me that when he makes chorizo, he uses the hot variety. Thus he probably was selling me his leftover “stash” from making chorizo. If I’d wanted dulce, they could have sold it to me in the bag from the maker, La Dalia.

And when he mentioned that he made chorizo, my ears perked up, and when I asked, he happily showed me the different kinds he made, proudly pointing out that there are no additives used in his product. In Spain, where he lived for five years, he says the chorizo usually is made with chemicals to preserve it. So I wound up buying a kilo of those (which was a lot more expensive than the pimenton). When I got home and tasted it, it was good, but not as good as other chorizo I’ve had. He may have varied the recipe to better suit Japanese tastes (though it is far, far closer to Spanish chorizo than the bland stuff they call “chorizo” in stores here), or the chorizo may have been intended more for cooking than for eating straight, which I prefer. I’ll be trying the chorizo in future cooking attempts, see how it works out.

In any case, if you want some pimenton at a reasonable price in Tokyo, try Mr. Hiroshi Ojima at Serrano–but call first (03-3713-2171) to see if he has what you want. If you want to know how to get there, drop a comment and ask for directions (leave an email address, masking it if you like with a URL; if you do that, the email address is secure. You can also ask me to immediately delete the comment as well).