Elbow shaped macaroni from Gyomu

Macaroni Elbows

Brand: Donna Chiara

Price: 138 yen

Place of purchase: Gyomu

Rating:

As much as I love the pasta sauces in Gyomu supermarkets, I love the pasta they sell too. Particularly the short pasta range. The size is ideal for my family of six. If I purchase short pasta in a local supermarket, I have to buy two packs and use one and half in, for example, a gratin dish. It is so much more convenient to be able to use just one pack. Not only is the size more convenient than what you can buy in most supermarkets, they have a better range of shapes too. Macaroni Elbows in fairness are quite easy to come by in any supermarket, but I like the size of the ones by Donna Chiara.

Of all the pasta shapes elbows are my least favorite, because the water gets stuck in the bend of the 'elbow' so they are harder to drain. The cooking time on them isn't bad at 8 minutes, but you can probably buy other brands with a shorter cooking time. I do prefer to buy local where possible, but with pasta it is still quite hard to do so in Japan. I do like that this product is from Italy, which makes it feel more 'authentic' and Gyomu do sell it at a reasonable price, but no doubt the fact that they are imported adds costs. However, overall, the price is far better than what I get in my local supermarket, where a 300 gram pack of macaroni costs 99 yen. This 500-gram pack is only 138 yen.