---
title: Okinawan zenzai
url: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/okinawan-zenzai/
lang: en
journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/okinawa-kominka/
---

# Okinawan zenzai

A little of each town’s story　/　Motobu, Okinawa

In Okinawa, zenzai is a cold dessert: shaved ice piled over sweetly simmered kintoki beans. Its roots are traced to amagashi, an Okinawan sweet of mung beans and barley simmered and served cool. After the war, mung beans gave way to kintoki beans because of supply conditions, but the method of simmering the beans soft in brown sugar was kept, and topping them with rice dumplings or shaved ice became the norm.

## This moment in the journey: Over the bridge for zenzai

The weather was fine, warm enough to call it hot, so I crossed the Kouri Bridge to go and eat zenzai. In Okinawa, zenzai means shaved ice.

At the end of a lane leading down to the sea stood a little shop with banners out front, and a heaping bowl of shaved ice arrived. On top sat sweetly simmered kintoki beans and rice-flour dumplings, with the deep scent of brown sugar. I ate it spoonful by spoonful, looking past the palm fronds at the blue sea and the bridge.

![A heaping Okinawan zenzai topped with kintoki beans and dumplings](https://karigurashijourney.com/img/okinawa-kominka/s38-1200.jpg)
- Sources: https://macaro-ni.jp/89789

Read this scene in the full journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/okinawa-kominka/