Kazuo Matsui loves iced green tea and udon noodles
I am so happy to have stumbled upon this information. Here are some things I lifted from Kim Nguyen's Colorado Springs Gazette article entitled Kaz: Poster boy for a community (it's about Rockies second baseman Kazuo Matsui and Denver's Sakura Square):
"He buys iced green tea all the time. He drinks that every day," Nagai said. {Kyle Nagai, manager of Pacific Mercantile Co., a Japanese grocery store that has been in Denver since 1944. }
"He buys vegetable a lot. Not too much junk food," store employee Setsuko Fisher said. "He don't stay for too long because he goes to practice or game, and we try not to bother him too much."
Behind Pacific Mercantile, traffic has also gone up at Yoko's Express restaurant, owned by Nagai's aunt -- another frequent haunt for Matsui. Nagai says the restaurant has received numerous calls from news outlets from New York, Los Angeles and Japan.
"There've been a lot of stories in the press about him eating there every day. His secret is out, but he seems to take it in stride and go with the flow," Nagai said.
At Yoko's Express, which Matsui has called his "Denver Mom," customers can now order the "Matsui Special": kitsune udon noodle bowl with pressed tofu and fried onions, a side salad, a rice ball wrapped in tofu and an iced green tea. It's the meal that No. 7 usually gets when he stops in, Nagai said.
"Sometimes he orders buckwheat noodles. He says it gives him power and energy," Nagai said. "He never drinks hot tea; we've offered it to him, but he's never taken it. But we found out that when he ordered his food, he'd go over to Pacific Mercantile to buy iced green tea and come back. Now we carry his brand of tea for him."
