What is onigiri? Unique food vendor being featured at Modesto boba shop for a limited time
A Manteca husband and wife are teaming with a local boba shop to bring a relatively unique Japanese delicacy to Modesto.
Jonathan and Kim Pasamonte own Oni-gurus, a fusion catering business established in 2023 that sells onigiri and dessert. They’re serving their menu at Tealite Drinks and Snow for a pop-up event through Sunday.
While onigiri isn’t a unique Japanese food item, it is not a popular sell in Modesto. From what The Modesto Bee could find, the only place in the city that sells onigiri is Poke Bowl — and it sells only a sweet shrimp flavor.
“I think that we’re going to learn a lot of things, for example, the demand and the appetite that people have in Modesto for it,” Jonathan Pasamonte said.
What is onigiri?
“The Japanese best describe this dish as the sandwich of Japan,” Pasamonte said. It’s a rice “ball” (commonly found in a triangular shape) wrapped in seaweed and traditionally stuffed with salted plum, salmon, chicken teriyaki and more.
But Oni-gurus does it a little different. The filling for its onigiri is a fusion of flavors from different cultures.
The Pasamontes sell flavors including Korean chicken and beef bulgogi, Filipino pork adobo, Japanese sriracha crab and Korean kimchi pork.
“We have so many different types of flavors that we try,” Jonathan Pasamonte said. “All of them tend to get positive reception. It’s difficult for us because then we never know which ones are the best ones. ... It’s a good problem to have.”
The menu for the pop-up event will rotate daily, and the couple will introduce flavors they haven’t yet served.
The event at Tealite will be Oni-gurus’ first indoor pop-up in a retail spot. The couple typically have worked with breweries in the Bay Area.
“I want to work with people locally,” Pasamonte said. “I want to expose the community to more of this stuff because the Bay Area’s kind of got all of that already.”
Traditionally, onigiri is single layer with rice bedding and filling in the middle of it, but Oni-gurus makes its larger and with three layers. One layer is the filling, allowing consumers to get filling from the first bite.
The onigiri is $9 per piece, but with a Tealight drink purchase, $1 per piece will be discounted. There is also a three-for-$25 bundle.
Oni-gurus will be at 3848 McHenry Ave. , Suite 120, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
From kitchen catering to a possible brick and mortar
Kim Pasamonte has been in corporate dining for around a decade. Her husband describes her as an accomplished chef who can make virtually any type of food.
Her skill is what led to the couple to “unintentionally become caterers” in 2021, Jonathan said. They mostly do family events, but also corporate events, including one that sort of sparked the creation of Oni-gurus.
An Asian American Pacific Islander event they were hired for requested an assortment of Asian food, so the Pasamontes delivered with Japanese, Filipino and Korean dishes.
As an experiment, they also prepared fusion onigiris with flavors representing each culture from Southeast Asia.
“We had set out something like 150 on the table and they were all gone within 20 minutes. Everything else was still there,” Jonathan Pasamonte said. “We were surprised.”
After that event, the couple received several requests for onigiri. They added it to their catering menu and two years. A lot of interest later, the couple branched off and created Oni-gurus.
The Pasamontes now hope to open their first grab-and-go-style storefront. They’ve been looking at real estate in cities around the Central Valley, including Modesto.
Until then, you can find Oni-gurus at Tealite until Sunday and place orders at contact@oni-gurus.com.
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