No minced chicken in this town

My big girl likes looking at the pictures of a Japanese cookbook recently, and asked me a few days ago if I could make some meatball dishes from the book. Meatballs? Easy-peasy. My answer was "Sure", of course.

But one thing. Where to get minced chicken or/and pork? I have never seen any minced chicken in supermarkets and butcher's shops. I don't like supermarkets' minced stuff, so there's no way I buy their minced pork or turkey.

So, off to a butcher's shop in the town on Friday afternoon with my wee one. The one that I go every week. Asked for minced pork, and a younger/newer butcher went to look for some, but came back shaking his head. "Sorry, none left." I remembered buying minced pork there once some years ago. But, well, I didn't want to be pushy, so bought a few usual stuff, and went home.

On the way home, remembered that I didn't ask about chicken, which was in my mind for the rest of the day. So, decided to go back to the shop this morning. I wanted to pop in an Asian food shop for tofu, and had to buy some vegetable somewhere, anyway.

The butcher's shop was packed (it's always packed on Saturdays), and I was served by the man who I wrote about last Saturday. (There were another 3-4 butchers serving at the counter.) He told me that they didn't do minced chicken, but he suggested pork before I mention it. Great. He went into the back and kept me (and my big girl) at the counter for quite a long time. We were even joking that he must have gone out to catch a pig for my order. Anyway, he came back telling me that he had to mince pork especially for this. Come to think of it, I think it was him who sold me minced pork a few years ago. Now I know who to ask when I can't find what I want on the display table. (But I don't want to snub other butchers when he is with a customer. They are all nice, you know.)

I guess, you know what I will be eating over the weekend.