Quality of aromatic rice was compared by sensory evaluation with ordinary bland rice. Hieri, one of the varieties of aromatic rice planted in Japan was accepted by Indonesian people as well as the persons living in Japan, who are from South-east Asia.Basmati, which has a strong aroma, was nor accepted by Japanese people who have not eaten aromatic rice before. They have the same degree of preference for Jasmine rice as Hien. This research confinned that the quality of Hieri is good.

This study analyzed the sensory attributes of MSG substitutes to determine whether they exerted synergistic or inhibition effects on taste, and the correlation between sensory attributes (which are subjective measures) and the results of electronic-tongue analysis (which are objective measures). Descriptive and electronic-tongue analyses were conducted with 10 MSG substitutes comprising combinations of 3 commercial products, and with MSG. In the descriptive analysis, the sensory characteristics of MSG substitutes were evaluated using 16 attributes; and in the electronic-tongue analysis, the taste-sensor ions of MSG substitutes were evaluated using 10 taste-sensor types. Principal components analysis was applied separately to the sensory evaluation data and the electronic-tongue data to summarize the structure of each data set. Partial least-squares regression was used to assess the relationship between the sensory evaluation data and the electronic-tongue data. The MSG substitutes show different sensory attributes when they are used alone or in mixtures, suggesting the presence of synergistic or inhibitory effects between them. Therefore, when replacing MSG, the characteristics of each possible substitute should be determined in relation to the particular food system.

Palm sugar is an important ingredient in Indonesian cuisine. This study was carried out to examine if this sugar affects the preference and the quality of Indonesian agar‐agar pudding. Brown sugar can be a possible substitute for palm sugar in preparing the pudding, but Indonesian people seem to prefer the colour and the aroma of palm sugar to those of brown sugar. Palm sugar seems to affect the textural properties of the pudding. The evaluation of colour, hardness, smoothness, saltiness and overall palatability of the palm sugar pudding by Japanese panellists was higher than that of the brown sugar pudding. Palm sugar may play an important role in the characteristics of Indonesian food.