Japanese Beancurd Pudding

I was browsing through a Japanese foodmart the other day, when I spied in a corner some beancurd produce. Besides the usual beancurd assortment for cooking and some unsweetened soya milk, there were a few plastic bowls containing beancurd pudding (tau fu fa; dou fu hua) which attracted me. Most of all, the little plastic tag just below it screamed 'with special sauce!'.

Intrigued, I purchased one. First step before eating: drain out any water so as not to dilute the sugary syrup, or in this case the special sauce. Then came the opening of the little sachet of special sauce.

As I poured it out, brownish liquid came forth. Just like palm sugar, my initial thought was. Happily I picked up my spoon to eat; the beancurd broke with some resistance, and I picked some of it up with the sauce.

The beancurd was the antithesis to my expectations; my first reaction was to almost spit it out. It was salty; the special sauce was some sort of soya sauce!! Nevertheless I soldiered on and somehow managed to down most of it over the space of several hours.

Later on I was talking with QJ:
M: I'll never have Japanese dou fu hua again!
Q: Ooo, never had it before
M: My first and last time, I tell you. It was salty!
Q: Back in Shanghai we have a sweet and also a salty version
M: A? With soya sauce as well?
Q: Don't remember, but there is seaweed and shrimp as well with it.
M: Okay..