Japanese Wine Country

I miss you when you don’t comment. Just so you know.

In this episode, teamEggers runs out of money. Really. For about 12 hours, I only had six cents in my possession.

Jon had to give up his reserve $20 bill. The rare 2000 Yen note, only created in the year 2000. It was… depressing. We’ve never not had any money before.

But. I’m getting ahead of myself. We put our j-girls (emi and Mao) in charge of find out hotel for the night. They called random numbers from the Internet for a while, and eventually told us that we had some rooms for $40 per person. Hurray! I’m SO much more okay with winging it when Emi’s around.

Later that night, we find ourselves at the Suzuki En. (Suzuki is kind of like Smith. Really common last name.)

The Suzuki En was nice! And charming. And had all kinds of really perfect things going on. I couldn’t have picked a better place if I researched and really, really tried. They had vineyards in the backyard, made their own wine, and had a whole wine-theme going on. It wasn’t kitchy at all, just really… charming. Here’s the courtyard:

We stayed in Room 5.

And spent some time hanging out in the chilly courtyard before turning in early. This may have been the first Saturday in existence that Brian Reece & I went to bed at the same hour.

I love the detail of this hotel.

There was a collection of antique wine openers. Look at that red and white one. They’re pantaloons. The corkscrew is, ahem…

And this is the same wood-burning oven that the Eggers have up north!

…see!!

So the hotel was $40. No one in our group thought to go to the ATM before leaving for this remote mountain town, and Will didn’t even come with enough money for the train ride. We decided to scround together our last dollars and cents for breakfast in the morning. I’m glad we did – it was really good!

Our plans for the morning: 1. find money. 2. find the farmers market.

Here’s the thing. I’ve never *not* had money before. I’ve never had six cents to my name. Without Emi & Mao, we certainly would have been lost. Or rather, we would have found our way with much less efficiency than we did.

The hills of Katsunuma:

Koshu. The local grape. It grows differently than any other grape I’ve ever seen. The vineyards look… incredibly different. And they’re plentiful – nearly all the houses in the area had vines in their driveway.

Because of its thick, bitter skin, one of the best ways to cultivate it is to allow it to be far from the ground, but not in direct sunlight. What do you do? Make a canopy.

About 6 feet from the ground, they’d lay wire nets, and the grapes hang from the bottom. Boy, i wish we had come in fall when the fruit was hanging. This valley is probably incredibly.

This vending machine is exciting only for its rarity. I wish there were more beer machines on the streets, or that i didn’t find this one at 10am.

Eventually we made it to our farmers market. I had incredibly low expectations and was really surprised at its awesomeness. It’s no West Allis farmer’s market. And it’s no Seattle farmer’s market, but it was way better than I expected.

First order of business: find the guy with the beans. There’s always one.

After some shopping about (I bought some greens and jon bought some fresh pasta!), we stopped by a tasting room and did a quick wine tasting. I came home with a bottle of rosé.

I love how thoroughly ingrained the grapes are into the culture here. I love wine country. It’s just so… perfect. For a weekend.

***

Boy. I’m exhausted. On our way home, we made a quick detour to get some long-sought after ramen. This place, basanova, was the last stop on our list of “must have” ramen joints. Nevermind that half of their sign fell down and they didn’t care. Nevermind that the bar next door looks like it’s been deserted for years.

Their claim to fame? Green Curry Ramen. I know it sounds crazy, but oh, god. It was so good. The best, perhaps.

I mean, look how happy we are.

Japanese Wine Country – The Wine Cave

We spent the weekend with some friends up in Japanese wine country. Tucked into the foothills of the Alps, you’ll find a little town called Katsunuma, and in it – a lot of Koshu grape vines. You’ll also find the cave at Budo no Oka (Grape Hill), where you can sample 150 Japanese wines for just over $10.

Even though our enthusiasm was not matched by the quality of wine, we managed to have a pretty great time. I was feeling rather inspired by some of the wine labels, and I’ve decided to make a professional goal: Someday, I want to design a wine label! How cool would that be?

The format of Budo no Oka was really cool – the wine was set out on the tops of barrels for you to sample. It was organized in the same order you should drink it: dry whites > sweet whites, roses, light reds > full-bodied reds. You get a little cup when you go in, and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want. Sip, sip, sip. I wish they had crackers or water around.

I’ve joked about how it’s easy to speak Japanese; just add an “u” to the end of any word. What does it say when the winemaker apologizes for their wine before you try it?

Yeah. It was about as good as you’d expect. Actually, a lot of the wines weren’t very good. Koshu is a tough grape to do well.

Here’s what we learned: None of the reds were good. None of them. Some were less-terrible than others, but we didn’t have a single red wine that we would have been happy with purchasing in a restaurant. Koshu is best if made in off-dry white style, when they take on the stonefruit-and-mineral characteristics of viognier. When they’re made too dry, they get super acidic and the lime & grapefruit flavours dominate. When they’re made too sweet Koshu turns into a cloying buckets of nectariney goo.

Don’t let me fool you though – we still had a great time. (below is me with Emi & Mao)

Outside the wine cave, we strained to see the ever-illusive Mt. Fuji (it was too cloudy), and commented on how we all love to visit the countryside.

Tune in next time: finding a place to sleep, farmers market, and green curry ramen!

Yuzawa

There’s something really charming about the idea of a snow festival. We grew up in Wisconsin, a place where I’ve never know the people to celebrate the back-breaking winter weather. In Tokamachi, however, the perspective is different.

61 years ago, the locals decided to celebrate the mounds snow around them, instead of feeling oppressed by it. They built snow castles and drank in the streets. It was festive. Joyous. It was a way to lift spirits in the middle of a hard winter. I think I read that somewhere. If not, I might have made it up. As jon will tell you, I’m prone to doing that. Anyways, that’s the picture I want to keep of the Japanese people 61 years ago.

On Saturday morning, with little more than an idea of which train to take, we loaded ourselves onto the Shinkansen.

I packed brunch, which amounted to a bottle of sparkling wine (wrapped hobo-style) and some juice:

…and we sat back for 2 hours, as or bullet train carried us towards the mountains.

**

Remember from last year, we talked about how every little area seems to have it’s own local food specialty? The big one here is rice, but the omnipresent street food is a something packaged brightly in leaves.

Isn’t it beautiful? It looks like it could be a tropical fish, with all of it’s tails and tendrils.

Oh. It’s… green. Okay. And to think I had just sworn off macha for good this time (the thick green tea drink). But okay. We’ll go with it. I wonder what’s inside!

Oh. (sad face) it’s bean paste. in retrospect, why on earth would I have expected the bundle to be filled with anything but bean paste? Foiled again.

Perhaps 4 photos of that was gratuitous, but i wanted you to experience the excitement (and subsequent disappointment) with me.

**

At this point, we’re wandering around the town of Yuzawa, which is akin to a neighborhood ski town. Not ritzy like Vail, or quaint and charming like Breckenridge. Yuzawa felt like the working-man’s ski town. There were onsens (hot baths) abound, and lots of houses. Very neighborhoody-like.

Despite all these [theoretical] housing opportunities around us, Jon and I came to Yuzawa without a hotel booked. I think I’ll leave you there, since the telling of that story could be quite long.

Instead, I’ll leave you with this totally awesome picture of the area that we were in. Mountains are so pretty. (Although I find it’s best to look at pictures of them rather than to climb around in them!)

Valentines Day Weekend

I’ve given you a few snapshots of Valentines Day weekend, but I thought I’d talk a bit more about the weekend on a whole. You may be thinking to yourself about now, “what, they don’t do anything during the week anymore? Here it’s a week later and she’s still talking about last sunday? this sucks! I want my money back!”

Yes, dear reader, you’re right. I’m lazy. Some days I don’t even leave the house. But I cook dinner almost every night! You want recipes? That’s about all I can give you. Recipes and pity parties.

To close up the weekend before I start the next one, here’s a quick recap:

Ramen Adventures! Jangara Ramen, recommended by two of the ramen blogs that we follow. Located right off the main drag in Akihabara (the electronics district)

The line is always this long!

Inside (they say not to take photos, so i had to sneak a few covert-like with my iPhone. I’m sure they didnt notice because I blend in really well. … and my iPhone is lime-green)

Then we went to the Edo history museum, where I sat in things:

…and jon stood in front of things (look, sumo!)

. next morning . up before dawn to take in the sights at the tsukiji fish market. Boy, I wish I had some coffee.

We were careful not to get in the way or get hit by one of the speeding fish cars. The market before it wakes up…

…as the vendors are still preparing for their days.

Large semi trucks unload fish to be sold starting at 3am. Most of them come in Styrofoam boxes that are turned into the makings of a mountain.

I love the view here of the city in the background. It looks so… dismal. If you think about it, a lot of fishies gave their lives for this picture. It is dismal.

We ended our day with a sushi breakfast (at 7am!). I was feeling kind of sick, but decided that stomachache or not, I was eating raw tuna that morning!! (it was worth it!)

Valentines in Ginza (Ukai-tei)

< fair warning: this is a food-lovin’ post, chock-full of pictures. EOM >

Last year, jon and I bought the Michelin Guide to Tokyo and vowed to visit our first Michelin starred restaurant while we were out here.  For whatever reason, it never ended up happening in ‘09, but we did manage a last-minute reservation last night at Ukai-tei in Ginza.

Valentines teppanyaki. Oh, oh. We decided on one of the seasonal set menus, which started us with an amuse bouche: an airy cream-based soup set over custard and topped with uni. A few nights before, jon and I had pledged our allegiance with uni (in brief: a type of sushi), and so this was a welcome (and buttery) treat. Not something that I would have ordered with relish last week.

The appetizer course: king crab w/ sauteed leeks for me…

…marinated filefish sashimi for jon. Filefish are funny-lookin buggards, with their odd shape and clumsy patterning. It’s not very common as sushi in America, and they’re most often found dried, turned into jerky, and snacked upon in Korea. Those crazy Koreans.

After the appetizer course we found ourselves with parsnip soup – so intensely parsnippy, and so incredibly tasty, it made wonder why I always overlook parsnips at the supermarket. They’re just so… good. A great uncommon-yet-familiar flavour. I promise to roast more of them in the future.

The dinner we ordered was the abalone menu. We hadn’t ever had abalone before (that I can remember), so I wasn’t positive what to expect in either preparation or flavour. It was so neat! They bring out two abalone-on-the-half-shell, that are then put on a hot flat top grill and covered gently with two banana leaves. (Really, the chef nestled these leaves around them.) Then they MOUND on the rock salt (it looks like a miniature ski hill at this point), and pour white wine all over it before covering to steam.

In a separate pan, they bundle up some crinkly savoy cabbage and put it in a pan with a-little-bit of-this and a-little-bit-of-that, until what emerges is exactly like a classically prepared béarnaise sauce. Lovely! The abalone were creamy, and hearty enough to stand up to the rich sauce, and my acidic white French wine was a perfect compliment.

After fish comes the meat course, and they brought out the sirloin to present to us before asking how we like it cooked. It’s so lovely there, sitting in front of us. Naked and full of potential.

When you say “medium rare”, you get it a perfect medium rare. And the marbling melts in your mouth. And you wonder why, on earth, you have ever eaten anything else. And just then, as to break my reverie, the woman across from me comments on how this is just the best meal she’s ever eaten.

It’s very traditional in Japan to eat your rice after the meat / fish course. Our Japanese friends always look at us oddly when we ask the waitress for a bowl of rice during dinner. For our parts, Jon and I had one of each, noodles and rice.

I started with the Japanese Noodles, which reminded me of that quiet dinner in Kyoto – cool, intensely flavoured broth holding gently suspending thin, delicate noodles. Served with a side of grated daikon (radish), just in case you needed to clean your palate. Jon opted for the garlic rice, which was equally tasty.

Clearly, by this point in the night I had lost my ability to take photos that were in focus.

The table was decorated sparsely with flowers, but it was perfect because you didn’t really want anything more complicated than a single orchid. Because the single orchid was, in itself, a metaphor for the Japanese cuisine: Striking in its simplicity, but perfectly formed and prepared with a great deal of deliberateness.

…and just as jon and I were beginning to dream of a chocolate ending to our affair, the waiter came to tell us that our “dessert table was ready”. I sat in reverie and jon remarked about how “money can’t buy love”. We both knowingly laughed – I love him so much for his shared interest in this kind of stuff, not because he can / we can afford to take us out to schmancy meals.

Dessert started us with an orange geleé gratineé – this culture loves its geletain products. Really, they make everything in to jello-like cubes.

Jon had a fudge-like torte that I wasn’t speedy enough to get a photo of, and I ended with espresso and a caramel pudding that in another world would have been called either flan or créme caramel.

We found it hard to not linger on the service, quality of food, and overall fantastic-ness of the evening, but knew it was time to go. We have early morning plans with a tuna-man.