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.

Kyoto [Part 3]

It’s now Saturday night in Kyoto. We’re feeling rejuvenated by our new PowerShot camera, and we set out on the town. Tonight’s mission? Find Geisha’s and Dinner.

What’s that? Oh. Geishas. Right. In some parts of Japan, especially Kyoto, being a Geisha is still an active profession. Their apprentices, the maiko, can sometimes be seen getting out of their taxis and entering the restaurant they’ll be entertaining in for the evening. That’s right, we were stalking them. Paparazzi style.

Entrance to these restaurants is by invitation-only, so we were very lucky when we saw someone step out for a breath of fresh air.

Okay. Geisha, check. Now why is it that the cherry blossoms (which were non-existent during the day) are suddenly *incredible* by night? Wandering down the streets had that magic-feeling of the first snowfall of the year. The one where the weather is still tolerable, but you know the world is about to start something big. The people are jubilant. The vibe is good.

I know I’ve been talking about these cherry blossoms like they’re the only thing that matters. It may sound a bit carried away and obsessive. I can’t really explain the fanfair these few days get except to show you how crazy it is. There were tripods literally *lined up* on this street.

I just realized that this new PowerShot takes pretty terrible night photos, eh? Hrm. At least it’s something.

After this we stumbled into dinner. I feel like jon and I spend more time talking about where to eat and what to eat than anything else in our lives. I can’t tell if that’s a good sign or a tragic flaw of our marriage.

Feeling brave, we walked into a place with an all-japanese, no-picture menu outside. We were hoping for a relatively nice dinner, something local, something…. well. You don’t really get to choose what you eat when you can’t read the language. We were hoping for dinner.

We walk into this restaurant and the chef comes out and kind of tells us to go away. At this point, we started in on the “japanese menu okay!” which is a standard saying here “japanese okay!” because we figured… we could point, right? So he walks us outside.

Luckily, he was walking us outside so we could point at the menu outside the door. We must have done a good enough job of conveying “yes! food! anything!” that he let us in and started putting dishes of food in front of us.

The chef turned out to be the nicest guy. I came out with a dictionary and pointed to the word “dislike” and held his hands up as if to say “is there anything you don’t eat?”. Great start! After we said “no”, he seemed a lot more at ease. I imagine he had to have been wondering what on earth he was going to cook for these white-folk that won’t go away.

What came next was the most attentive meal I’ve ever had. The entire restaurant was two chefs, a counter with 8 seats, us and another couple (who was wrapping up dinner as we came in). The courses were timed perfectly, so that the next would come shortly after we finished the first. From what we gathered the rest of the weekend, I believe we had a very authentic Kyotan meal.

There were five courses: 3 bite-sized appetizers, sashimi, tempura, a thick soup, and clear ginger-soup which I believe was called “hashiarai”. Actually, I think I’m butchering this. Were there six courses? (Lumpy-Jon, help me out!)

Video of a Journey Around a Sushi Conveyor Belt in Japan

Edit:  Unfortunately, it looks like this video is no longer available.

A camera records it’s trip around a sushi conveyor belt at a restaurant in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Japan. The people’s reactions are wonderful.

via Waxy & Laughing Squid

Right around minute 6:20 it gets really interesting. I want to do this!!

Kaiten

Kaiten, the conveyor belt sushi.

To get to the holy grail of kaiten, you must first walk about 2 miles down a road that you only *think* is correct. The best direction that you were given is “keep walking.  trust yourself. if you think you’ve gone too far, just keep walking.”

And then maybe you stop for directions.  You practice, over and over again, mumbling “do you speak english” and then “do you know … where… pc depot”?  (PC depot was a landmark you’ve heard about).  And maybe an adorable japanese girl, as brazen with her broken english as you are, steps up to help you.   “you go light, then walk walk walk, then suuuuushi, THEN PC DEPOT!!!” (She could not have known we were looking for sushi.  We could not have known that sushi was a landmark of its own.)

And then you get there.  And the waitress puts you in the farthest back table so you don’t embarass yourself in front of the respectable japanese families. And you chow down on the freshest conveyorbelt sushi you’ve ever had, ordering things from the touch screen menu just to see what you get.  Being an adventurous eater has its perks. Every plate was 100 Yen (~$1).

You have no idea how to order a beer, water, or that really tasty looking ice cream. And then you see…. bacon?

And all the while, you’re having the best time because it’s not only an adventure, but it’s an adventure with literally the only person in the world that you would want to be with at the moment.