いただきます： Japan In Food

Let me first start by saying that this post is not meant in any way to be a comprehensive list.  The great thing about Japanese cuisine is the fact that it is so diverse; there is pretty much an entire industry dedicated to the creation of local fare that is uniquely different from region to region, and maybe even from that little shop the next town over.  Any travel itinerary in Japan simply must include pit stops to sample whatever goodies that particular area of Japan offers.  I suppose this is true of pretty much anywhere you go, though the times I've gone around the US there was never really enough variety from place to place to warrant the kind of emphasis on food that touring around Japan demands.  Do not be fooled by the slightness of their frames: Japanese people are huge foodies.  I assume this is the reason why they take photos of pretty much everything they eat, a practice I fully support and without which, I wouldn't have much of a post to create at the moment.  

Without fully intending it to be that way, my winter break ended up including a lot of travel, making up for the fact that I pretty much didn't leave my apartment over fall break.  Obviously my mother was here and I wanted to show her as good a time as possible (and from what she says: mission accomplished), but on a whim I wound up doing a little travel on my own before she arrived on January 5th.  The places I visited/spent time were (for argument's sake, I'm just going to include stuff in Kanto too despite the fact it's not really traveling):

1. Kobe
2. Nagoya
3. Tokyo
4. Yokohama
5. Kamakura
6. Kyoto
7. Hiroshima
8. Miyajima
9. Hakone 

It was a busy couple of weeks, let me tell you.  When it got to actually be winter break, I wondered if I wouldn't try to go out on my own since it was going to be awfully boring sitting around my apartment doing nothing, and I'd had a long-standing invitation to stay in Kobe with the very gracious Kozue who was more than enthusiastic about hosting me for a couple of days.  So I hopped on the night bus (it's a really cheap way to travel, but if you have trouble sleeping on public transport, it's not the way to go) and found myself in Kobe.  As Kozue and I said, it shares more than a few characteristics in common with Yokohama: port city dwarfed by a much larger neighbor (Tokyo for Yokohama, Osaka for Kobe), large Chinatown (and foreign population in general), and a waterfront that includes a giant ferris wheel.  There were other similarities, but I'm failing to recall them now.  

The great thing about Kozue (aside from her being fun generally) is the fact that she loves food as much as I do.  Her Facebook photo albums are almost entirely composed of food photos, and I knew we'd get along very well based on this fact.  She was a great tour guide to have for Kobe because she knew what and where to eat.  We started the day with a 380 yen (approx $4 I'd guess, though with endaka I have no idea any more) all-you-can-eat-pastry coffee shop breakfast, and after walking around the 異人館 (ijinkan - homes of foreigners from the Meiji era), we went to get some 海鮮丼 (kaisendon - seafood/sashimi over rice).  The original plan had been to go to a Korean restaurant that day, but it turned out to be closed that day.  Fortunately, we were able to go before I left the following evening (picture later).  

I can't even get into all the goodies that were in here: maguro (tuna), salmon, ikura (samon roe), ebi (shrimp)... So so much food.  There were also two types of soy sauce on the counter, one that was normal and the other that was spicy.  I don't know that I've ever seen that before.  Liking spicy foods I went for the spicy soy sauce, and followed Kozue's lead in mixing in my wasabi and then pouring it over the top of the bowl.  It was fantastic.  When I traveled to Nagoya after Kobe, I showed this photo to my host mom and asked her how much she thought this lunch cost.  Her guess was 1300 yen (maybe $14+ at this point). 　ダメ.  It was actually less than half of that, 580 yen to be exact.  It was absurdly cheap for that amount of food and I walked away really happy.

Oh but that Kozue, she was full of surprises.  She told me as we were walking around that she had asked one of her coworkers where to get good お好み焼き (okonomiyaki - it's like a savory pancake with a whole lot of good stuff thrown in.  In Japanese, it literally means "stuff you like, fried."  Hells yeah.  It will make another appearance later on in this post).  I took a trip to the bathroom we were first seated, and not long after I came back the waiter came over with the above picture.  That is the famed Kobe Beef, people.  I'm no expert on how Kobe Beef is prepared and eaten, but this was served as sashimi, meaning raw.  It was AMAZING.  You can see how marbled the meat is and it literally melts in your mouth. It seems to me that if you actually try to cook Kobe Beef you'd end up letting all the fat escape as oil out of the meat, and I would absolutely recommend that you eat it sashimi-style if you ever get the chance.  These cows are well taken care of and the Japanese are notoriously paranoid about eating unsanitary beef.

And Kozue insisted on picking the tab for this dinner as a way of welcoming me to Kobe.  THANK YOU SO MUCH. 

Kozue is also a master at finding the best deals (see the above 海鮮丼) and these tasty sweet potatoes were free with our meal because she had a coupon.  Brilliant.

And onto one of our main courses, the okonomiyaki.  The Kansai area of Japan (where Kobe, Osaka and the like are housed) is famous for its okonomiyaki, so it was only natural that I test the local fare.  We ordered the seafood, and you can kind of sea the chunks of octopus and shrimp peering out of the top of the pancake.  There were also soba noodles in the middle of two thinner pancakes, making it somewhat similar to Hiroshima okonomiyaki, but without the fried egg (see the Hiroshima portion of this post).  Naturally I slathered this baby in sauce.  Please hold the mayo.

We also shared a Kobe specialty, そばめし (soba meshi), which is kind of like fried rice with a whole bunch of noodles thrown in to top it off.  We ordered this one with pork (I love that the Japanese are completely unashamed to leave all the fat on all of their meat) and it was fantastic.

A view of all our dishes together.  Note that the Kobe Beef is ALL GONE.

I returned with Kozue that night to her parents' home where they spoiled me with more goodies and very kindly gave me a place to sleep for the night.  I sat with Kozue and her mother and shared these delicious mochi ice creams (mochi is pounded rice, and these little delicacies are filled with ice cream rather than red bean as is standard).  For some sick reason I still remember all 6 flavors: sakura, raspberry mille fiore, darjeeling, houjicha, chocolate banana, and caramel something or other.  THEY WERE AMAZING.  I also snapped this picture at the shop where Kozue bought them to bring them home:

 I got a kick out of the confusion between French and Spanish.  They meant cafe au lait, but ended up with Cafe OLE!

I went to bed that night pretty exhausted (even though I slept nearly the entire 9-hour drive from Yokohama to Kobe, it's that empty kind of sleep that fills time rather than refreshes your body), and didn't get up until nearly 10:30 the next day.  I rambled down the stairs and Kozue's mom prepped a delicious Japanese-style breakfast for us (no picture, but the salmon was marvelous).  Because my late start to the day threw off our lunch schedule a little, we waited until Kozue's father was able to drive us to the train station after 12:30 or so and decided to get a sweet treat rather than actual lunch.  What a great decision that was.  I had a cup of coffee and the above fruit tart.  Ugh, the crust was so buttery and the fruit so succulent... Japan really knows how to do its desserts, let me tell you.  Kozue had a banana/rum raisin crepe that was equally delicious.

After some more touring around Kobe, we wound up at the Korean restaurant for dinner we had planned to go to for lunch the previous afternoon.  It was pretty chilly out in Kobe that day and this kim chi chige (kim chi soup) was the perfect remedy.  And again, very cheap!  Thanks so much, Kozue!!  I had a great time and I hope you're able to come out to Yokohama/Seattle/New York so I can return the favor. 

I then boarded a bus to head out to Nagoya (which was only 3 hours away, so it wasn't overnight) to spend the New Year with my host parents.  Those people spoil me like crazy, and they had invited me to come out for a Japanese New Year.  For the New Year the Japanese eat what is called おせち料理 (osechi ryori), which is composed of foods that preserve well in order to allow mothers (who else is going to make all this stuff?  I wouldn't leave it to dad) to make these dishes far in advance so that they can relax and enjoy themselves once New Year's Day comes.  The dishes also symbolize things like long life, health, prosperity, fertility, etc etc through either their shape or their writing in Japanese.  I don't really have any specific knowledge on this subject; I asked my host mother for some examples, but I immediately forgot them.  

Typically you eat osechi on New Year's Day, but there was a delay in the arrival of the other student who also happens to live in Yokohama (he had wanted to attend the same program I'm in, but instead got roped into remaining at his job at Morgan Stanley.  Considering he lives in Minato Mirai in a 200,000 yen/month apartment, I'd say he's not doing too bad for himself, but he suffers from depression and a host of medical ailments) and my host mom dashed with the plan to eat しゃぶしゃぶ (shabu-shabu, an onomatopoeic word that refers to the sound a slice of meat makes when it's cooking in a hot pot) and put out the osechi instead.  Among this host student's medical problems is an array of food allergies, and one of the dishes he can eat with meat is shabu-shabu, which we ended up eating the following night.  

Anyway, above you see the 3 boxes of goodies my host parents bought pre-made for New Year's.  Many places sell osechi made to order (months in advance to boot), and the prices are pretty absurd.  I don't want to know what this cost my host parents, but I ate more than my fair share.  The dish in the middle is a plate of sashimi... I can never get enough sushi.

The three boxes on the left are of goodies my host mom made herself.  They were far superior to what they got at the store.  I ate so many of those black beans and tiny fish (their name escapes me right now), and she had made enough to refill the sections multiple times.

I ate those happy-looking shrimps.

After 初詣 (first visit to a shrine/temple of the year) at midnight, we came back and as per tradition ate soba noodles, which are meant to represent long life.  I got eat mine with a giant tempura shrimp.  BAM.

And the following day after staying up to nearly 3am that morning, I woke up after 1:30pm.  The thing you have to understand is that, 1. I was still mad tired from the bus and travel in general, 2. it's tradition to do absolutely nothing on New Year's Day and my host mom told me to sleep as late as I wanted and 3. Japanese bed in the winter are really hard to get out of.  There is no central heat in Japanese homes and you don't leave on a heater on overnight (my host mom says it's because it dries out your throat, which I always took as an excuse not to want to run up the gas/oil bill.  Shit's expensive here.  However, I did leave my heater on full blast overnight not too long ago and found out that I woke up sound like I had smoked for the last 20 years).  Instead, you rely on a LOT OF BLANKETS, and my host mom also set up an electrical heating pad for me to sleep on.  The weight of the blankets coupled with the toastiness underneath compared to the chill on the outside makes you never want to get up.  I remember waking up at 10:30, 11:30 and after 12 and ultimately deciding that it was better to stay under the covers than have to make a mad dash for my sweatshirt and run downstairs to the heated living room.

The above is お雑煮 (ozoni), a soup that contains giant chunks of mochi.  The mochi also is meant to represent long life because of its ability to stretch and not break.  Aside from ozoni you eat a lot of mochi at New Year's.  There are stories about old people who choke on all that mochi because it's so sticky, and in fact my host mom said that her father had had a scary run in with too much mochi several days earlier.  Fortunately he was fine, but that's still terrifying.

To the right is some mochi from Nagano, and on the left are candies from Kamakura.

As I mentioned earlier, instead of doing osechi on New Year's Day, we had shabu-shabu.  My host mom told the other student and I that she had bought 3 packages of beef (which are really expensive here) and had an auxiliary container of pork if need be for this food fest.  I thought she meant that they were there in case we did eat that much; I didn't realize that she had ever intention of making us eat every last scrap of meat.  I was basically breathing delicious animal carcass by the end of the night because were eating for about TWO AND A HALF HOURS.  It was absurd.  For those unfamiliar with shabu-shabu, it's like a hot pot; there's a pot with water at the center of the table and you swish or shabu-shabu thin slices of meat around in the water until it cooks and then dip it into the sauces you have in your place setting.  We also had rounds of vegetables and noodles.  It was truly an insane amount of food and even I felt a little sick with how much I had eaten.  The meat cooks really fast and my host mom kept throwing them into the pot and there was no way I was going to let it go to waste.  もったいない、もったいない！！

Throwin' in the meat.

Another thing Japanese people apparently do at New Year's is drink gold-flecked sake.  Think Goldschlager, just without the cinnamon.  The sake was very mild and smooth and believe you me, I went back for me.

Can't really see, but there are gold flecks down at the bottom of the glass.

The following morning my host mom had yet another meal prepared for me, this time a Japanese-style breakfast of さば (mackerel).  She's really a fantastic cook.

I took yet another night bus, this time out of Nagoya back to Yokohama on January 2nd, and this was my dinner.  Nagoya's 名物 (meibutsu or specialty product) is a red miso that they slather on pretty much anything.  I was actually eating some earlier as I have a bottle still left over from earlier in the year.  The above is miso udon and it was stuff with so many goodies, including more mochi referred to as 力 (chikara, power or strength).  The restaurant also gave us bibs as it is custom here to slurp your noodles to cool them off and in so doing, you splash sauce everywhere.  

I love oysters.  LOVE LOVE LOVE oysters.  So my host parents graciously got a couple of orders of kaki fry (fried oysters) and I chowed down.  I got to eat them again later on in my travels.

Unfortunately it came time for me to leave, and I wound up on a bus that was a couple of hours late rolling into Yokohama.  It was so goddamned hot on that bus that it made it hard for me to sleep, so after barreling through my front door at about 8am, I proceeded to pass out for a few hours.  After getting up, I sent my friend Sydney an message about getting together later that night.  At her boyfriend Micah's suggestion, we went to the Park Hyatt in Shinjuku, Tokyo, made famous in Lost in Translation.  I've never actually seen the movie (doesn't look like my deal), but the scene where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannsen's characters meet takes place in this bar, which is on something like the 42nd floor of the hotel.  It has spectacular views of Tokyo, and access to their windows I assume is included in the prices of their drinks, which were running upwards of 1500-2000 yen a pop.  However, the cocktails were delicious and Micah picked up the tab.  I got a lot of free stuff on this leg of the trip.

We then headed over to Shibuya for dinner and wound up at a restaurant that specialized in gyoza.  It was a nice find, and I ended up taking my mom to another of their branches here in Yokohama for our last meal due to the fact they also served 鍋 (nabe, or hot pot).

See, nabe.

OK!  As this is the point in my story that I turn to my travels with my mom, her friend Karen, and my friend Tina, it's time for an intermission!  For your amusement, I present CORGIS!  I don't care if you're not in love with them as I am: YOU'RE GOING TO WATCH ANYWAY.

Aaaaaaaand we're back. 

So my mom and Karen rolled into Narita on January 5th, and from there I proceeded to fail epically at navigating the Tokyo subway system.  I don't spend a whole lot of time in Tokyo and my knowledge is contained to the major lines, and I managed to get us to the wrong branch of the hotel they were staying in, and then couldn't find the restaurant once we were finally checked in.  There are also a number of other stories to tell here, but at this point I'm going to keep it to just the ones around food.  This post is already a monster as it is.  

My plan had been to take us out to an うなぎ (EEL! one of my favoritest things ever) restaurant since it is also one of my mom's favorite foods, but my failure to find the damn place and my mom and Karen's travel exhaustion and lack of appetite meant we ended up at the closest 回転寿司 (rotating sushi bar).  It was not exactly the welcome I had envisioned (and worked hard to try to create!  I had to talk to people ON THE PHONE IN JAPANESE IN JAPAN.  The horror!), but we made do.

Tina came into Tokyo the following day, and I basically have no pictures of food from the start of the trip until Hiroshima, which means I am missing shots from meals in Kamakura and Nagoya, where my host parents treated us to an all-you-can-eat 焼肉 (yakiniku or grilled meat) dinner.  I'd forgotten my camera that night, which is greatly disappointing to me because it would've been the perfect opportunity to capture the way they force meat on you on film.  There were also vegetables and scallops involved (another of my mom's favorite foods) and we all went back completely STUFFED.  Well, I was sort of stuffed... I kind of wanted more dessert, but didn't want to ask.

Kyoto is also missing from this post as well.  I had wanted to do 懐石料理 (kaiseki ryori for which Kyoto is famous), but is CRAZY expensive and decided to opt out.  We ate a lot of good things and spent a lot of time walking around food markets while we were there, but I never bothered to take a picture.  Clearly I am not 100% with this taking-pictures-of-my-meals deal.

So I must fast forward to Hiroshima, where we gorged ourselves on Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki.  What makes it special is that is layered with a whole lot of stuff: the cook started with thin layers of batter, and then started piling on cabbage, bean sprouts and giant slabs of fatty pork.  The other thing is that when you eat okonomiyaki, you should sit up at the counter to watch your dinner being made.  Since okonomi means "stuff you like," we ordered a seafood mix, shrimp, and pork with mochi okonomiyaki.  Those ingredients cook to the side for a bit before also getting piled on top.

In the meantime, there are also soba noodles sizzling that get thrown onto this giant pile.

A view of the madness.

Once the extra ingredients and soba noodles have been put on the non pancake side (the okonomiyaki got turned over once more from what you see in the above picture), the cook then cracks an egg, fries it a bit and then throws that on the top as well.  Then it gets a bath of sauce and served to you to eat straight off the hot plate.  It looks like this:

Hiroshima okonomiyaki are truly massive and when the 3 of them were served in front of us, my mom and Karen balked that they couldn't possibly eat all of it.  And then they did.  That's just how good it is.

And I still think anyone who puts mayo on top of this is absolutely out of their minds.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

After seeing the Hiroshima Peace Museum and eating the okonomiyaki, we retreated to our hotel to rest up for our trip the next day, which was an excursion out to Miyajima, home of the famed 厳島神社 (Itsukushima Shrine).  The name may not mean anything, but if you've ever seen the image of the floating vermilion torii gate in the sea, you're looking at Itsukushima.

Hiroshima and Miyajima are famous for their oysters and there was no way I was going to leave without eating them.  A typical way to eat them is straight off the grill; I had them this way the first time I came to Miyajima with my host parents 5 years ago and I've never forgotten how fucking GOOD they were.  I was insistent we go back and when I want my oysters, no one is going to stop me.  Once they're off the grill, they look like this:

Those little silver boats have lemons in them, which you crush on the inside and then pour out the juice onto the oysters.  GODDAMMIT I WANT MORE.

GET IN MA BELLY

ALL GONE.  My mom and I shared this plate and I was so happy afterward, but not entirely full so...

... I ate more.  Miyajima/Hiroshima is also famous for 穴子 (anago, fresh water eel) and I ate this 穴子まん (like those Chinese pork buns, but with anago in the middle).  IT WAS SO GOOD.  I feel like a machine saying that over and over again, but it is hard to have a bad meal in Japan.

Oh yeah, you know you want some.

When we got back to Hiroshima, we relaxed a little bit before going out.  I had internet access at that point and also a little book on Hiroshima my host mom had loaned me, so I decided to see if there was anything else we had to eat while we were in Hiroshima.  Turns out that Hiroshima has their own particular つけ麺 (tsukemen, which from the way the word looks means "stuff attached to noodles"), which consists of the above.  The sauce on the right contains chili oil and sesame seeds that you can adjust to your heat preference, and on the right is the slices of pork, cabbage and bean sprouts piled on top of the noodles.  It was again, really good.  My mom was a particular fan, and I ended up eating what Karen couldn't.  

So it came time to leave Hiroshima and head out for a fairly long day of travel out to Hakone.  Because my mom and Karen had the JR Rail Pass (which you simply must get if you ever come to Japan on a travel visa and plan on going between cities; saves you a shit ton of money), it limited us to just the ひかり Shinkansen trains.  We made a transfer in Shin-Osaka, and we had about an hour before boarding the train that would take us to Odawara where we'd have to make even more transfers to get into Hakone.  Having never been to Osaka and heard so much about it (hi, Brittain), I decided to go with the Osaka-specialty bento for lunch.  It was filled with many many Osaka goodies like takoyaki and yaki udon, and I plowed through the whole thing.

And yes, Brittain, I will eventually make it out to Osaka before I leave.  I feel as any fan of food that I must go to the Mecca.

I EATED EVERYTHING.

Getting to our ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) in Hakone was a bit of hassle because Hakone is meant as a resort town and is therefore a bit hard to access.  2 trains out of Odawara station and then a cable car down to the ryokan, we checked into this fantastic place.  I have to pat myself on the back for finding it.  It's a bit pricey, but definitely worth the money if you have you have a couple of extra dollars burning a hole in your pocket and you want a place with some really nice 露天風呂 (roten buro, outdoor hot bath).  I've never been a big fan of 温泉 (hot springs) or お風呂 (bath) in general because I overheat really easily and I just end up feeling uncomfortable and bored sitting in the water.  However, roten buro is perfect for me because you can just sit out in the open air and cool off.  I always though sitting outdoors in the dead of winter completely naked sounded like the stupidest thing ever, but it is now one of my favorite things.  The ryokan is called 対星館 (Taiseikan) for anyone interested.

Including in our stay was dinner, and it was beyond anything I had ever thought to expect.  The several times I had a meal in a ryokan, it was served in a general dining area and it was maybe one or two courses.  I found this more than satisfactory, but Taiseikan served us our food in our room, and it was more courses than I could count.  I tried to take a picture of the booklet they left in the room to explain our meal, but you probably can't read it.

My place setting before the carnage.  Also: UME SHU.

Before we stuffed ourselves senseless.  I cleared every plate.

The first course included multiple little goodies like some kind of roasted bean, an apple and shrimp dish (it was fantastic), fish and tamago yaki.  There was also a side of tofu with some kind of fish served on top, and on the top right there was some fish, potato and fish cake cooking.

Close-up of deliciousness.

Second course was a plate of sashimi, which was toro (high-grade, fatty tuna), salmon, another kind of fish I wasn't certain of, and ika (squid).  Ika still isn't my favorite sashimi, but I've gotten pretty 平気 about it as of late.  No one really wanted it on this plate and I wasn't about to waste it!

The goodies that were cooking as we devoured the other courses.

We were also served a clear soup with a shrimp dumpling and wakame, which you can see above my glass of ume shu (though that is likely Karen's since too much time had elapsed for me to still be on my first serving).

Then there was another dumpling served in soup.  I think the chambermaid (at least that's how our pamphlets translated her title) explained that it was Thai-inspired.  It had a lot of seafood and veggies on the inside and was fantastic, just like everything else.

Then there was a course of Western-inspired food, which was 3 pieces of beef (light tossed and fried in panko crumbs), a salad and mashed potatoes they had made into a little bullet shape.  The beef was oh-so tender and the extra salad of seaweed and tuna was perfect.  Unbelievable.

We were also served 漬物 (tsukemono, Japanese pickles).  As a sweet tooth, pickles aren't my favorite dish, but I've gotten pretty good with Japanese tsukemono.

Dessert was simple, but spectacular: strawberries with 黄な粉 (kinako, soy bean powder).  I would never in a million years have thought to put them together, but they complimented each other perfectly.  The dry texture of the kinako brought out the juiciness of the berries, and the flavors melded together really well.  I don't know what else to say about it; this is why I could never be a food critic.  All I know is that I want to make this myself when strawberries aren't insanely expensive (i.e. not in Japan) and have ready access to kinako (anyone know where I can get some in the States?).

And after going back out into the roten buro immediately upon waking up, it was time for breakfast.  This is everything all together; the meal included fish, tamago yaki, maguro sashimi, tsukemono, dumpling soup, 湯豆腐 (yudoufu, or boiled tofu), miso soup and rice.  I naturally ate everything.  I really enjoy Japanese breakfasts; they really provide you with a good variety of foods and fish actually a perfect morning food.

As I have no further pictures, this post must now draw to a close.  We traveled around Hakone a bit and failed to see Fuji-san (jerk), and returned to Yokohama on Saturday night.  Sunday I was greatly disappointed with Yokohama's food offerings: first in the absurdly priced Chinatown (I had heard that it's a very touristy Chinatown, and man they were right.  Give me my $1 plates and carts running over my feet back in America any day), and then at the mind-bogglingly pointless Ramen Museum in Shin Yokohama.  Perhaps "pointless" is an unfair adjective, but I am using it because "Museum" itself is a misnomer and leads to a gap between the point of going.  After visiting, I checked out the web for things others said about it and I saw it described as a "Food Amusement Park," which is a much more apt description.  When I heard "Museum" I thought it meant I'd learn something about ramen, but instead it's a circus of people waiting in line for hours to eat ramen contained within a plastic-y replica of 1958 Showa Japan.  I guess some people like it, but my mom, Karen and I agreed that it was kind of stupid, at least for us.  I bet the place makes a mint though.  

For now, that's all I've got.  I feel like I should I have some more meaningful final thoughts to sum up my culinary adventure, but at this point I am burn out on writing (surprise surprise, this took much longer than intended) and am unable to think clearly enough.  I'll probably end up adding something in an ETA because you know I can never really shut up, especially when food is involved.  

ごちそうさまでした！