Japanese food, part two
Aug. 31st, 2013 14:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyI had dinner with laurashapiro the other night, and somehow we got to talking about Japanese food. I made an epic post about this two years ago when I was living there, but I never finished the promised second half. So…here we go.
Takoyaki are a thing in Kansai, and they are undoubtedly most popular in Osaka. It's hard to go too far without seeing a cute octopus (tako) dressed as a chef. Takoyaki are little balls of fried dough with bits of chopped octopus inside. They like them undercooked in Osaka, though, so it's important to use the little toothpicks they give you to open them up so they cool off before you try to eat them. Otherwise LAVA MOUTH.
This is a real Osaka speciality, kushikatsu, deep fried things on skewers that you dip in sauces. They are super tasty.
More Soup Stock Tokyo! That is cold soy milk soup in the front with beans and fruit and various things in it in the front. It is super tasty, and I'm kind of tempted to try to recreate it one of these days.
Set lunch at a cafe in Aoyama in Tokyo. This is why set lunches are such a good deal.
Green tea latte, macarons, and fanfic at Starbucks in Roppongi.
Sweet potato soup and curry at Soup Stock Tokyo.
Set lunch at a Vietnamese place in Umeda, in Osaka.
Soy milk ramen at Mamezen in Kyoto. This is one of those restaurants that is a dude operating out of his house and it is so good.
Tempura soba at a great place in Gion in Kyoto.
Spaghetti with eel in Arashiyama in Kyoto.
We accidentally got full-size parfaits! As you can see my friend K is very upset about it.
Doughnut Plant doughnuts across the street from Kyoto Station. I've never actually been to Doughnut Plant in New York, but I go all the time in Japan.
The best inari-zushi (vinegared rice wrapped in deep-fried tofu pockets) I've ever had, of course at Fushimi Inari in Fushimi, south of Kyoto.
At the same place. This was the best fucking kitsune udon (udon with deep-fried tofu, here served cold) I have ever had.
Blurry (but delicious!
The soy sauce ramen at Kyoto Gogyou. SO GOOD.
Little cakes made with Daitoku-ji style natto at a cafe accross the street from Daitoku-ji in Kyoto.
The shôjin ryôri (temple cuisine, vegetarian) bento at Hiei-zan in northeast Kyoto.
Dinner at a grill your own yakitori (fried chicken) place outside of Takamatsu on Shikoku.
Sanuki udon at Konpira-sa
So my two friends B and K came to visit me my last week in Kyoto, and because they are great sports (in general and in terms of food) we went to Giro Giro Hitoshina, a "punk kaiseki" place that has locations in Kyoto, Honolulu and Paris. Kaiseki is a very old style of Japanese food, with lots of courses served on tiny dishes, and at the best kaiseki places it is possible to spend hundreds of dollars per person on one meal, which lasts about three or four hours. (The best place is on an island in the middle of the river in Arashiyama.) Giro Giro Hitoshina was ¥5000 per including a beer for each of us, which is a steal considering how great the food was and its on-the-canal location in Kyoto. It was probably one of the best meals I've had in my life. Here's a good write-up of it in English (except the dude's claim that it is difficult to find a decent meal under $100 is just so bizarre; he clearly doesn't know how to eat in Japan), and here's the website, in Japanese.
B wrote down what exactly was in each course, I didn't.
Course one. The aesthetics of the dishes are part of the experience.
Course two - eel with a tomato water reduction.
Course three - that's potato salad in a houzuki (Chinese lantern) flower.
Course four.
Course five. This is ayu, a very popular sweetfish.
Course six - a modern take on nasu (eggplant) dengaku.
Course seven, some kind of egg soup.
Course eight, a kind of red rice. Note the Kyoto pickles in the gourd-shaped dish.
The dessert course - banana ice cream, iirc.
laurashapiro the other night, and somehow we got to talking about Japanese food. I made an epic post about this two years ago when I was living there, but I never finished the promised second half. So…here we go. Takoyaki are a thing in Kansai, and they are undoubtedly most popular in Osaka. It's hard to go too far without seeing a cute octopus (tako) dressed as a chef. Takoyaki are little balls of fried dough with bits of chopped octopus inside. They like them undercooked in Osaka, though, so it's important to use the little toothpicks they give you to open them up so they cool off before you try to eat them. Otherwise LAVA MOUTH.
This is a real Osaka speciality, kushikatsu, deep fried things on skewers that you dip in sauces. They are super tasty.
More Soup Stock Tokyo! That is cold soy milk soup in the front with beans and fruit and various things in it in the front. It is super tasty, and I'm kind of tempted to try to recreate it one of these days.
Set lunch at a cafe in Aoyama in Tokyo. This is why set lunches are such a good deal.
Green tea latte, macarons, and fanfic at Starbucks in Roppongi.
Sweet potato soup and curry at Soup Stock Tokyo.
Set lunch at a Vietnamese place in Umeda, in Osaka.
Soy milk ramen at Mamezen in Kyoto. This is one of those restaurants that is a dude operating out of his house and it is so good.
Tempura soba at a great place in Gion in Kyoto.
Spaghetti with eel in Arashiyama in Kyoto.
We accidentally got full-size parfaits! As you can see my friend K is very upset about it.
Doughnut Plant doughnuts across the street from Kyoto Station. I've never actually been to Doughnut Plant in New York, but I go all the time in Japan.
The best inari-zushi (vinegared rice wrapped in deep-fried tofu pockets) I've ever had, of course at Fushimi Inari in Fushimi, south of Kyoto.
At the same place. This was the best fucking kitsune udon (udon with deep-fried tofu, here served cold) I have ever had.
Blurry (but delicious!
The soy sauce ramen at Kyoto Gogyou. SO GOOD.
Little cakes made with Daitoku-ji style natto at a cafe accross the street from Daitoku-ji in Kyoto.
The shôjin ryôri (temple cuisine, vegetarian) bento at Hiei-zan in northeast Kyoto.
Dinner at a grill your own yakitori (fried chicken) place outside of Takamatsu on Shikoku.
Sanuki udon at Konpira-sa
So my two friends B and K came to visit me my last week in Kyoto, and because they are great sports (in general and in terms of food) we went to Giro Giro Hitoshina, a "punk kaiseki" place that has locations in Kyoto, Honolulu and Paris. Kaiseki is a very old style of Japanese food, with lots of courses served on tiny dishes, and at the best kaiseki places it is possible to spend hundreds of dollars per person on one meal, which lasts about three or four hours. (The best place is on an island in the middle of the river in Arashiyama.) Giro Giro Hitoshina was ¥5000 per including a beer for each of us, which is a steal considering how great the food was and its on-the-canal location in Kyoto. It was probably one of the best meals I've had in my life. Here's a good write-up of it in English (except the dude's claim that it is difficult to find a decent meal under $100 is just so bizarre; he clearly doesn't know how to eat in Japan), and here's the website, in Japanese.
B wrote down what exactly was in each course, I didn't.
Course one. The aesthetics of the dishes are part of the experience.
Course two - eel with a tomato water reduction.
Course three - that's potato salad in a houzuki (Chinese lantern) flower.
Course four.
Course five. This is ayu, a very popular sweetfish.
Course six - a modern take on nasu (eggplant) dengaku.
Course seven, some kind of egg soup.
Course eight, a kind of red rice. Note the Kyoto pickles in the gourd-shaped dish.
The dessert course - banana ice cream, iirc.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-31 23:02 (UTC)Also, made me very hungry. Curry rice, eel (oh, man, I love eel so much), kamaboko in a bowl of udon, inari-zushi, yakitori, etc. *sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-31 23:13 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-31 23:22 (UTC)Yeah, this post made me hungry! Luckily I should get to go back to Japan next year, but now I want to go now.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-31 23:51 (UTC)And man, now I want to go back to Gogyou and have that cold ramen right now. Best freaking ramen of my life, and given how hot my office is right now, a cold dish sounds fantastic.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-01 00:08 (UTC)You should come up to Berkeley one Friday or Saturday--Ippuku has cold hand-cut soba starting at 11am until 2pm or sellout.
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Date: 2013-09-01 00:50 (UTC)...I wish I was in Japan right now. Maybe I'll go to a Japanese restaurant.
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Date: 2013-09-01 17:36 (UTC)And yes, the macarons. They were really quite good.
I really would like to try to recreate that cold soy milk soup, but I'd probably have to buy imported Asian soy milk, since U.S. soy milk just does not taste as good.
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