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2009-06-13T01:22:00.014+09:00

*Disclaimer: Anyone who finishes reading this blog in one sitting obviously has too much time on their hands. I recommend getting a boyfriend/girlfriend and spending some “time” with them…that’ll get you off the computer! =P

So I haven't had much time to update this blog, mainly because of my consistent contributions to the Japanese service industry. I'm definitely doing my part to help out the Japanese economy! But,I recently had the great fortune to try authentic Japanese Kaiseki at a small establishment called Ginsada and thought I would write briefly on it... and then I just decided to write a lot.

Kaiseki is the epitome of Japanese cuisine. It is a dining experience that uses fresh, local, seasonal ingredients to prepare a cornucopia of delights. The theme to the dishes is balance as no ingredient outshines its counterpart.

The chef was a friend of our student, who invited us to dine with several other friends. The restaurant was held open for us exclusively and the dinner lasted for about 3 hours. The place couldn’t have held more than 8 people and had a very personal feeling. The chef prepared the entire meal in front of us and taught us about his establishment and profession.

To complement our meal we had beer (naturally), tea, and a Japanese white wine from Yamagata prefecture. The wine was highly recommended by the chef as it was a Japanese wine that pairs well with Japanese cuisine. I was not disappointed. It was very subtle in its flavor, which helped to accent the dishes.

1st course /Amuse bouche: The first course was just a small dish of bamboo shoots and small vegetable things sprinkled with sesame marinated in a sweet miso-like paste. It was a pleasant starter to get our stomachs ready for the rest of the night. The shoots were very fresh and crunchy and the miso marinade was very simple and pure-tasting.

2nd course: Next, we were served several kinds of sushi including: shrimp, tuna, red sea bream, and squid. The freshly-grated wasabi smacked me in the face, while tasting much more complex than the more common wasabi paste. The rice was incredibly well-seasoned and cooked. The seafood was some of the freshest I've had. The shrimp had a particularly nice bite to it without being overcooked.

The sushi was served with large, thick slices of ginger. I love ginger, but I was worried that the taste would be too spicy, coming from such a large piece of ginger. It was about the thickness of my index finger and about 3/4 of an inch long. To my relief and amazement the ginger was not strong or spicy at all, though it carried a distinctly pickled-ginger taste. The flavour was sweet, yet pleasingly spicy and it paired perfectly with the shoyu, wasabi, and sushi.

3rd course: This was a simmered-beef dish that was served in a small clay pot. It had a rich, savoury taste that was reminiscent of Szechuan cooking, but with more subtlety and less spice. The beef was melt in your mouth tender. The seasoning was right on and not too salty, which I feared because of the darkness of the sauce. We were given spoons so that we could lap up all of the rich, thick sauce, which also contained ground beef and diced chili peppers...and lap it up we did!

4th course: This was a simple tempura dish but was incredibly delicious and well-prepared. The chef brought out some fresh prawns and presented them to us to, I assume, confirm that they were alive and kicking. I was praying that we wouldn't have to eat them on the spot, legs still flailing about! Fortunately, he eventually took them back and proceeded to snap their heads off while chatting with us about his hula dancing experience. The shrimp were then seasoned and rolled not in traditional Japanese panko, but rather a crumbled biscuit-like mixture. This made it slightly heavier than regular tempura, but not so heavy as to make it displeasing. It was also much crunchier than traditional tempura, which was a treat for me.

The tempura shrimp was served seasoned with a dash of a special soy sauce sourced from Shibuya. The brand, of course, was Hachicko brand. The chef was very proud of this shoyu, which he said he had to go to Shibuya to buy. He stressed that you would not be able to have it shipped to you. The other part to this course was the prawn head itself! Normally, I don't even like the shrimp skin, but this head was amazing...hehe (I bet you didn’t catch that the first time)...we were given a special coarse sea salt to dip the head with. The head was very crunchy, slightly sweet, and a little bitter. The salt tasted very clean and wasn't overly salty...which is kind of weird now that I think about it, being salt and all.

5th course: Here we were served a non-traditional pork dish that was selected for us to please our foreign taste buds. The chef chose to serve us pork chops, Japanese-style. Our chef told us that the pork was specially sourced from Shizuoka and was of excellent quality. After having it I definitely agree with him.

The chef gave us a choice of the pork prepared in a classical French-style (with wine and butter) or a traditional Japanese style (simply salt and wasabi). Of course we tried the Japanese way and were not disappointed. The pork was pan-fried, slightly charring the outside while keeping the inside pinkish red when cut. I must admit I've never eaten pork so pink before, but our chef insisted that it was fine. A pan-fried eggplant accompanied the pork chops. The eggplant was a Japanese eggplant, which was long and thin like a cucumber, but longer. It's taste was very sweet and not bitter at all. The pork was also served with a wasabi-zuke sauce, which was incredible! Wasabi-zuke is a sauce made from pickled wasabi leaves. Its taste is more subtle than wasabi, but still had the distinct mark of wasabi. The sauce was sweet, while the texture reminded me of a loose guacamole. Needless to say I devoured all of it!

6th course: This was kind of a special course that was requested for us foreigners to try… I kind of thought of it as a gross-the-gaijin-out game, if you will. However, I found out that it is a delicacy in Japan and enjoyed by many people. So, we ate Shirako. Shirako is basically the male genitalia of the fish that contains the seminal fluid that is used to fertilize fish eggs. Yeah, I ate fish semen and I would actually eat it again. It had a very distinct taste and texture to it. It was slightly salty, and the texture was like a firm piece of fat, but more like sashimi….very difficult to describe. All in all, not too bad.

7th course: This course was a seasonal sushi dish. The chef prepared, what I later learned was, conger pike. Conger pike, known as hamo in Japan, is like a sea-water eel. Normally, the eel that is eaten all-year-round is a small fresh-water eel, but the conger pike is from the sea and is normally eaten during the summer. The chef prepared it very simply. He sliced the hamo and made sushi with it. The chef brushed a tare glaze onto the fish and took out a mini propane burner to quickly grill it. The taste and texture was reminiscent of a fishy-eel… interesting.

8th course: This course consisted of a simmered-fish dish. To my surprise and delight we were served simmered red sea bream! Red sea bream is considered a luxury fish in Japan and is usually used for special occasions. It has a firm texture and a delicately sweet taste. We were served the head simmered with a meaty portion near the fin of the fish. The fish was simmered in, from what I could tell, was a typical soy sauce, sake, etc. mixture. I normally don’t really enjoy fish, but this fish was cooked really well and had me digging around the head to find more of the succulent meat. The sauce penetrated the fish well without overpowering the red sea bream’s sweet taste.

9th course: This was a tuna maki dish. It was very simply good-quality tuna, with good quality wasabi rolled with well-seasoned sushi rice and flavourful nori. Good overall, mainly because of the tuna and wasabi, but nothing too special here.

10th course: This course was a pickled vegetable dish. This was another very simple dish containing big chunks of vegetables such as onions, broccoli and other vegetables that I don’t remember or couldn’t identify along with some jellyfish. The vegetables were still surprisingly crisp as I bit into them. Their taste was very sweet with a hint of sourness from the vinegar used. The vegetables also tasted pleasantly fresh, much unlike other pickled vegetables that I’ve had.

11th course: This course was a soup dish. For this, the chef brought out a small hibachi for each of us and placed a small soup-filled clay pot on it and let the soup simmer. The soup consisted of a very simple broth with fresh greens that tasted similar to watercress, but didn’t really look like it. Finally, a slice of pork was laid on top of the soup. The broth was very clear and smelled mainly of the vegetables that were simmered in it. The taste of the soup was distinctly of vegetables and the broth that was used for the soup. The broth itself was very clean tasting and was obviously homemade, reminding me of my mother’s soup…but a little bit better. Lol

Dessert: I wasn’t really looking forward to this dish because most Japanese desserts use azuki or red bean, but I was not going to waste a perfectly good dessert! Anyways, I was right. The dish consisted of a small spoonful of azuki underneath a scoop of homemade/handmade vanilla ice cream (I stress handmade because the chef said he doesn’t have a machine and has to churn it by hand). On top of the ice cream was a strawberry that had something done to it that made it look gross but made its flavor very concentrated and sweet. The dessert was sprinkled with some crunchy bits and icing sugar, and served with a slice of matcha sponge cake and coffee. A great dessert to end the evening.

As for the price of the meal, well of course we didn’t pay. I tried to offer, but the Japanese student was adamant about treating us. After having one of the Japanese teachers at work translate the menu, it seems like the meals start at about $60 USD per person. I have a feeling that it was more than that considering the amount of dishes, beer, and wine we had. So I’m guessing it was more around $100+ USD per person. Not bad =)

25 Random Facts about Japan (Part 1…of…well actually, I don’t know yet…)

2009-03-22T23:31:00.012+09:00

If anyone is wondering, YES! These random facts are all true…well…kind of…

1. Japanese motorists have a strange condition that prevents them from being able to see cyclists. Furthermore, some motorists have a variant of this disease, which actually gives them a heightened sensitivity to cyclists causing them to seek them out and run them over. Japanese cyclists defend themselves by riding without helmets. Regrettably, this tactic does not seem to be working.

2. Saying that Japanese people bow often is officially the understatement of the century. No, really. Whether it be a quick “Sumimasen!” nod-of-the-head bow, a “Nice to meet you for the first time; please do well for the both of us.” greeting bow, or a full-fledged “I can bow lower than you” bowing competition* you’ll find that you can’t get through the day in Japan without bowing at least a dozen times or so.

*For those of you who don’t know what a bowing competition is it’s when someone bows to you and you bow back as a sign of respect, but then the other person bows lower to show more respect, then you feel obligated to bow because you don’t want to leave them hanging, then they bow, and then you, and then them, and then….AAARRRGGGHHH!!

3. Japanese people have the funniest/weirdest/cutest thinking sounds! North American thinking sounds sound, well stupid. “Uhhhhh”, “Mmmmm”, “Hmmmm” makes English speakers sound like dumb hicks. Not that there’s anything wrong with dumb hicks…I guess.

On the other hand Japanese people have thinking words like “Eto…”, “Ano….” and my favourite of all “Eeh?” Eeh sounds like the beginning of the word “egg”, but to make it sound Japanese you have to say it quickly, sharply, and sound slightly puzzled. For added cuteness factor you should jerk your head quickly to the side, alternating sides with each subsequent “Eeh”. One person did this consecutively about 6 times while talking to me and I almost died of laughter.

This is how the conversation went:
Me: “So what’d you do yesterday?”
Anon. Japanese: “I ‘eeh?’ went to ‘eeh?’ the ‘eeh?’ park ‘eeh?’ yester ‘eeh?’ yesterday.”

Kawaii de yo!!

4. Who wears short-shorts? J-girls wear short-shorts! Upon arriving in Japan I was shocked to find tons of girls wearing short-shorts and skirts. Japanese girls are not shy about showing off their legs even during the winter! These girls give Canadians a run for their money.

I felt horribly sorry for their tiny little bodies. In their defense, some of them wear leggings under their skirts. But, if I felt cold in jeans, they must’ve been freezing their butts off…literally. On the other hand, Japanese girls don’t usually wear tops that reveal their cleavage and favour layering several tops.

5. Japanese service is incredibly polite. Whenever entering a store you’re usually always greeted with a hearty “Iraishaimase!!” and always sent off with an “Arigatou gozaiimashita!” And for the most part, you’ll find that same level of service almost everywhere from McDonald’s to car dealerships. That’s great, until you find out that proper Japanese etiquette dictates you having to be equally, if not more polite back.

For example, it took me 2 weeks and 6 trips to the store to get a cell phone, when it usually only takes about an hour. The sales representative we were dealing with was an incompetent fuddy-duddy and my co-worker/translator felt awkward asking for another representative.

So, if you have a complaint about something you have to bring it up VERY politely (in a way that doesn’t offend them) or just deal with it. I find that most of the time I am forced to end up dealing with it. Either that or throw my hands up and run around like a gorilla screaming obscenities. One or the other.

Chris Takes on Japan!

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25 Random Facts about Japan (Part 1…of…well actually, I don’t know yet…)