Japan - a Gastronomical blog entry
If you only go to Japan for a food holiday, it’ll already be the best holiday you’ll ever have, and we haven’t even begun talking about the beautiful temples, culture, people and oh…. let's not forget the glorious powder snow in Niseko...Will now attempt to do justice to the food that we’ve had on this unforgettable trip.
Niseko - Days 1 to 5:
After a torturous 18 hour trip (Flight from KL to Narita, Transfer to Haneda, Flight to New Chitose, Bus transfer to Niseko, etc with heaps of waiting time in between) to Niseko, we were rewarded with the most magical view of snow clad mountains and walls of snow 4 metres high by the side of the road.We stayed at the Grand-Hirafu part of the mountain, and after checking into our Pension room, and famished from all the travelling, something immediately grabbed our attention… 100 Yen udon noodles (For those ignorant about the current Aussie:Yen exchange rate, this roughly equates to $1.15 Australian)! So we took the complimentary shuttle bus out to the main village and proceeded to track down the 100 Yen place, and to our delight, it was easy to find... so without a second thought, the door was open, the beanies had come off and we were on the way to the self service counter to order up a storm. This is how this place works - your basic bowl of plain udon noodles costs 100 Yen, to which you can add as much or as little of the toppings available neatly displayed in a see through cabinet. Most of the additions were various forms tempura…no complaints from us…. and even after having added about 6 or 7 pieces of various tempura each to of our bowls of Udon, the total came up to 900 Yen for the both of us (where can you find this value in Melbourne, much less at a snow resort?!). AND BOY WAS IT GOOD! Perhaps it was also due to the cold weather and our tired state, but it was a pretty good first meal up in Niseko and the best has yet to come.
On our second night, we checked out one of the Izakayas recommended in the Niseko food guide, which are basically pub styled restaurants in which you can either have a table or sit at the bar with flowing beer and fantastic food in a fantastic loud, fun and informal environment. Oh… you can smoke in these great little places as well. We indulged in the crunchiest, most succulent kaki fry (deep fried oysters) ever, along with the ‘Hoki’ (Smoked and grilled mackerel), Grilled Squid, Fried chicken and lots of fresh Sapporo Draft Beer (the beer in Japan is absolutely FANTASTIC!)
Day 3 and after another day of massive amounts of heavenly pow pow, we checked out a local restaurant, just a 2 minute walk around from our pension called Maru ‘O’ for dinner. This place was highly recommended by the other people at our accommodation, so you can imagine our surprise to find this place pretty deserted on a Friday night. We were ushered into a private Japanese room (sitting on the floor is not good after a lot of snowboarding!) and rewarded with a big menu, great service and fantastic food. We both ordered a Kaiseki (Set Meal with rice, soup, pickles, etc) one with hot udon noodles and salmon roe on rice and the other with soba noodles and tuna on rice. Everything was perfectly presented and tasted fantastic. Given the nice Japanese tatami room and great service, this place is recommended to anyone who’s heading up to Niseko - just take the Grand-Hirafu shuttle bus for Izumikyo 2 and you’ll get dropped right outside the restaurant.
We had a local speciality on our fourth night at 'A-Bu-Cha' izakaya, called the ‘Nabe’ Hotpot, a huge-ass pot of miso soup boiling away with pieces of Salmon and lots of vegetables in it. Fantastic on the slopes as it melts those winter chills away. Of course, how can this be sufficient? So we ordered heaps of Yakitori chicken wings, mushrooms, sausages, etc to indulge like we normally do…=P~~~Day 6: Sapporo
First stop, Sapporo Beer Garden and Museum. Being borderline alcoholics, we had to pay homage to one of the world’s most recognised beers. Upon finishing the tour of the museum, we were treated to a rather inexpensive 400 Yen sampler of 3 of Sapporo’s finest. For 400 Yen, you get a 250ml glass of the Original Recipe brew, the Current brew and the Premium mother of all first presses Brew. I must say, if anyone has the opportunity to try the Sapporo first press ‘Ichiban-something’, grab it by both horns and savour every last drop because it is soooo good.We then proceeded to check out the Snow Festival, after which we decided to treat ourselves to a crab kaiseki dinner. For 6000 Yen per person, we had 9 courses of crab, from the spider crab to the Atlantic snow crab…from sashimi to hotpot to baked crab… it was soooo good….by the end of the meal, we could hardly move, and then the waitress came in and proceeded to increase the flame of the hotpot, we stared at each other in bewilderment…. There’s more?!?! She then proceeded to make an egg porridge out of the crab stock that had been gently boiling away the past hour or so… one by one the bowls were handed out to us, tentative at first, the more we tasted the bigger the spoonfuls and by the end of it, everyone was licking their bowls. What more can I say about Japanese food, even when you’re bursting at the seams, you can always find room cos its just so damn good.
Decided that we all needed to walk off the massive dinner and proceeded to view the Ice Festival at night and was that the best idea ever. The lights at night make such a huge difference to the brilliant sculptures. But enough on Ice sculptures, we needed a drink. Thanks to the Lonely Planet Guide recommendation, we found our way to Susukino’s 'Go Hyaku Bar' i.e. 500 Yen bar, which was possibly the best and silliest night of our time spent in Japan. The all-you-can-drink-for-2-hours at 2000 Yen per head option, resulted in hilarious baka-ness and drunken antics after a massive 14 drinks EACH! A sobering walk back to the hotel in minus degrees temperatures concluded our night in Sapporo.Hokkaido is also famous for its Shiroi Koibito cookies, two thin butter cookies with white chocolate in between... oh my god we so should have bought more at the airport... they were all finished within 2 days! Will make the trip to the chocolate factory the next time we're in Sapporo.
Day 7: Tokyo
Arriving in Tokyo and checking into our hotel in Shinjuku in the early evening, we followed our Lonely Planet Guide for the Shinjuku area and discovered a great all-you-can-eat Shabu Shabu restaurant. For 4,800 Yen, we stuffed our faces for a full 2 hours devouring what I can only describe as half a cow. The quality of the meat was fantastic as was the service, however with the diminishing marginal utility of each tasty morsel of meat, each additional piece felt more and more ordinary. I’m glad we stopped when we did, otherwise I may never look at a piece of steak the same way ever again!
Day 8: Tokyo 
Now comes the most interesting and rewarding food experience in Tokyo. With aspirations to wake up early at 6am, beat the morning rush hour and get to the Tsukiji Fish Market (largest seafood wholesale market in the world) by 7am to see all the live seafood wholesaling hoo-ha, alas, we only got there 10:30am, by which time all the action was pretty much over. So we then proceeded to seek out brunch, and after much searching and waiting around, managed to find the perfect sushi bar.
We sampled the premium of the premium sushi fresh from the market and tossed onto our plates (literally) by the sushi chefs in one of these little tiny restaurants that sat about 2 people, but managed to squeeze in about 20. For entrée, we were each served a piping hot bowl of miso and fresh clam soup which was most yummy on this cold wintery mid-morning. The sushi sampler we opted for far eclipsed any sushi experience we have ever had, combined. We had a feast comprising of the basic but perfectly made unagi, tamago, and salmon to the more adventurous horse mackerel, clam and fish roe to the extreme uni (sea urchin) and the ultimate in funky spunky… COD FISH SPERM!?! I am glad I didn’t understand Japanese when I asked them what this was and proceeded to gobble the thing down as you do. Creamy, peppery and salty, it was an interesting myriad of textures and flavours. Not something that I would ever order again, but still, I am thankful for the experience.
Dinner at Shibuya was a slightly less taxing experience at this modern funky Japanese restaurant recommended by a local. We sampled things like tuna and avocado salad which ended up being a mash of various indecipherable items, fried chicken gizzards, yakiniku beef maki (which was really good) and various other funky noveau Japanese dishes, all beautifully presented, and washed it all down with DIY chu hai (i.e. squeeze your own fresh lime/grapefruit into your drink)...*hic*... after dinner, we experienced our 'Lost in Translation' moment at the New York Bar, Park Hyatt Hotel. Bloody expensive cover charge, but worth it for the live jazz band, the ambience, and the magificent views.
Day 9: Tokyo - Hakone
We visited the Mejingu Shrine in Harajuku, and then attempted to do some shopping in Omote Sando before proceeding to Harajuku for some people watching. It was here that we indulged in some dessert crepes at the side of the road, whilst watching the crazy cats go by in their crazy get ups along Takeshita Dori.
After a huge day of travelling to Fuji-Hakone, we had just enough time to get the gear off and soak in the outdoor onsen just before dinner. Fresh from our onsen bath, we proceeded down this road which would have led us back to the main town area of Fuji-Hakone. With absolutely no expectations, we found ourselves drawn towards this glowing red lantern in the distance. Thinking that this place was strictly non-English speaking, I enquired about the menu in my extremely limited Japanese… the lady boss heard me speak and immediately went to the chef and mumbled something in Japanese. Suddenly a loud boisterous voice boomed from behind the open kitchen… "HELLO! WELCOME"! Needless to say, we were floored and thought… how good was this, the only decent looking place on the street and the chef spoke fluent English (apparently self taught from watching English movies!).
Now here’s the gist of what was probably our most enjoyable gastronomic experience in Japan. Bubbling away in the corner was this delicious looking meat stew… which upon asking turned out to be this melt-in-your mouth stewed beef in an exquisite ponzu sauce. We then proceeded to have 3 serves of the stuff (the 3rd one being on the house cos we’re such ‘lovely’ people).
The second dish recommended by the chef was a cold roast beef dish with sesame dressing accompanied by a simple salad on the side. This was absolutely fantastic thick juicy slices of sliced rare beef cooked to perfection and paired with this sweet tangy sesame sauce that simply completed the dish.
Now for the piece de resistance… SPICY MISO OYSTER HOTPOT! Oh My GOD! The presentation of this dish was simply breathtaking with massive mama sized oysters flanked by fresh local vegetables beautifully arranged on a Japanese platter and the Japanese hotpot of spicy miso broth gently bubbling away directly in front of us….mmmmm…...
Day 10: Hakone - Kyoto
"Don’t forget the Black Eggs!" was what the Hakone guide book advised (it didn't say that the minimum purchase is 6). It took awhile to scoff down 6 of these eggs which are cooked in the sulphurous springs of Hakone and are meant to have nutritious benefits etc... pretty much tasted like regular hard-boiled eggs except.... sulphury… what a fantastic tourist gimmick...
After completing the Fuji-Hakone tourist trail, which involved cable car and funicular train rides in order to view Mount Fuji in all its glory (we were blessed with great views due to the clear weather), as well as a cheesy pirate ship ride across Lake Ashi, we proceeded to our next destination, Kyoto via shinkansen.
Dinner was at a Yakitori Izakaya where we finally got our fill of Yakitori, which is basically skewers and skewers of yummy stuff drenched in all kinds of sauces. On the menu that night were skewers of meatballs, chicken, pork, shitake mushrooms, sausages, beef, etc. as you can guess, we ate and ate and ate and of course we drank and drank and drank.
In Japan, these Izakayas are the places to go to for the best value food. All in all including our couple of beers and chu-his each and all the food, the bill was around 7,500 Yen which roughly equates to about $30 each.
Day 11: Kyoto 
We spent a massive full day of walking and exploring shrines and temples, stopping intermittently to stuff our faces with little snacks and goodies along the side of the road on the way to and from the shrines, and sitting down for a well derserved break of mochi (a Kyoto speciality) and green tea. We then walked all over Gion and Pontocho in search of a recommended all you can drink Izakaya... by the time we found it almost an hour and a half later, it was fully booked, and none of the wait staff spoke English anyway... so it was on to more restaurant exploring before settling for a gyoza and hotpot establishment in a little alley way.
Because we hadn’t had gyoza yet on this trip, we ended up ordering 32 gyozas between the 3 of us. Before your jaw hits the floor, these gyozas are pretty small, and quite unlike the ones you find back here in Australia. We also had 12 xiao long paos and of course, a huge hotpot. This was a Chinese influenced place so it was basically a steamboat with vegetables, pork, chicken, fish and deep fried fish head, which was a pretty yummy combo. The funky thing about it however, was the dual sauce. One was a pretty tasty spicy soup, however, the other one was this really strange zesty lemon sauce that tasted like a lemon chicken sauce that’s been diluted somewhat…. an interesting culinary experience indeed.
Day 12: Osaka
We continued on to the last leg of our trip, Osaka where we stayed at the Hotel Riva Nankai, superbly located right in the heart of the Dotombori area.
First stop, Takoyaki, little octopus balls drenched with tasty brown sauce, Japanese mayonnaise and heaps of bonito flakes, an Osaka speciality which are absolutely delicious in Osaka! Having already stuffed our faces with the octopus balls, we walk past this place on the corner with heaps of people slurping away at these massive bowls of Ramen….. Oh My God…..i realised that since being in Japan, we have yet to have a bowl of ramen! Rushing to the ticket machine, (you have to buy a ticket for your bowl of noodles and hand it to the chef which is a pretty good idea so they don’t actually handle money and this makes it really hygienic) we bought a 600 Yen ticket in exchange for a massive bowl of Chashu ramen and taking the lead from the people around us, proceeded to heap raw garlic, kimchi cabbage and fried garlic chives into our bowl which was possibly the best bowl of ramen we’ve ever had in our lives. The subsequent garlic breath wasn't so good, but oh so worth it!
Another Osaka specialtity is Okonomiyaki, which is basically a thick-ass pancake that’s filled with all sorts of things. We sampled the equivalent of ‘The Lot’ filled with king prawn, pork, chicken, vegetables, beef, etc. Must say it was a pretty interesting experience faking the Teppanyaki moves on the grill plate.
Our gastronomic experience that was Japan had come to a conclusion, and given our whirlwind tour, I think we pretty much covered all bases and were extremely fulfilled. A highly recommended holiday destination indeed for those ruled by their stomachs!
posted by a||y @ 12:31 AM
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