Japanese Cuisine in Kyoto

Hello there! How have you been so far? I think I haven’t posted anything on my blog for a while, and I apologize for my laziness. You know once we get lazy, it’s hard for us to start again, right?

Today I want to write about Japanese cuisine in Kyoto and the cuisine is called Kyo-ryori in Japanese.

I went to a Japanese fancy restaurant called Tan-kuma (たん熊）with my husband and two of our mutual friends and ate together. We had a lot of fun there while chitchatting.

This is called sesame tofu made from sesames.

Fish soup called sumashi-jiru

 

 

Fresh raw fish called sashimi

 

Main dish

 

My favorite, eel rice! Mmmmm, yummy!

Dessert: green tea ice cream and kinako mochi with red beans

 

I went to Kyoto again with my other friend on a different day, and she and I ate different Japanese cuisines at another fancy restaurant. The restaurant name is Gion Yuyama. ( 祇園ゆやま）

Sesame tofu made from sesames

The restaurant chef. We sat in front of the chef, and we could watch him. It was fascinating.

 

Main dish

 

He is cutting tiny fish bones from a hamo ( a kind of fish which we eat in summer in  Kyoto)

 

Egg plants, okura and oriental melon

 

Rice with shirasu (dried tiny fish), miso soup and some Japanese pickles

 

Dessert: Ice cream, sesame flavored pudding and coffee flavored gelatin with water melon

Both restaurants were really good, and I hardly can choose which was better.

Since we were in Kyoto, I want to introduce summer in Kyoto as well.

The street where we walked was very Kyoto. Each house has some blinds called sudare to block sun shine and keep inside cool.

 

 

 

I think this house is a tea house called ochaya which has geisha and maiko (geisha’s apprentice)  because we can see square wood printed maiko and geisya names above the door.

After that, we went to another place to look around the pottery festival in Kyoto.

Since I went to the festival last year as well, I didn’t take many photos this time. I am sorry for this.

 

 

I bought some pottery for kintsugi techniques Japanese traditional techniques for pottery)  which I am currently involved in.  I will write about kintsugi techniques on my other blog entry soon. You will see what it is then.

 

Thank you so much for visiting my blog again! I will keep posting, stay tuned!!

 

-Yumi

 

 

Food Art in Japan

Hello there. How are you doing?

I wanted to write about my previous place where my family and I had spent for seven years, but I don’t have enough time to blog this time. I have to start over my last tea set for my painting school. So, I changed my mind. When I have enough time for blogging, I will write about the place. I am sorry for this. In stead of this, today I want to show you so-called food art. I took these pictures when I ate dinner with my hubby, family or parents at some French restaurants. In Japan French cuisines are expensive. I like dressing up and going out with my hubby or family there. I hope you enjoy the photos.

La Baie, The Ritz-Carlton hotel  This restaurant have been given one star from the Michelin Guide.

https://www.ritz-carlton.co.jp/restaurant/labaie/

The second picture is some bread. I was inspired by the way they served them. We can keep bread warm longer in the box.

Some salt with two different butter. I really loved the butter in the right side.

This is the Japanese portion, lol!!!!  Now you know why we don’t have BIG people here.

Don’t you think this looks like art? I think both Japanese food and French food are very visual food.

 

 

This crepe had a bit alcohol, brandy and I couldn’t eat it. ( I am weak at alcohol. My hubby enjoyed eating it.)

They served us more deserts. Oh, I loved their service!

On the other day, my family and my parents went to the other French restaurant, Restaurant Varier. http://www.restaurant-varier.com/menu/index.html

Well, Japanese portion again, lol

This dish is very artistic!

 

The color red and the color green, the contrast is very pretty!

 

 

My favorite, Foie gras with stake, of course, Japanese portion, lol

 

This plate is also very artistic.

 

Did you find some art in Japanese French cuisines? I am wondering which one is more artistic, real French food in France or Japanese French food in Japan? I would love to try out real French food in France in person some time!

Thank you for stopping by my blog. See you around in two weeks!

-Yumi x

 

 

 

 

Castella, the Oldest Japanese Cake

Hello there! How did your new year start? Have you set up some goals to achieve for this year? What are your new year’s resolutions?

I have set up some goals that I really want to achieve and made some new year resolutions. I will try my best to reach my goals this year as well, and I will see the result at the end of this year.

Today I want to introduce Japanese oldest cakes to you. I hope this blog entry is interesting for you who are interested in Japanese culture or history.

The cake is called “castella”.   It is around 400 years old. You can read the history here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castella   In the 17 century, the Edo period my country had closed our country from other countries to protect ourselves. It had been keeping in 300 years. During the time we created our own unique culture. Castella was born in the 17 century. Even though, we didn’t open our country to others, we had exchanged stuff with Portugal and Holland.  They brought us guns, Christianity, Western culture like western medicines, western science and so on. Castella was introduced by Portuguese. We had a large port in Nagasaki, the Kusyu erea. They came to the port with Castella. They started living with Japanese people in the area. Some Japanese people learned how to make Castella from them. Since then, Castella is very popular among all aged Japanese people. I love the cake as well.

Castella texture is different from Western cakes. They are very soft and mild.

 

I found a very interesting advertizement paper with the Castella box. Since I took some photos of it, I want to share them with you.

This seems to be very old advertizement of Castella. Since some Japanese characters are very old, I can’t read some words even though I can guess the meaning.

You can see a Castella factory in the advertizement.

 

You can see when the Castella factory opened. It says “since 1624”. Actually, the factory name is “Fukusaya” and it’s in Nagasaki prefecture. I think the Castella factory is the oldest one in Japan, and I really love the castella from the factory. I think the shop’s one is the best!

They have an English HP! http://www.fukusaya.co.jp/global/en/index.html According to the HP, the current shop owner is 16th generation from the first one. I am very amazed! The factory also have very long history with their Castella!!!

When you come to Japan, get some Castella at an airport! You will love them!

See you around in two weeks again!

Have a lovely week, everyone!

-Yumi x

 

-Yumi

Eel Foods

Hello there! How have you been? We are in the midvv summer, and every day is so hot and humid. To cheer ourselves up, we eat eels in summer. Well, it means Japanese summer is too tough, and many people lose their appetite. It’s easy for us to get sick. To stay healthy, we eat eels.

A couple of days ago, my family and my parents went to the biggest eel restaurant in my hometown. We ate eels until we got stuffed, lol. I think my family, my parents and I can stay healthy during this summer thanks to the eels.

Since the restaurant has a beautiful garden, I took some photos with some foods. I think eel foods are very fascinating for you to see because I don’t see eel foods so often out of Japan. I hope this blog entry is interesting for you to know about our food culture. As I repeat mentioning, our food culture depends on the seasons a lot. Eels are definitely summer food for us.

appetizer with some cherry blossom tea

grilled ell with koi fish sasimi

I love eating koi fish sasimi with sour miso sauce. It’s so yummy.

Umaki, egg omelet with grilled eel

Umaki is my favorite too!!

 

Koikoku, miso soup with koi fish

Koikoku is my favorite too. It’s sweeter than regular and has much richer flavor than the regular one. We have another good restaurant for Koikoku close to my hubby’s parents’ house. When I get there, I will introduce the foods there.

Koi-no-amani

It might be gross for you, but this is another one of my favorite. The fish is koi with sweet tasting soy sauce flavor. It’s hard for people to get Koi fish from a market for the amani, but I cook other fish with amani. The only thing that I don’t like is the fish part, though. My hubby loves amani with fish eggs.

Unadon ( Una-jyu)  with some Japanese pickles

This is my best favorite food! I love grilled unagi with some rice!

 

Yuzu flavor ice cream. Yuzu is a citrous fruit.

On this day my dad found a dragonfly. According to him, the dragonfly was a rare sort. I forgot the name, but I took some pics with him. He seemed to be very happy with good foods and the rare dragonfly.

The restaurant has a koi pound.  I guess we ate some koi fish from the pond, the fresh ones, lol.  Poor fish……

I hope you enjoyed the blog entry!

 

See you in two weeks again!!

-Yumi x

 

Desserts for Summer in Japan

Hello there!

How are you spending your weekend? The day before yesterday was the Tanabata in Japan even though my family and I didn’t celebrate it. It was first time for the Tanabata festival not to be a rainy day for years. So, I guess the mystical couple in the sky enjoyed having their romantic time together.　You ca learn about mystical couple: http://www.japan-suite.com/blog/2014/7/6/tanabata-story-of-two-star-crossed-loversf

Today I want to introduce our summer desserts to you. In summer you can see these in supermarkets a lot. We love eating cold stuff in summer. Ice cream gets more popular in summer too, but we still love our old-fashioned sweets like these. We keep these desserts in our refrigerator to keep them cool. When we eat them, we can enjoy the cool temperature and the sweet flavor together. Most of them are like jellies, but these sweets are made from vegetable gelatin. This part is different from jellies. ( Jellies are made from animal gelatin.)

My favorite sweet in summer is Warabimochi. I really love Kuromitsu ( the black syrup made from brown sugar) and that’s the reason. It’s so tasty to eat the cold Warabimochi with Kuromitsu.

 

My other favorite is Mizsuyoukan.

My previous place where we lived had a popular Mizuyoukan factory three doors down from our house. We loved buying the Mizuyoukan there. I really miss it. Mizsuyoukan is made from some red beans.

We have more sweets for summer.

Anmistu

I don’t like this one, but some people like my hubby loves this, called Kuzsukiri. That’s because it tastes sour. I prefer sweet flavor.

So, which one do you want to taste first? I hope this summer won’t be extremely muggy, and I can enjoy the season.

Have a lovely weekend! See you around next weekend here again!

-Yumi

 

 

Chinese Cuisine in Japan

Hello there! How have you been?

I am sorry for the delay. I wanted to update my blog soon, but I was busy for my family thing. Since I have some spare time, I want to update my blog today.

Today’s entry is about Chinese cuisine in Japan. I know in the States, people don’t think Chinese foods are “cuisine”. In Japan we have both cheap foods and expensive foods in Chinese foods. I want to show the expensive one today.

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I celebrated my husband’s parents’ wedding anniversary with them. My husband took us to a fancy Chinese restaurant. I thought it might be interesting for people who never seen Chinese fancy foods in Japan. I hope you enjoy the food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be honest with you, I am not a big fan of the restaurant. When we lived in Wakayama prefecture, we used to going to our favorite Chinese restaurant. The foods are much better, but we don’t have the restaurant anymore, and we don’t live in Wakayama either.

I like Chinese foods both in Japan and America.

Do you have Chinese cuisines in your country?

Sakura (Cherry blossoms )started blooming! My next blog entry will be about the cherry blossoms!

Have lovely weekdays! See you soon here!!!

-Yumi

 

Happy Eel’s Day!

Hello friends!

Today is a eel’s day in Japan! It might sound gross for you, but in Japan we have eaten grilled eel in summer to keep health.

This isn’t an official holiday, and it has been changing to be up to a calender every year. Last year, we had two ee’ls days, but this year we have the only one day. Today is it!!!! It has long history to eat eels, and it started since 1772 to 1788. We still keep the tradition.

My family and I went out to eat grilled eel. I love it as I can eat it every day!

Happy Eel Day!

 

Happy Eel Day!

 

Happy Eel Day!

 

Happy Eel Day!

 

Happy Eel Day!

 

It was soooooooooooooo good and made my day 🙂

We love going out to eat eels, but sometimes we take out to go eat eels as a bento box. A bento box looks like a lunch box. Grilled eel is good when it gets cold. I love both eating outside and taking out to go.

 

Happy Eel Day!

 

We have a serious problem about the eels. Now, they might become designated as an endangered species. If it will become designated as an endangered species, we won’t be able to eat eels in the future. We might not keep our tradition in the future. We are good at farming fish, but somehow, it’s hard for us to farm eels. That’s because eels are very mysterious species and sensitive, and we still can’t understand their biogeocenosis.

When I was younger, eels were not so expensive. However, nowadays it’s getting higher and higher. Now, eels are one of Japanese cuisines.

I hope we can succeed to farm eels soon!!!! Knock on wood!!!!!

Japanese Food

Hi there!

In Japan we are in the middle of the rainy season, and I hate the season because it’s really moggy. After the season, we will have a really humid and hot summer season. Aw, they are really gloomy seasons for me.  I hope you have a good time.

I’ve heard Japanese food is getting more popular because of Anime and Manga. People who love Anime and Manga have been seeing a lot of Japanese foods through them,  and they started getting more interested in our foods. Is it true? If so, it’s very interesting for me. I’m very curious when people from overseas hear about Japanese foods, what kind of foods they imagine. While showing my experiences, I want to show real Japanese foods in Japan.

I’ve experienced to eat so-called Japanese food at a restaurant in the States. My friend, Fresia from Bolivia invited me to the restaurant while we were traveling together.

Japanese Restaurant in New Orleans

 

It’s completely different from our foods in Japan. Even though it’s different, it was really good. I loved the American Japanese food, called Teppan-Yaki.

Japanese Restaurant in New Orleans

At the restaurant they served us a cup of soup, but it was mix of Chinese and Japanese. The spoon is Chinese. We don’t eat Japanese soup with the Chinese spoon.

Japanese Restaurant in New Orleans

 

When we go to Teppan-Yaki Japanese restaurant, we can enjoy seeing such the performance that we can’t see in Japan. The chef was from Thailand, and we enjoyed chatting when I told him I’ve been there last year.

Japanese Restaurant in New Orleans

 

Japanese Restaurant in New Orleans

 

Japanese Restaurant in New Orleans

 

Japanese Restaurant in New Orleans

 

While looking at the chef’s performance, we enjoyed eating. I ordered seafoods, and I ate grilled veggies, fried rice, salad, soup and grilled seafoods. All of them were very tasty.  The only think that they disappointed me was that they were using really cheap dishes for the foods. In Japanese foods, dishes are a very important part for us because we enjoy the foods themselves while looking at the decoration on really pretty dishes.

I also ate Japanese food in Canada last month. The chef was from Korea, and they also used very cheap dishes.

Here are real Japanese foods we are used to.

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

Japanese Foods

 

All foods belong to one person. The potion is small .

When you looked at the photos of real Japanese foods, what did you think? Please compare the American Japanese foods.

I think the real Japanese foods seem to be more delicious for you because we concern about decoration, dishes, colors and which season we eat. My family and I went to the Japanese restaurant in this rainy season. So, they served us some cold foods. You can see some ice cubes in some photos, and they are cold foods. Eating cold foods in this season is so good because we can make our body cooler.

I think Japanese foods are almost art because we can enjoy looking at them before eating. They are very colorful, and we use expensive dishes for the good foods.

Do you know that our Japanese foods have been registered as a World Heritage Site? I’m very proud of it.

I hope you can understand about Japanese foods in Japan via my blog post.

 

Do We Asian People Like Poop Jokes????

Hi there!
I’ve been in the States again to improve my painting skills. I’ve been staying at my friend from Michigan’s house for three weeks.

Yesterday something interesting happened. A friend of mine from Thailand posted some interesting photos on his Facebook, and he is a mutual friend between my American friend, Gay and me. He has been traveling around Taiwan and visited an unique restaurant “Modern Toilet Restaurant”.

The restaurant is quite popular in Taiwan, and if we want to get into the restaurant, we need the reservation. The place is really unique because all seats are toilet seats and tables are made from square glass covered bathtub. Not only that, they have been serving foods on a toilet shaped dishes, and the menu naming sounds really disgusting like bloody poop diarrhea or whatever. However, I don’t want people to misunderstand the restaurant. The foods are quite normal.

When my American friend, Gay looked at some photos that our Thai friend has posted, she was grossed out. She made a fuss and started searching what “Modern Toilet Restaurant” is. She called her friends, son and grandsons. She also shared some links on her Facebook.

I didn’t understand why she was making such a fuss. Then, I realized that it’s a part of Asian culture. The restaurant’s idea came from our popular comic “Dr. Slump”, so, I’m kind of familiar with the kind of joke even though I’ve never been there before. I explained her that it’s Asian culture, but when I opened Facebook, our Thai friend received a lot of negative comments on his post. I think the restaurant is cool, and if we had it in Japan, I would want to go there, but Gay and most Western people just can’t accept the kind of joke.

I think it’s one of the most difficult things for us to understand jokes, and I learned I shouldn’t say jokes relate to poop things to my Western friends. They don’t have the sense of humor that we do. I think even we grow-ups say some jokes relates to poop to our friends, and we laugh out at them. To be honest with you, I like these kind of jokes.

If you are interested in what the Modern Toilet Restaurant is, please google it. You can see a bunch of funny pictures. Before going to the pages, I want to warn you that you might be grossed out.

Puffer Fish!

A couple of weeks ago I went out to eat some puffer fish with my family in Obama city, Fukui. It was my husband’s idea because we would have to move out and enjoy some seafood here where we current live. He reserved a nice restaurant where we can stay for us. Puffer fish is my favorite, and I really enjoyed it!

Appetizers

Raw Tai （sea bream）, called sashimi in Japanese

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparidae

Raw Peffer Fish

We eat raw fish and seafood with some soy sauce and wasabi (わさび、green horseradish paste). I love the combination, and I eat stake with soy sauce and wasabi! That’s also my favorite!! Every time I go to study abroad in the U.S of America, I always bring a small bottle of say sauce and put it on anything I want. I can’t survive without any soy sauce!!!!

Fried Puffer Fish

I also love fried puffer fish! It’s the best fried stuff every for me!!!!

Nabe （Japanese style hot pot dish）

Nabe is a Japanese style of hot pot dish. We put some veggies and seafood, in this case we put some puffer fish in a pot. After they are boiled, we eat them with some ponzu sauce (ポン酢、ぽんず, ponzu）. The flavor of ponzu is mix of citrus, vinegar and soy sauce. The nabe is for the Winter season and it keeps us warm.

Grilled Shirako (milt)

I know for Western people, it’s disgusting! We Japanese people eat everything of seafood even some milt!!!!! I love some soup of some milt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe

Desert

A View from Our Hotel

A View from Our Hotel

We will move to a new town next weekend, and I’ve been walking around to take some cherry blossoms’ pictures here. I will miss our current town because the town has a lot of cherry trees. The view of Spring is the best.

My text blog entry is supposed to become cherry blossoms! Stay tunned!

-Yumi