Tokyofoodcast

San’in Trip: Day Four-A Glimpse of Samurai Culture in Matsue

Tucking our feet under the comfortably warm table, we listened to the boatman singing old rowing songs and looked out at the the moss-covered walls or an elegant white heron resting in the middle of the still, green water. Time seemed to slow. Then, the skipper said “now we are coming up to a series of low bridges and make sure you duck”.

San’in Trip: Day Three-Fished out! And Monsters Too!

After the crabfest at Gyosantei, we started our third day at a hotel which also serves as a dormitory for sailors by the port of Sakaiminato. Although not a soul besides us seemed to be wandering the harbor or the streets on that sunny spring morning, the clear sky at this working port town was filled with the “clang, clang, clang” from the shipyard echoing through an otherwise very peaceful neighborhood.

Announcing Sake World Sake Brewery Tours

A while back, John and I talked about nihonshu tourism as a way to really open the doors to the sake world to anyone interested in the brew. So, here we are announcing the first very special opportunities to meet the brewers and experience Japan through sake.

San’in Trip: Day Two–Follow the crab

“You are lucky, it’s the last day of the crab season…. Where did you come from?” the owner asked as we were leaving. Then the natural flow of question lead to why. “To visit Chiyomusubi Shuzo”, we responded. “Haaa, Chiyomusubi-san????”

Tokyofoodcast’s San’in Trip: Day One

The day I returned from visiting Chiyomusubi in Sakaiminato in January, we opened a bottle of Tamagawa Tetsukezu Genshu from Kinoshita Shuzo. This was bottled directly from the giant accordion of a pressing machine, or Yabuta. It was so bubbly and lively. I happened to also bring back some Matsuba Kani from Tottori that day. The sake itself was great, but with the crab, that was just soooo good. That’s when I pulled out a map of Japan to see where Kumihama, Kyoto is.

“It’s on the Japan Sea coast and not far from Tottori or for that matter, Shimane is pretty close.” After going to a tasting of Shimane sake, I was really impressed by the region. Thus, my first casual thoughts boiled and bubbled over the next few weeks to finally emerge as a plan for a grand tour around San’in in March.

Sake of the week #024: Shū Mochigome Junmai

“And, it’s not just any mochigome…” Ichimura-san continued with the story behind Shū. What’s called Shū today was produced and sold as Sakuragawa right up to the World War II when the brewery was forced to stop production by the military government. Locals in Obuse in that era knew sake with two names: Sakuragawa and Masuichi. Sakuragawa was the sake they drank on special occasions.

Tokyofoodcast’s San’in Trip Series

Every now and then I look back on our San’in Grand Tour from last year and fondly remember some special moments. A local old lady who broke into tears as she talked about her childhood at the century old public bath in Yunotsu Onsen comes to mind often and makes me wonder how she is doing. The look on the face of the owner of Gyosantei, a famed crab restaurant, when he found out we came all the way to Sakai-Minato from Tokyo because of Chiyomusubi Shuzo, not for his crab or for Kitaro, still makes me chuckle.

Dine on shojin ryori in temples near Tokyo

If you are not ready to take the plunge and spend a day or more at a monastery, there are a couple places you can go to more casually enjoy this special meal in a temple environment. I think the whole experience becomes more than just the meal, such as you might get at a restaurant.

Food for thought: Shojin Ryori at Kenchoji, Kamakura

Arigato is a such commonly used word that the true meaning sometimes goes unnoticed. At least it never occurred to me to think about where the word came from and what it really means until the day I immersed myself in Zen Buddhism at Kenchoji in Kamakura.

Ota Wholesale Market: A Great Tsukiji Alternative

Back in the midst of the Norovirus scare that spread across the whole nation, we went ahead and planned an oyster dinner for some friends at home anyway. But during that winter of 2007 it appeared that raw oysters had simply disappeared completely from markets and restaurants because a health report from the government somewhat [...]