Eat, Drink, Sleep @Tokyo, Now in Nagasaki: Japanese food

Showing posts with label Japanese food. Show all posts

13 September 2018

British Airways First class experience, meal, BA007, LHR - HND, August 2018

Lim Ken 13 September 2018 16:00 BA , British food , Japanese food , London No comments :

One summer day on August, I have a British Airways First class flight from London Heathrow Terminal 5 to Tokyo Haneda. I used the BA First after a 3 year absence.

Is Club World service catching up to the First service?? There is British First.

Now British Airways is upgrading the Club world products, introducing new products, as Do &Co catering, White company linen or lounge service in Club world cabin for last two years. The White company sleeping kets will provide you the luxury sleep, instead of the former dormitory like blanket. The New catering style on the board is nice photogenic and taste which I had experience on Hong Kong to London A380 flight. The Club world service seems to be catching up to the First class service on the Hard base products...
The British Airways First service is no caviar, no separate space and no, so some bloggers said it is not so luxury. The trend in the commercial aviation is lead by Middle East or other European Airline companies as the surface luxury. On the flight such Airlines, First class seat is Suite room type, separated as the privacy room, meal is posh as the fine dinning restaurants.
The First on British Airways seems to be a little different as at-home, as usual or as British.

The First: catering.

The BA 007 Flight from London to Tokyo was World wide crew of British Airways. The Most experienced crews have served as the traditional and classical style of British Airways and they also enjoy their jobs and life. The passengers will enjoy the service including chatting with the crews and their extra professional technique of service.

Table

On this flight, I had Japanese style food as some small challenge. The Airlines catering meal were commonly produced as mass production. I usually wonder how the foreigner may understand the Japanese food and cooking. This was small challenging event but exciting for me.
The menu
As the Starter, I had "selection of Japanese appetisers. Ingredients were cooked as the Japanese style. I can feel and taste the Dashi soup stock.

Starter: Japanese appetisers, prawn sushi, grilled scallop, pepper chicken and simmered gourd melon

Main course, Grilled fillet of beef with rice. On First class service, a crew at the galley will warm the course by each ingredient. The lady cabin crew was on duty on this flight. She produced very lovely medium rare fillet for me. The juice was contained in the meat.
The British Airways meals has the concepts focused on flavour or Umami tastes. On this course, they used some smoky flavour into the sauce with ingredients origin Umami. I have forgot I was in the sky.

Main course. Grilled fillet with teriyaki sauce, braised pumpkin and shimeji mushroom

chestnut rice and pickles

THE BAr and Wines
The Grand Siecle is the signature of British Airways First. We should not missed the other unique and local wines selected by British Airways. Cornwall Brut, Chablis, Riesling, Saint-Emilion, there were nicely matured and selected wines on board.

British airways, Bar menu and Champagne lists

British Airways, Wine lists

Cheese was selected from around UK.

Cheese plate.
Belton Farm Red Fox, Fourme D'ambert, Double Barrel Lincolnshire Poacher, Normandy Camembert

Conclusion

There were Japanese style food essence among the courses I had. The Joint venture between British Airways and Japan Airlines seems to be effective into the meal catering.

Caviar? If your flight time is taken for four days or five days as BA 704 on 1951, Caviar or lobster will be served as a dinner in European route. According to the some articles on Airline traveller blog, the travellers looks to feel a little bit disappointing no-caviar service. Some Airline companies including BA, sifted to the well-being or international-local concept from "just" posh, Antique style.

27 July 2018

Hamo course in Kiyokawa, Nagasaki (鱧づくし清花和長崎), Japan

Lim Ken 27 July 2018 16:00 Far East , Japan , Japanese food , Nagasaki No comments :

Hamo, the signature fish in Summer, in texture, taste and flavour

The fish, Hamo is come from Ariake sea area. During the Gion festival season(from first to end of June) in Kyoto, the people in Kyoto will feel the coming summer with Hamo sent from Kyusyu or Setouchi area. On this staying in Nagasaki, I have enjoyed Hamo in Kiyokawa where is my favourite Japanese food restaurant in Nagasaki. At the fisherman's port of Nagasaki, the amount of landing Hamo is ranked at fifth in Japan.

Hamo, (http://nagasaki-sakana.com/seasonal_fish/2731/)

In English, Hamo is pike conger, academically named Muraenesox cinereus. Hamo has long body like eel. From Edo era, the long body fish were valued as the invigorating ingredient due to the shape. And during the poor transportation to Kyoto, Hamo survived to send to Kyoto from Osaka port because of the strength and powerful characters. The Hamo has thick body and a lot of bone in the meat. In Japan, this fish were cooked as the fish paste or in the Japanese restaurants. This Fish is

Hone-kiri (cutting the bones) is one of the highest technique of Japanese chefs, Itamae

In the Japanese food restaurants, the pike conger were cooked after the bone cutting. The Itamae will use the special kitchen knife for the purpose of carving the pike conger, called Hone-kiri-bouchou (meaning knife for cutting the bones). He will carving the pike conger with thin slice as 1-1.5mm, with perpendicular to the body, using the heavy weight and sharpness of the knife to crave the thin slice. The sound of cutting the bone is rhythmical and solid, as giving us the incessant clicking.

After the bone cutting, Itamae will boil, steam or cook for your courses. When he boiled, the shape of fish meat will get the lovely shape as flower blooms.

Hamo, the great actor as the ingredient in Japanese food

Hamo dishes have various cook style, boiled, braised, roast or raw. We will feel the summer and survive the heatwave with the strength of this fish.

Sashimi and boiled Hamo with pram sauce (with red brown sauce)

Hamo Yanagawa (braised with egg)

Kabayaki sushi ( Teriyaki-like roasted Hamo)

re-write on 25th July 2018
Elder: 25th August 2014

Japanese restaurant, Kiyokawa
Nagasaki

2 November 2017

Chewy Grilled beef tongue, Sendai Gyutan, Ara, Yaesu, Tokyo station, (仙台牛タン荒八重洲), Tokyo, Japan

Lim Ken 2 November 2017 16:00 Far East , Gyutan , Japan , Japanese food , Tokyo No comments :

Difficult for tourist to find your dinner, on Chaotic and typical Japanese street

This restaurant is located along the busy and chaotic, long street in the Yaesu side of Tokyo main station. Hotel Ryumeikan was located near this street. This area was very convenient for both business persons and tourists. For Business persons, Marunochi area is opposite side on Tokyo station. For tourists, you can get great access to Tokyo main station where you can go somewhere in Japan or Tokyo with your Japan rail pass.

The street in Yaesu, covered with Cherry broom on April

I found the foreign tourists were walking along the street but they already lost themselves due to jetlag and parallel universe of Baymax. The foreigner seemed to have never been able to identify what restaurant was or what food was going to be served there. They were just walking around this area with missed identity. There were also Japanese business men and the staff from the bars or restaurants. The business persons had already been drunk a little bit and looked for the next bars or pubs (Izakaya). The staffs from the pubs (Izakaya) or Karaoke centre were touting the customers. The nervous foreigner, good mood business persons, noisy staff from Izakaya and neon-lit of the izakaya or Karaoke centre shows chaotic scene of Tokyo. The similar situation will be shown in several busy area as Shinjuku, Ikebukuro or Shibuya.

Fast, good price and hot meal for dinner, with Japanese style

The Ara, gyutan restaurant, is very reasonable and useful for the tourists. The atmosphere is like as the fast food restaurant around business area but the interior is also old style of set-menu restaurants (called as Teishoku-ya 定食屋). They will serve the Sendai style gyutan in this restaurant. Though I had no idea about if there is English menu in this restaurant, they may have some English menu card. The area around Tokyo station is one of the most popular spot for the foreign tourists.

Overview of Gyutan set

Traditionally, the gyutan set in Sendai was served the main plate for the several styles of beef tongue (Gyutan), pickled vegetable, ox tail soup and bowl of barley and rice. Almost all restaurants specialized into the gyutan may have this type of sets on their menu.

Roasted Gyutan

The beef tongue was roasted or grilled. The meat was cut with thick. A piece of meat was including rich beef juice and butter like flavour. The texture, the most important parts of this dish, is nicely chewy and lovely.

Ox tail soup

barlay and rice

This set was served as the traditional Teishoku (定食 including rice, soup, main dish, and pickles) style.

The restaurants which served the gyutan (beef tongue) were located anywhere around Tokyo. The thickness of sliced beef tongue is including chewy texture and red meat juice. Sendai has more legend and famous restaurants around in the city centre. If you have the plan to visit to Sendai with Tohoku Shinkansen (high speed railway, Tohoku line), it will take just for two hour and half, please enjoy the gyutan at Sendai.

former 6th Feb 2016
Re-write on 2017 2nd Nov.

17 June 2016

The dinner course, Kayanoya (茅乃舎レストラン), Fukuoka

Lim Ken 17 June 2016 16:00 Far East , Fukuoka , Japan , Japanese food , Kyushu No comments :

Dashi is the basis and necessity of Japanese foods. Japanese foods contain the Umami taste in itself. This Dashi taste which has rich of Umami was an identity in Japanese foods. When we talk about Japanese foods, we must remind the taste or flavour of the dishes. The Dashi taste is the most important part in Japanese foods as the butter in the French.

Kanoya is a bland company producing a high-end food from Fukuoka, Western island Kyushu. Kanoya basically was run as a Dashi producer as several variation of blended Dashi. They had developed their business as the “taste and flavour company” which produce various condiments or foods. The origin of this company was a bag of Dashi. This pack was used like as the tea bag, dipped in hot water and use a thick essence for the daily foods.

The restaurant, an icon of Kayanoya is dining facility, is located in the countryside of Fukuoka. The exterior and interior was traditional farmer’s house. This house picture was printed on their products. Kaya-buki roof (thatched roof) is the bland icon of Kayanoya.

The dinner courses were cooked with the local ingredients and products from Kayanoya; the dressing sauce of salad, Dashi soup for the pots, sauce for Sashimi (not only say sauce). The course was formed six dishes as the traditional Japanese style full course. All dishes were designed as the modern Japanese style.

The course was formed, Starter, Vegetable soup (soup from the lands), Mukouduke (Sashimi), seasonal dish from the kitchen, small dish of grandmother from Nagano (traditional style foods), Main course (choice from the lists) and dessert. The course was started with the sweet light liquor.

Restaurant Kayanoya(茅乃舎)

This restaurant has the transportation service from the city centre of Fukuoka as Tenjin. Please contact to the restaurant reservation.

English page is available.

http://www.kayanoya.com/en/

21 April 2016

Sukiyaki Bento, Asakusa Imahan, Ueno station, Tokyo

Lim Ken 21 April 2016 16:00 Asakusa , Bento , Far East , Japan , Japanese food , Tokyo No comments :

At the Bento Stand in ecute, Ueno Station

Imahan is very famous restaurant serving Sukiyaki in Asakusa, establish on 1895 at Asakusa. This restaurant has small stands in department stores or major stations in Tokyo as the sister company. You will enjoy the sukiyaki with rice easily and reasonably as sukiyaki bento.

I had been to Kumagaya to have a small party with my friends as the oyster bar style. On boarding to Kumagaya in late afternoon, I bought the Sukiyaki bento at Ueno station concourse named "ecute" which Japan railway company of East Japan had produced shopping mall for the passenger. Ueno had very local and classical Tokyo downtown atmosphere. The shops in ecute kept the style and fashions according to Ueno style. A lot of old restaurants and sweets shops, which have long history and have been well-known to the people in Tokyo had stands or small shops for the customers.

Sukiyaki bento on board to North

The thin sliced and braised beef meats were very lovely. The sugar-soy sauce based sauce show the traditional preference of Edokko (originally come from Tokyo for three generations). The sliced meats were juicy and had the nice match with rice. Sliced onion and Tofu was also braised with the sauce with the same sauce for beef. All things were very nostalgic but a little bit luxury because of the name Imahan.

10 March 2016

Taichiri, Taiyoshi hyakuban, Tobita shinchi (鯛よし百番大阪), Osaka, Japan

Lim Ken 10 March 2016 16:00 Far East , Japan , Japanese food , Osaka No comments :

Tobita Shinchi area is a prostitution quater in Osaka city. This area was established in early 1900s and kept the Old Shunga world. The classical style buildings were stand along the streets. Each buildings has wide entrace combined with show window and called as Ryotei where the staff will serve some foods and alcohol beverage. There were a old lady keeping the shop and a young lady who will comfort customer, in each shop. The blight white light illuminated the two ladies in the shops. The young ladies had been made up as a doll and shined with red to pink light. The customers were only male and the service side were only female. The border amoung shop and street showed the complete gender difference in this area; inside are female and outside is male. The female customer had not been able to walk around this area. The Tai-yoshi was located in this area.

The building of Tai-yoshi hyakuban was classical Ryotei style. This restaurant was the real restaurant where serve some fish dishes without some comfort service. The interior was motive as Ryu-guu palace (palace in the ocean in "Urashima taro" popular nursery tale). The wooden building was decorated with some paints and wood work. The luxury but old fashioned atmosphere reminded us the completely separated world from the other place of Osaka. The atmosphere and building was very lovely.

The entrance of waiting space.

paint of nymphs of paradise.

The service was also the classical style as Ryotei. Customers were lead to the tatami rooms. All beverages were served in the glass bottles.

On this visiting, we had tai chiri (hot pot of sea bream). The soup was getting better taste, added the bones or meats of sea bream and vegetable.

Sea bream meats

vegetable and tofu

serving plate

6 March 2016

Wasabi or Horse radish? Tsuzuku, Ushigome Yanagicho (つず久牛込柳町新宿), Shinjuku, Tokyo

Lim Ken 6 March 2016 16:00 Far East , Japan , Japanese food , Shinjuku , Tokyo No comments :

Today, I would like to introduce the small Izakaya at Ushigome-yanagicho in Tokyo. This small restaurant has Wasabi rice as the signature dish. They use Ezo wasabi which is horse radish naturally grown in Hokkaido, for Wasabi rice.

The interior of this shop. The posters shown the nostalgic Showa era.

Wasabi, the most important Japanese ingredient

Wasabi is very important herb in Japanese food. If you had tried Sushi in the world, you had taste the flavour with hot taste which came through to nose. The flavour might be the taste and flavour of wasabi as sold in Japan or overseas Japanese food shop. But we must wonder the strong flavour is whether wasabi or horse radish including.

The farming and producing wasabi is very difficult. The plant of wasabi is very sensitive for environment they grow up. In Japan, we can taste wasabi at any Japanese restaurant. The staff or Itamae will shave the root of wasabi. The taste is flash-ly hot but the flavour is flesh and cold like breeze in spring.

You can get wasabi paste in supermarkets in Japan. The paste of wasabi in tube like tooth paste, will spoil tongue of your children. Almost all wasabi paste was made from horse radish as the reason the flavour was similar to wasabi. The flavour will be different from wasabi in flesh and cold.

steamed rice was served in silver pot made as the Traditional Japanese style.

rice with topped wasabi and soy sauce. The Nori(seaweed) was very nice flavour on this rice.

Ezo wasabi sent from Hokkaido to this restaurant.

As usual at Izakaya, we had started our dinner with Sashi-mori (selected Sashimi from today`s fishes)

Fried wild vegetable was very flesh green smell and we can feel the harshness from the vegetables. Warabi, Fuki-no-tou or Zenmai is popular ingredient from mountains.

16 February 2016

Feel Japanese Blue collar culture, Oden, Marukensuisan (丸健水産赤羽北区), Akabane, Kita, Tokyo, Japan

Lim Ken 16 February 2016 16:00 Far East , fast food , Japan , Japanese food , Kita , Tokyo No comments :

Fish paste products shop (Nerimono-ya) in local

Akabane is the famous town as the blue-collar. There were a lot of factories along Yamanote line. The blue-collar culture in Tokyo were seen around this area. After works or weekends, the workers gathered at their favourite Izakaya (pubs). Almost all izakaya were standing place. The simple and cheap but human touched Izakaya were gathered around this area.

The Maruken Suisan is very local fish products shop in Akabane. They also had the factory of the fish paste. Fish paste were shaped as Kamaboko, Chikuwa or other ingredients of Oden.

In the showcase, there were huge amout and style of fish paste products.

In chilled winter season, Oden became the most popular products in convenient stores in Japan. Oden was cooked some ingredients as boiled egg, fried fish pastes, kombu, beef tendon, fried tofu or mochi in Dashi soup stock.

large pot for Oden.

In Maruken Suisan, a large pan was placed in front of the shop and there were several high table around the shop. The pan were cooked Oden inside. The smell of Oden, mainly soup stock smell which Japanese people loved, were filled around the streets.

Mochi, Kombu, stamina Age etc.

Enjoying the Oden was one reason to visit this stand. Another reason was drinking hot Sake. The lady staff served hot Sake, warmed in microwave oven, generally sold as Cup Sake. Ichi-gou (unit to measure Sake or rice 180mL) of Sake was filled in glass.

After drinking half of glass, I added the soup stock of Oden into Sake. This style, similar to bullshot, was called as Dashi wari, popular in Akabane.

The Oden was Kanto Style (around Tokyo style). Salty dashi soup stock was including some essence from other ingredients. The warm dish and hot Sake will warm our body in chilled outside.

Jelly from fish essence.

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Eat, Drink, Sleep @Tokyo, Now in Nagasaki