After our visit to the aquarium, it was time for dinner. There was an opportunity for us to try fugu, but neither Alastair nor I thought it was worth it – both price wise and risk wise! So we had shabu shabu instead.
(For those interested, I’m told that fugu is a very firm, white fish that has a mild flavour. Everyone we knew who tried it survived – phew!)
Shabu shabu is cool! It’s pretty much a hot pot where paper thin slices of meat and vegetables are cooked in a broth at the table. Shabu shabu roughly means “swish swish” which refers to the sound of the meat being swished through the broth.
We received personal little cookers of broth to cook the meat and vegetables. Too bad I didn’t get an action shot of the swish swish!
And here is my plate of meat and a few chopped vegetables. Look at that beef – isn’t it beautiful. It was so tender after a quick cook in the liquid.
There was dipping sauce for the meat – very nutty and sesamey.
A couple of pieces of rather good sashimi, beautifully presented.
We also received some tempura. There were long beans, a prawn, and I think that item on the left was a mushroom.
Have you figured out from my posts so far that it’s not a Japanese meal without chawanmushi (savoury steamed egg custard)?
Nor is a meal complete without pickles and rice.
When everything was brought out, we had a serious lack of table space! Fortunately I’m good at Tetris, so managed to shuffle things around to fit it all in. We were so full afterwards – it was another great meal.
Coming up next time: Okonomiyaki showdown. Oh yes!
After eating takoyaki, we wandered to the Umeda Sky Building to check out the view of Osaka. The building is rather neat, although not located conveniently – it’s about a 15 minute walk from a train station, but we became terribly lost in the underground maze of Umeda, where a series of underground malls connect. To the point where, when we stopped an older man to ask for directions, he walked 20 minutes out of his way to send us off in the right direction. Bless! We never would have found it otherwise.
After seeing the Umeda Sky Building, we headed back to Dotonbori Street for a crab lunch. There are several restaurants on Dotonbori Street that have a large mechanised crab sign (I’m pretty sure we saw three of them). I believe they’re all part of the same chain. We had lunch at the second one on Dotonbori Street.
The price of the lunch sets were from about 1900 yen – 4000 yen. Dinner sets were from 4500 yen – 10500 yen. As you can see, lunch sets were MUCH cheaper than for dinner.
There were four lunch sets on offer. We wanted to have one of the mid-range ones, but unfortunately we were told that it would take thirty minutes to cook. We couldn’t afford the time because we wanted to get to the aquarium and spend a couple of hours there before dinner. We weren’t hungry enough for the most expensive option (damn that delicious takoyaki!), so settled on the cheapest one.
For the first course we received cold, cooked crab legs. They had very thoughtfully pre-cracked the legs for us, so the meat was easy to get out. The flesh was sweet and yummy.
After the crab legs I’m SURE there was a salad topped with crab meat. But I don’t seem to have a photo of it. Did I accidentally delete the photo or did I dream it? Hmm.
Oh no, I didn’t dream it! There it is in the top left hand corner of the next picture. Unfortunately, without a proper photo to remind me, I no longer remember what it tasted like.
Next was a chawanmushi (savoury steamed egg custard). It had a small amount of crab meat on the top. It wasn’t the best chawanmushi we’d had on the trip, but it wasn’t bad either.
After the chawanmushi we received – strangely – what was basically a macaroni and cheese, with a small amount of crab meat on top. It seemed a very odd dish to serve as part of the meal, and there wasn’t much crab in it, but soft, cheesy pasta? Yeah, I loved it.
After the mac and cheese were a few pieces of crab meat sushi.
And finally, to finish, clear soup with fu and a crab meat square.
As mentioned previously, we had the cheapest set, which mean that we didn’t receive much actual crab (apart from the crab legs). I was pleased with lunch, but I would have loved to have had more time (and stomach space) to try their more expensive sets!
After lunch, we dashed off to Osaka Aquarium (Kaiyukan). Kaiyukan was amazing. The fish and other marine life were displayed in 15 tanks, each of which represented a specific region on the Pacific Rim. There is a enormous central tank, nine meters deep, which represents the Pacific Ocean and in which is the star attraction – whale sharks!
The layout of Kaiyukan means that the tour starts on the eighth floor, and you walk down floor by floor in a spiral around the central tank. It’s very well laid out and rather impressive.
It was hard to take good photos inside the aquarium apart from the jellyfish tanks. I do love taking photos of jellyfish though. They are so pretty! Here are some of my favourites:
Kani Doraku 1-6-18 Dontonbori, Osaka or 1-6 2 Dotonbori, Osaka
Oh Osaka! Osaka, Osaka, Osaka! Out of all the cities in Japan we went to, Osaka was my favourite and I was VERY VERY disappointed when we had to leave. I could’ve happily stayed for a couple more weeks, there is so much to do and see and, of course, so much to eat!
Osaka is the main city in the Kansai region, and has a population of around 2.5 million people making it Japan’s third largest city (after Tokyo and Yokohama). It has the reputation of being the culinary capital of Japan and was traditionally referred to as the “nation’s kitchen”.
Our hotel (no more ryokans for us, sob!) was located 5 minutes walk from Dotonbori Street. Dotonbori Street is the main destination for food travel in Osaka, and runs alongside the Dotonbori canal between the Dotonboribashi Bridge and the Nipponbashi Bridge. On the street are lots of shops, tons of restaurants and many neon and mechanized signs.
One day in Osaka, we ended up eating four meals. We had breakfast at the hotel (which, in hindsight, we should’ve skipped!), and then takoyaki just before lunch. A couple of hours later, we had a second lunch at a crab restaurant, and at dinner we ate shabu shabu. Oh, and we also had okonomiyaki the evening before, details of which will feature in a future post. This one will be about takoyaki!
Takoyaki are round dumplings made from batter, octopus, spring onions, and other ingredients. To make takoyaki, chopped pieces of octopus are placed into a griddle that has hemispheric indentations. Then, batter made from flour, water and egg, are poured over. As the batter cooks, it is scraped into the holes, and the balls are turned over, until they become round.
You can eat takoyaki at street stalls, but we went to a takoyaki restaurant. We were seated around a table with the cast iron takoyaki griddle set in the centre. When we were seated, the gas was turned on to start heating the griddle.
We were told to oil the indentations really well, so we grabbed some oil sitting on the side of the table and started greasing it up, making sure the oil was not only inside the little cups but also around the sides of the griddle. It needed A LOT of oil.
Then the waiter placed a small piece of octopus inside each of the moulds.
He sprinkled over a lot of spring onions.
And poured in the batter.
We scattered over some tempura flakes.
As well as some pickled ginger over the batter.
The takoyaki cooked for a couple of minutes, and then we were shown to use our skewers to separate the batter on the surface of the pan. Then we pushed the skewer into the metal cups, to separate the cooked batter from the surface and to roughly turn the ball over.
Remaining bits of batter were pushed back into the ball with the skewer.
After another minute or so, we repeated the process of turning the balls. Eventually, they become browner and rounder, until they were ready to eat!
The takoyaki was topped with takoyaki sauce and seaweed flakes and a bit of mayonnaise.
And also some bonito flakes. I do like me some bonito flakes!
The takoyaki was delicious! They were piping hot, lightly crisp, savoury and tangy. Swoon. It was just supposed to be a snack, but we ate so many of them that we could’ve skipped lunch (Err, not that we did. But we could’ve!).
Takoyaki is very popular in Osaka, there were numerous street stalls selling the little dumplings with many people lining up to purchase them. And there’s even a takoyaki museum. I’ll have to see it next time we visit Osaka (and there will definitely be a next time!).
PS: I wish that I had bought a takoyaki pan while in Japan.. I’m thinking that perhaps a poffertjes pan could work as a substitute. Has anyone ever made takoyaki at home? Do you think one would work?
In Koyasan, one of the main sights is Okunoin. Okunoin is the temple where Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism and one of the most revered persons in the religious history of Japan, rests in eternal meditation. It is considered one of the most sacred places in Japan.
Okunoin is surrounded by Japan’s largest graveyard. People from all over Japan, who wished to be buried close to Kobo Daishi, lie there, including former feudal lords, politicians and other prominent personalities. Their graves (over 200,000 gravestones are in the cemetery) line the approach to Okunoin for 2km through a forest of tall cedar trees.
The walk to see Kobo Daishi’s shrine had made us hungry, so afterwards Alastair and I headed back into the town to find lunch. We went into a simple little eatery – it was nothing flash at all and we weren’t expecting much. I ordered the katsu curry don and Alastair ordered tempura udon.
When it came out, I found that the katsu curry don was AMAZING. The katsu had a light, crunchy crust covering the moist pork. The curry was nicely spiced with a lot of flavour and chunks of meat. The meal was warm and satisfying, and very delicious.
Sigh. I still remember it fondly!
Alastair’s udon? I have no idea, I was too busy in raptures over my meal! It looked good?
The following day, we had breakfast at the monastery and an early lunch in the town before leaving for Osaka. One of the shop keepers in Koyasan had passed away a few days ago, and his funeral was being held that day, so lots of shops were closed. It became difficult to find a place to eat, and it had started raining quite heavily, so eventually we just walked into one that was open.
It was a small family run business and we didn’t have high hopes for a good meal. It was still early (just after 11am) and as the shop had just opened, the menu options were limited. We couldn’t order anything that was deep fried as their oil was still heating up and pretty much the only thing that was available was the curry udon.
We consoled ourselves with the fact that if it was bad, at least it would keep us going until we got to Osaka. But when it came out, well – it was delicious! I already loved udon noodles, but fresh udon noodles? Gahbahfuh, they’re just fantastic! The noodles were soft, elastic and chewy with a very pleasing slipperiness. The curry sauce covering them was so tasty and perfect for the rainy day.
After that surprisingly good lunch, it was time to go to Osaka for more good eating. Osaka food stories coming right up!
While in Koyasan, we took the opportunity to try natto. For those who haven’t heard of the almightly natto, natto is made from soybeans. The soybeans are soaked in water, steamed for several hours, and then are mixed with the bacterium Bacillus subtilis natto. Next, the beans are fermented for a couple of days and then aged in a refrigerator for up to one week.
As a result of fermentation and aging, the beans develop a pungent smell, similar to a strong cheese, and a sticky, glue-like consistency. Natto is commonly eaten with rice at breakfast.
Still, you don’t know whether you’ll like or dislike something until you try it – so we purchased a pack at a local convenience store. It was cheap – 100 yen for two small polystyrene packs.
We took it back to our room, and opened the lid. It didn’t look that bad. Inside the packet were a small sachet of soy sauce and mustard. We opened both packets and poured them in and started mixing. Mixing the natto produces lots of mucus like strings and the natto becomes stickier and stringier.
When we pulled some beans out of the packet, long spider web like strings of mucus followed it. It really isn’t the most attractive foodstuff out there!
The taste itself wasn’t particularly nice – the beans were quite bland and didn’t have much flavour but I thought there was an slight bitter aftertaste that I found off putting. The texture was not pleasant either, with the mucus like strings ensuring that we didn’t eat more than a couple of bites.
Natto is apparently very popular in Japan. I’m sure that, similar to other strong smelling/flavoured food, it’s just an acquired taste. However, I don’t think I’ll be taking the time to acquire it!
So next time someone suggests natto – I will be saying nattNo. No thanks!
After Takayama, we headed to Koyasan. To get to our accommodation in Koyasan, it took us 7 hours, 7 trains, a cable car and a bus ride!
Rengejoin Temple
Koyasan, a small town located on Mount Koya, is the center of Shingon Buddhism in Japan. Shingon is a Buddhist sect which was introduced to Japan in 805 by Kobo Daishi. Kobo Daishi is one of the most significant personalities in Japan’s religious history.
Koyasan is located in an 800m high valley amid the eight peaks of Mount Koya (the terrain is said to resemble a lotus plant, which is why the location was selected). With a population of about 4000, the town supports over one hundred temples, but in its glory days, Koyasan is said to have contained over 9,000 temples, shrines, and other buildings, with a monastic population of approximately 90,000. In 2004, UNESCO designated Mt. Koya as a World Heritage Site.
When walking through the small town, you can literally trip over temples. They are everywhere!
Rengejoin Temple
At Koyasan, we stayed for two nights in a Buddhist monastery, Rengejoin Temple, where we had the opportunity to participate in mediation and morning prayers.
Our room at Rengejoin Temple. There were paper screens between the rooms, so you could hear EVERYTHING.
After arriving at the temple and checking in, we joined the Head Monk for mediation. We had to sit still in a dim, incense filled room for forty minutes. Yes, we struggled!
After mediation it was time for dinner. We headed off to our dining room, where individual tables were set out for us. On offer was shōjin ryori, which is purely vegetarian food that is intended for monks. As well as no meat, no garlic and onions were used in the cooking.
We were served Koya tofu, which is a special preserved tofu that is attributed to the monks in Koyasan (in the middle of the photo above, above the beans). Historically, it was made by monks, who cut tofu into thin slices and put it outside to freeze. Then the tofu was brought back in, thawed and pressed, before being dried in warmed sheds. This preserved the tofu, ensuring that it could last a long time without refrigeration. When rehydrated, the tofu becomes very spongey, soaking up a great amount of liquid. It’s literally like biting into a sponge, with liquid gushing out! In the same bowl as the Koya tofu was seaweed that had been stewed with mushroom broth, soy sauce and sugar.
In addition, there was a small bowl of beans that I found too sweet for my liking, and a bowl of clear soup, inside of which was fu (wheat gluten). Naturally, there was rice, pickles and tea.
There was also goma tofu / sesame tofu. This is technically not tofu, as it is made out of ground sesame paste, water and a thickener (arrowroot powder). This had a very soft, jelly-like texture, similar to coconut pudding that you get in Chinese restaurants. It was topped with a dab of wasabi and sitting in soy sauce. The goma tofu didn’t have much flavour but it had a wonderful texture and I thought it was delicious.
We also had vegetable tempura – beans, carrot, seaweed, eggplant, pumpkin and sweet potato. As well as this, there was a bowl of somen in a mushroom broth. And finally there were a couple of slices of apple for dessert.
(You can see slightly more clearly the preserved tofu mentioned in the previous paragraph at the bottom right of the photo above.)
Breakfast was also served. It was just a small breakfast, with seaweed, miso soup with mushrooms and wakame, more Koya tofu, cucumber pickles and rice.
(There was a second dinner and breakfast at the monastery, but the food was very similar to the ones described, so I won’t go into details.)
I enjoyed the meals at Rengejoin Temple. They didn’t reach the exquisite gluttony of Takayama, but they were simple and wholesome. It was probably exactly what we needed to detox after the excesses of the previous dinners!
Rengejoin Temple 700Koyasan, Koya-cho, Ito-gun, Wakayama Prefecture 648-0211, Japan
See the previous post for more information about kaiseki dining and details about a previous dinner and breakfast.
Dinner #2
We were fortunate enough to have a second dinner at the ryokan in Takayama. Just like the previous night it was fantastic.
On offer again was Hilda beef, this time sukiyaki style with tofu, taro noodles and enoki. This was cooked at our table in a small burner.
It was so tasty – here it is cooked!
This mayo looking sauce is actually made out of tofu. The yellow pieces are actually made out of fish, and there were a couple of different pickles in the bowl. It was all mixed up before eating.
Doesn’t this look beautiful! Here we had a little plum lollipop, a piece of sweet potato, and at the back was some cold pork.
Inside this bowl is yuba. Yuba is made from boiled soy milk – thin films of tofu form at the top of the milk and are scooped off. Here it was served with a little soy sauce. It’s quite interesting – it’s soft and tastes faintly of soy.
There was a small bowl of fried whitebait.
And here was white fish with moss. Another interesting item, it was quite citrusy.
I have to be honest here and tell you that my notes on this bowl don’t make much sense! From what I can make out, I believe the white objects are fu, and the yellow items are shrimp covered with egg. (You may remember from the last post that fu is wheat gluten, and is often used as a meat substitute.)
There was some rather salty smoked salmon.
On this plate was grilled saury (a type of fish), served with teriyaki sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Delicious. Apparently saury is a common autumn fish, and we saw it a lot during our trip.
At the back of this plate was a tempura prawn that was covered with shredded burdock root. At the front was a shrimp coated with mochi and yuba, and beside it was the teeniest, tiniest eggplant I’ve ever seen!
There was rice, clear soup, and pickles.
And finally, for dessert was persimmon and persimmon agar agar jelly.
Dinner was just incredible. Like the previous night, everything was delicious and beautifully, beautifully presented. Alastair and I only had a very small lunch, but even so couldn’t manage to finish everything. We were still full from breakfast!
Breakfast #2
The following day, we were up early and had breakfast at the ryokan before we left Takayama. On this plate was (clockwise from the front) egg in deep fried bean curd, shredded ginger, potato salad, seaweed/hijiki, boiled squash and carrots, and sweet beans. In the middle was a bowl containing fu and deep fried soy bean curd.
In addition, there was a piece of fish that was seasoned with sake remains. This was surprisingly sweet and fishy, but very nice.
In another small bowl was pork with mushrooms. The pork was really
tender and creamy.
Cooking away in a small burner, was a little plate of egg and ham.
And of course, there was rice, soup and pickles.
After the brilliant meals we had eaten, we were rather sad to be leaving Takayama. On the other hand, if we had stayed much longer we may have left several kilos heavier so it may have been a good thing. We certainly detoxed on our next stop….. coming up shortly!
Ryokan Asunaro 2-96-2 Hatsuda-cho Takayama-shi Gifu-ken 506-0008, Japan
After Tokyo, our next stop was Takayama. Takayama is a small city located in the mountainous Hida region of Gifu Prefecture, west of Tokyo. Takayama was very isolated until about 50 years ago and has retained a traditional touch and well preserved old town. It is really very pretty.
In Takayama, we stayed at a ryokan (traditional inn) and included in our stay were two dinners, and two breakfasts. I’m going to spilt this post into two, as there are a lot of photos and details. Plus, as you’ll see, the meals were pretty amazing!
One of the highlights about staying at a ryokan is kaiseki dining, a traditional, multi-course dinner. A kaiseki dinner can consist from 6 to 15 different kinds of food, and the food served changes according to the seasons and the area that the ryokan is located in. The design and display of the food is very important, as is the tableware, which is chosen to enhance the appearance of the food as well as the seasonal theme. We visited in early autumn.
Dinner #1
We arrived at the ryokan in the late afternoon and after checking in and a quick walk around the town, it was soon time for dinner. I had no idea what to expect of the dinners, and was pleasantly surprised when we walked into ryokan’s dining room. It was a large room with tatami mats, and individual tables set out for each guest. The tables already had some food laid out, but during the meal more courses were brought out to us. So many, in fact, that we had trouble fitting them all on the table!
Right, I’ll get into it. Settle in, this will be a long one!
Underneath the house shaped cover above, were two layers of food.
The top layer held three items. At the front was tempura – soybeans, corn, and a leaf rolled around a meat filling. At the back we had angler fish liver and on the right was a mochi topped with sweet miso. I saved the mochi for last (dessert!). It was sweet and salty at the same time with the mochi having that lovely soft chewiness.
I didn’t know what this was at first – it’s angler fish liver. It has a rich fattiness, with the texture similar to a firm pate. It’s apparently a delicacy, and I really enjoyed it.
Underneath the tempura and angler fish liver, sat a tray of soba noodle sushi.
Also on the table, under the green leaf shaped cover, was Hilda beef with miso. It was cooked on a little burner that was lit at the beginning of the meal.
There were alternating layers of beef and pumpkin that cooked away while we ate other items. The beef was tender and delicious.
This little dish was eel with ginger. It was slightly pickled (the ginger?) so there was a bit of tanginess to it.
There was a little glass of plum wine (although apparently the fruit is closer to an apricot). It was a very sweet liqueur.
More Hilda beef – this one was topped with shabu shabu sauce. I loved the nuttiness of the sauce. I thought we were done at this stage, but no, the little old lady serving us kept bringing out food!
This was a taro dumpling sitting in a broth with mushrooms, chrysanthemum, ginger and dried citrus fruit rind. This was very fragrant with the citrus, and the taro dumpling had that soft, almost sticky taro texture (which I personally love about taro).
Everyone loved this one – tempura prawn covered with shredded potato. It was like a chip covered prawn. What a genius idea!
Beautifully presented tuna and seabass sashimi. The sashimi wasn’t as good at the sashimi we had at the Tsukiji fish market but it was still pretty good!
There was a salty clear soup, inside of which was a bonito fish ball.
Tea, rice and pickles, natch. I ate the pickles before I took this photo – whoops!
And last but not least, t
here was some poached nashi and kiwi fruit.
As you can see, everything was beautifully presented and ohmy it was delicious. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had….. until the following night, that is!
Breakfast #1
Breakfast the next day was another great meal. Fortunately for our stomachs, it wasn’t as large as dinner!
Part of breakfast was hoba miso, which was cooked on top of the little burner at our tables. Hoba miso is a version of miso where sweet miso is grilled on a hoba (magnolia) leaf and served as a dip or for eating with rice as is. It sounds pretty simple, but it’s really tasty as the heat caramelises the miso and you end up with a soft, salty-sweet paste.
In this box we had cooked spinach like vegetables with shabu shabu sauce on the left. In the middle looks like vegetables with gingko nuts, and on the right is tamago (egg). In the middle of the box was a little umeboshi – a pickled plum that was very salty and sour.
At the back left was a little piece of grilled salmon.
And at the back on the right were a few different types of tofu. One was a preserved spongey tofu. The tofu soaked up so much liquid, that when I bit into it, liquid came sloshing out.
There was a wonderful steamed savoury egg custard – chawanmushi – at the bottom of which sat a prawn and gingko nuts. It was the best steamed egg custard I’ve ever had, with the silkiest, smoothest texture.
There was miso soup, with fu (wheat gluten). Fu is soft and spongey and doesn’t have much flavour on its own but soaks up the flavour of whatever its in. After this, we kept seeing fu everywhere, to the point where if I didn’t know what something was, I just assumed it was fu!
Naturally, there was also rice and pickles, as well as some fruit to finish off.
Phew! I feel full just looking at those pictures. But coming up is part 2, where we had another amazing dinner and breakfast! To be continued…
Ryokan Asunaro 2-96-2 Hatsuda-cho Takayama-shi Gifu-ken 506-0008, Japan
While in Tokyo, Alastair and I took part in a soba noodle making class. Our teacher was Hashimoto-san, and he showed us how to make soba noodles by hand. After the demonstration, we then made our own batch of soba.
Soba noodles are made from buckwheat flour, wheat flour and water. The flour ratio varies, but in Tokyo they traditionally use 80% buckwheat flour and 20% wheat flour.
Hashimoto-san started off by pouring the wheat and buckwheat flour into a large bowl and then formed his hands in a “bear claws” shape. He looks very stern in this picture, but he had a fun sense of humour!
The fingers were then placed into the flours and mixed around quickly – “swimming through the flour – with turns at 50 metres!”.
After the flours were well mixed, he created a well in the middle, and poured in about 80% of the water. The water required varies depending on the humidity and the body temperature of the person making the soba. The water was pre-measured for us, so unfortunately I can’t remember the amount!
Instead of touching the water, Hashimoto-san covered the water with the flour, and then pulled his hand through the flour from one side to the other. He kept repeating these two steps, alternating the direction that he would pull his hand through. This prevented the water from getting on his hands and making all sticky, and eventually all the water was mixed into the flour.
Then it was time for “fast swimming” until the mixture become like small breadcrumbs and was no longer sticky.
Most of the water (apart from a couple of teaspoons) was then poured in, and he kept mixing it together with his hands. At this point we could smell the soba scent – it was very nutty and fragrant. The soba mixture started to clump together into larger balls.
He added the rest of the water and started rolling the mixture under his palms.
It started to come together in large circular balls under his hands, until gradually it all came together in a dough.
The dough was kneaded about 40 times.
Then Hashimoto-san started making a chrysanthemum shape, by first rolling it into a disc, putting the disc on its side, placing the side of his right hand at 3 o’clock, turning the whole disc to 10 o’clock, and then pushing it down slightly with the side of his hand. There was a definite art to getting the chrysanthemum shape, and I have to confess that when it was our turn, I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. Fortunately Alastair understood the steps!
Once he was satisfied with the shape, he started rolling it into a cone. He then squashed the cone down into a disc, pushing down with the heel of his hand until it was 20cm and resembled a big wheel of cheese.
He pulled out a long rolling pin and taught us how to do the rolling movement. The hands are shaped like cat claws, placed on the rolling pin, and then moved together or apart to move the rolling pin.
He kept rolling the disc until it was about 40cm across, turning the disc every now and again to make sure it was even and round.
Then it was time to make the soba dough square. He spread flour down the middle of the disc, and then rolled it up around the rolling pin.
He gently patted the dough down, in a forward rolling motion, about five times. He then unrolled it, turned it 180 degrees to the opposite side and re-rolled it around the rolling pin. He repeated the patting down movement 3 times.
He unrolled it again, and turned the dough around 90 degrees to repeat the previous two steps for the other side of the dough.
When he was finished, it was looking squarish!
Next he used the rolling pin to even out the angles.
And kept rolling the dough until it was about 45cm x 80cm big.
When he was happy with the size and the evenness, he rolled the dough on to the rolling pin.
He turned the dough around and unrolled most of it, leaving a small section still on the rolling pin. He scattered buckwheat flour over the top of the dough.
Lifting the rolling pin and the remaining dough that was still rolled up, he folded the dough widthwise.
Scattering more flour on top of the dough, he folded it over again.
It was almost time to cut the soba! He pulled out the chopping board and sprinkled on a lot of buckwheat flour.
The dough was placed on top of the chopping board, and more flour was scattered on top.
He showed us the large knife and taught us how to hold it. The Chinese characters were on the outside, and the hand holding the knife had the index finger pointing down towards the board. On top of the soba dough Hashimoto-san placed a wooden chopping guide. On the chopping guide, he placed his other hand, with the fingers in a “fox shape” – pinky and index finger pointing down, and the middle and ring finger folded in. He then taught us how to cut the soba.
The knife was placed hard up against the chopping guide – he tilted the knife a tiny amount (which moved the chopping guide slightly), pulled the knife back up and then pushed down to cut the soba.
After repeating this movement, the soba was cut into thin strips.
He cut the soba very quickly and thinly – it was very impressive!
And his noodles were beautiful.
After the demonstration, Alastair and I tried making soba noodles ourselves. We shared a bowl and made noodles together, which is a good thing because a batch of soba noodles makes enough to serve 5 people! The cutting of the noodle took a bit of practice, but I think we did really well, and our noodles turned out nice and thin (those are our noodles in the photo). We made the best ones – haha!
We then had the opportunity to eat the noodles we made. Hashimoto-san cooked our noodles in a large pot of boiling water for 60 seconds, and then rinsed them thoroughly in cold water before dunking them into ice water.
We ate them dipped in soba sauce – yum!
I love cold soba, and the noodles were doubly delicious because we had made them ourselves. It was fascinating to learn the process in making soba noodles by hand – I hadn’t realised it was that labour intensive. But it was good fun and we got to eat our work. What’s better than that?
Note: This is a photo heavy post! And a warning to anyone who may be squeamish or who doesn’t like to see dead animals, there’s lots of pictures of dead fish ahead.
While in Tokyo, we visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market / Tsukiji fish market to see the tuna auction. We left our ryokan (inn) at the insane time of 4.50am to get there in time, as the tuna auctions start at 5.20am and finish around 7am.
I had heard lots about this market – that it is the largest seafood market in the world and that it handles over 2,000 tons of seafood per day and more than 400 different types of seafood. Well, I knew the market was busy, but I didn’t know just how busy. And no one had ever said to keep an eye out for the death barrels!
What’s a death barrel, you say? That thing up there is a death barrel. There were hundreds and hundreds of these things, whizzing around at top speed, barely slowing for other oncoming death barrels and hapless tourists. There was a ban on tourists visiting the tuna auction between Dec 08 and Jan 09, and after being there, I’m kinda surprised that they lifted the ban. I’m surprised that they let tourists visit at all! The market is REALLY busy and I felt like I was constantly in the way (and about to be run over by a death barrel).
Nevertheless, we made it to the tuna auction area safely. One of the changes the market made after lifting the ban is that tourists can only view the auction in a designated observation area and no flash photography is allowed. Well, the observation area is a skinny little area of the floor that has been cordoned off, and it’s pretty tiny. We managed to just squeeze ourselves in to get a look at the action. It was fairly difficult to stay there for long as there were so many people – most people just seemed to content themselves in taking a couple of photos and then leaving.
Buyers checking the quality of the fish
After being in the tuna auction area for a while, we left and had a wander around the seafood stalls. So much seafood!
There was lots of interesting seafood for sale. I wish I knew what everything was!
Fresh wasabi – so amazing!
We also had a walk around the vegetable and fruit section. This was MUCH more sedate than the seafood area.
Afterwards, we stopped at one of the small restaurants inside the market for a sashimi breakfast. The tiny shop seated 10 people along a counter. During our breakfast, the owner gave us Japanese lessons. He was a real character!
On the plate we had tuna, bonito, octopus, a raw prawn/shrimp, and a cooked prawn. I particularly loved the bonito. It had a melt in the mouth texture and was delicious. The raw prawn/shrimp was also a revelation – it was very sweet and creamy. We were told that they were a specific kind called sweet shrimp.
Along with the sashimi, there was also rice, miso soup and pickles. They barely got a look in – it was all about the sashimi. Gosh it was a memorable meal, it was some of the best sashimi I’ve ever eaten, and definitely the best sashimi we ate on our trip!
