Japan - An 800 Year-Old Onsen: Araya Totoan

Our Japan tour included two nights at Araya Totoan, an elegant onsen (hot spring) near Kaga, about a half hour from Kanazawa. The family that owns this place has been in business on the same spot for 800 years (I was very impressed until we found out that the neighboring onsen has been in the same family for 1200 years - 50 generations!). The famous ceramic artist Rosanjin Kitaoji (1883-1959) lived nearby and was a friend of the house; as a result, the place is replete with Rosanjin ceramics and paintings, which are on view for guests.

A great onsen needs to have excellent common baths - generally separate men's and women's indoor and outdoor baths, and Araya Totoan does. But it must also have delicious and beautifully presented food, both for dinner and especially for breakfast. Judge for yourself.
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Bobby Jay

Tokyo the Beautiful?!

Fashion Center, Shinjuku

I love Tokyo, but it's so ugly, right? Well, not completely. In fact, despite having miles and miles of undistinguished (or worse) post-war structures, Tokyo has some of the most beautiful and interesting modern architecture in the world

My wife and I recently completed a three-week trip to Japan. Our principal purpose for the trip was a tour that my wife organized for four couples who are avid collectors of contemporary Japanese ceramics. We traveled around the middle part of Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Gifu, Kanazawa and the Island of Naoshima) meeting an amazing array of artists and encountering their work in the artists' ateliers and studios. I think it is safe to say that all the participants, as well as my wife and I, enormously enjoyed the experience.

In addition to meeting the artists and confronting their works, we stayed at some wonderful places and ate some fantastic food, which will be the focus of several succeeding posts.

But first, Tokyo, the beginning of the journey, where our fantastic guide Steve Beimel took us on a brief architectural tour.

The National Art Center, Tokyo

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Tokyo Midtown

Prada and BMW Buildings

Nike and Tokyo Midtown

Bobby Jay

Japan - River Retreat Garaku

The first gastronomic highlight of our contemporary ceramics tour came at a fantastic ultra-modern hotel/spa called River Retreat Garaku, located near Toyama, about an hour from Kanazawa. The hotel, which also contains a spa, is owned by a serious collector of contemporary Japanese ceramics, and is filled with wonderful major pieces, in common spaces and in private gardens for the spacious, well-furnished suites.

Two Garaku Hotel Suites with Private Ceramic Gardens

We ate a wonderful kaiseki lunch in a room with an entire wall covered by ceramic plaques by Ogawa Machiko, one of Japan's most celebrated woman ceramic artists, whose works are on view in museums throughout the world.
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Ogawa Machiko Room

The delicious food was beautifully presented: seasonal arrangements and ingredients in unusually beautiful plates and vessels.

Kaiseki Meal with Seasonal Foods and Presentations

This is a virtually unknown hotel, off the beaten track, but it is well worth a visit!

Bobby Jay

Tokyo - Favorite Tempura

Before leaving Tokyo, we went to our favorite tempura restaurant, Yokota, which is Zagat listed and has a Michelin star.


Yokota's Master and Some Vegetable Tempura -- Note Absence of Grease

Yokota's tempura is covered in a heavenly, light batter and fried in an enormous pot of sesame oil, which burns very hot and (surprisingly to me) does not impart any taste. By frying very few things at a time, the temperature of the oil stays nearly constant, delivering tempura with not a hint of greasiness. The chef advises (some say orders) diners to dip the tempura into his unique curry/salt mix, ordinary salt or lemon juice and salt. His advice is usually correct, but it is okay to vary the seasoning. What is really great about Yokota is the dialogue with the chef, a master craftsman who obviously takes enormous pride in his work.

The remainder of our gastronomic highlights were primarily in the more haute cuisine arena, but more of that in other posts.

Bobby Jay

A Wonderful Weekend in Nikko

Our dear friends Fran and Kaz have a lovely weekend retreat in Nikko, about 100 miles north of Tokyo, on the grounds of Rinoji Temple, one of the main temples of this ancient town. I visited last weekend, in time for the Autumn Grand Festival of the Toshogu Shrine, a procession that has been conducted twice a year for more than 300 years in pretty much the same fashion. In addition to this picturesque event, I was treated to some extraordinary meals, an open-air bath in a hot spring and even a round of golf at the Nikko Country Club.


Procession at Toshogu Shrine

The first wonderful meal was at a local soba place. The owners, former school teachers, decided to open Soba Gen, a traditional soba restaurant, where they make the noodles from buckwheat flour, white flour or a combination. The noodles are hand cut several times a day, which is typical for a really good soba place. What is special here is that they buy the grains in bulk and grind them into flour at the restaurant. We had cold buckwheat-only soba with tororo (grated yam) added to the broth, and maitake mushroom tempura, since maitake are now in season. Delicious!


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For dinner we went to Gyoshintei, a kaiseki restaurant on the temple grounds. Kaiseki meals are about creative use of seasonal ingredients, mostly vegetables, and a variety of cooking techniques -- boiled, steamed, grilled, fried and raw -- beautifully presented in a variety of hand-made vessels. Gyoshintei did not disappoint; the food was delicious and eminently edible, without many of the difficult textures found in the most sophisticated Kyoto kaiseki cuisine. And beautifully presented in a manner that reflected the autumn season.

We started with an appetizer consisting of nama yuba (raw tofu skin), gomma dofu (sesame "tofu") and boiled maitake mushrooms.


Next up was a plate consisting of raw fugu (blowfish), chicken steamed in sake, steamed eggplant, burdock root and green potato. This was followed by dobi mushi, a broth with vegetables, including ginko nuts, that is infused with fragrant slices of the precious seasonal matsutake mushroom. You drink the broth from a small cut and eat the vegetables from the little teapot.


The meal continued with kampachi (yellowtail) cut and lightly pickled to imitate takuan (pickled radish), and cooked yuba in broth.


Then grilled shrimp with scallops and chrysanthemum shaped radish in a chrysanthemum petal soup.


Next were fried oysters wrapped in shiso leaves, with fried maitake-like mushrooms, rice with chestnuts, pickles and dark miso soup and, finally, bakes apple served with kibi (a soft sugary substance) covered by kudzu mochi.

And all this with copious amounts of sake -- three different ones from Tochigi Prefecture, where Nikko is located.

Whew!

Bobby Jay

Tokyo -- Favorite Sushi

Ask a Japanese person to name the best sushi restaurant and he or she will never name one of the famous places but rather a place near home, where he or she and the chef have a relationship and the dining experience is predictable, delicious and comfortable. Our favorite is Isokan, located in Meidaimae, about 40 minutes by public transportation from the center of Tokyo. We were introduced to Isokan by friends who live in Tokyo and New York and who have been going there for 40 years. The master (pictured above) worked at the famous Kanpachi (hence the "kan" in his name) before setting out on his own in the 1960s. You can see that he is totally at ease and in command of his restaurant.

What makes Isokan special is the food - delicious and rare - and, as stated above, our relationship, which guarantees a relaxed and comfortable evening. All his products (tuna, fresh shrimp, squid, etc.) are of impeccable freshness, but there is more: this is the only place that I (or my more knowledgeable friends) know of where you can get octopus eggs, and his also hard-to-find ainameko (sperm of the ainame fish) resembles foie gras in texture, taste and appearance. The special baked oysters, which resemble Oysters Rockefeller, are exquisite. Sushi just doesn't get any better than this.

Click on "More" below for pictures.
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Grilled octopus and ainameko

Baked oyster and octopus eggs

Bobby Jay

Gourmet RIP

Alas, Gourmet is no more, having succumbed to a dwindling bottom line after 68 years.

As I sat down to write this, I came across the post on www.serveitforth.com bemoaning the loss of Gourmet, and I imagine the entire food blogosphere is or will be abuzz with comments. Nevertheless, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on Gourmet.

I was a subscriber to Gourmet for 35 years. It started when my wife (then fiance) and I were given a one-year subscription at a spice shower in advance of our wedding, and I continued to renew until now, with no lapses. During our multi-year stints in Paris and Tokyo, before the age of the Internet, the monthly arrival of Gourmet was a cherished event and a tie to home. Although we have long since lost touch, I remember very well the woman who gave us that initial subscription. The ultimate gift that kept on giving!
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People often complained that the recipes were too difficult, and there is some truth in that. Still, I always used the recipes, and some became standards in my repertoire. But I must admit that for years I found Gourmet's recipes to be a bit complex and as a result I had some notable failures. During the last 10 years or so, I found them to be more user-friendly, but maybe that’s just me.

The really great thing about Gourmet, though, was always its monthly jolt of inspiration and challenge, whether of food to cook or eat, places to go or things to experience. The travel pieces were more than inspiring; if you were going where they had been, you found wonderful restaurants and other sights that the more generic, non-food oriented guides might have missed. I will never forget our perfect lunch more than 30 years ago at a tiny restaurant in the back of a fish store in Antibes near the Picasso Museum. We certainly would not have discovered it on our own and owe that memory entirely to Gourmet.

Other, more recipe-oriented food magazines have a value, and I subscribe to many of them, but Gourmet was special and irreplaceable.

Sad news.

Bobby Jay

Simple and Delicious Erev Yom Kippur Meal

This year I made a traditional roast chicken dinner before Rosh Hashana, so I decided to go Sephardic for the eve of Yom Kippur, and ended by making a simple, but really homey and delicious meal, consisting of

--Orange Salad with Olives, from Claudia Rhoden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
--Spicy Lamb with Couscous and Preserved Lemon, from Gordon Hamersley's Bisto Cooking at Home
--Thin Apple Tart over Chopped Thyme (really!) on (frozen) Puff Pastry, with Walnuts and Honey that we brought back from Auvergne.

Rhoden is the Marcella Hazan of the Middle East, and Hamersley's book is just infallible. I developed the tart myself; the secret is to sprinkle chopped thyme under the apples (I got that excellent idea from Susan Herrmann Loomis's On Rue Tatin) and to cut the apples into thin (1/8-inch) slices with a mandoline.

The secret to the lamb shanks (and any other lamb shanks and most stews) is to prepare them the day before and to remove the fat and reheat in the oven before serving. This makes life simpler and the taste is improved by the night in the fridge.

Bobby Jay

Perfect Risotto

Last night my wife and I went to Elio's, an excellent and very popular East-Side Italian restaurant, for the millionth time. We have been going to Elio's since shortly after it opened, in the 70s. The food is consistent and they make the best renditions available of some classics, such as Chicken Scarpariello and Paillard of Veal. Last night I ordered the Porcini Porcini Secchi (dried porcini) and it was not just good, it was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! Great texture, taste and seasoning combined to make this one of the great dishes -- seemingly so simple when it works. While I don't generally review New York restaurants, it is worth recognizing perfection whenever you find it.

Elio's is located at 1621 Second Ave. (nr. 84th)Tel: (212) 772-2242

Go.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Mariage Frères

My wife is an avid tea drinker. She likes black, herbal and, to a lesser extent, green teas.

When we lived in Paris in 1978, we were surprised at the poor quality of the tea served in restaurants: a lipton tea bag if you were lucky. Somehow we didn't discover Mariage Frères, which has been selling fine tea in Paris since 1854, until much later. What a shame, because MF is one of the great tea purveyors in the world. My wife always keeps the Mahé and the Earl Grey French Blue in stock, but she has enjoyed many other MF teas. Probably the most amazing part of their selection is the dazzling variety of Darjeelings, which are prominently displayed throughout the stores.

While selected MF teas are available in department stores in Paris and elsewhere in the world, there are only four proprietary stores in Paris which stock all the teas in their extensive catalogue: 260 rue du Faubourg St-Honoré (8ème), 30 rue du Bourg-Tibourg (4ème), 13 rue des Grands-Augustins (6ème) and 17 place de la Madeleine. All but the Madeleine store also include elegant tea salons, where you can taste any of MF's teas as an element of a (generally quite good) meal or light collation. Each store also sells an array of expensive tea pots and utensils.

Tea has improved all over Paris, and most restaurants now do better than Lipton's. But Mariage Frères reigns supreme. It is definitely worth the visit to one of the main stores, where you can stock up on tea for yourself or for a friend; they sell wonderful pre-selected gift packages, but the knowledgeable staff can help you make up a custom arrangement if you prefer.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Rue Daguerre

My favorite things: reine-claudes, mirabelles and quetsches

Butcher and seafood merchant on rue Daguerre

At the suggestion of a good friend, I went last week to a very nice market street on rue Daguerre, near Place Denfert Rochereau (Métro Denfert Rochereau). I had never been to this quartier before, but it is a very pleasant, airy, bourgeois Paris neighborhood. The market street is short but has what you need, and with apparently excellent quality.

I plan to return for a more leisurely walk around, with a guidebook in hand to make sure I hit the highlights.

Bobby Jay

Paris - La Bague de Kenza

I recently went to La Bague de Kenza, an Algerian pastry shop in the 11ème arrondissement (there is another in the 3ème), and was blown away. I learned of this place from Barbra Austin, at www.serveitforth.com and recently went there with a new friend (Elizabeth Bard, www.elizabethbard.blogspot.com) who knew it well. In addition to the pâtisserie, there is a tea salon next door. The selection there is meager, but it's okay to go into the pâtisserie and tell them its for next door. A selection of pastries and mint tea makes for a memorable Paris experience.

La Bague de Kenza, 106, rue St. Maur, 75011 Paris (Métro Parmentier or Rue St-Maur).

Bobby Jay

Quick and Easy Chocolate Soufflé

I took a cooking lesson awhile ago at Atelier Guy Martin in Paris and learned to make an amazingly easy but delicious chocolate soufflé, which contains no egg yolks and only about an ounce of butter per serving. It can be made in advance, held in the fridge during dinner, and then baked for just 15 minutes, more or less, while you are on the salad course. (I adapted this recipe to make Bobby Jay's (Almost Healthy) Caramelized Banana and Chocolate Soufflé -- see my post of April 17, 2009.)

Click more for the recipe.

Bobby Jay
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Chocolate Soufflé Atelier Guy Martin

For 4 servings
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

150g (5.35 oz) granulated sugar
275 g (10 oz) egg whites
120 g (4.3 oz) butter
225 g (8 oz) chocolate (60-70%)
20 cl (.85 cups) raspberry coulis (optional)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 410º F.

Soften butter. Generously butter and sugar 4 individual soufflé dishes.

Melt chocolate and remaining butter together in a bain-marie.

Beat egg whites until frothy. Add 75g sugar and beat until firm peaks. Gently fold the whites into the melted chocolate.

Fill the soufflé dishes and level by running a spatula across the tops.

Bake the soufflés for 8 minutes. Check for doneness with a skewer or cake tester and return to oven for a couple more minutes if necessary.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and (optional) open the soufflés with a spoon and add raspberry coulis.

Julie and Julia - The Movie

Saw Julie and Julia last night and really enjoyed it. As expected, Meryl Streep was an absolutely perfect Julia Child, and Stanley Tucci was also excellent as her husband Paul. The lesser plot about Julie Powell (ably played by Amy Adams), the young secretary/blogger who decides to cook all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, was better than I had expected based on the reviews. Indeed, I think it was essential to prevent the "main" Julia story from becoming a mere bio-pic.

The movie is an exuberant celebration of food and eating, cooking and writing about it. But it also makes the point that cooking for others (and it always is for others) is essentially an act of sharing. Both Julia and Julie cooked out of love for their husbands and friends (and in Julia's case the entire American public), not just to find something to do. To me, this is the film's real message and what makes it so poignant.

I have read and enjoyed both of the books that the film is based on, and found the movie to be true to the books, but, especially as regards the Julia story, to be much more; the food photography and styling are superb, Paris is at it most lovely, and Streep's Julia is more alive than the one on the page.

A must-see for anyone who reads this blog.

Bobby Jay

Tutti a Tavola with Lidia Bastianich

I have a confession: I love Lidia Matticchio Bastianich.

She is a great restauranteur, cookbook author and television cooking teacher. She has a charming, welcoming manner without a trace of arrogance.

In 1998, PBS offered Lidia her own cooking show, which became Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen. She has been a fixture in the PBS cooking show lineups ever since, hosting two additional television series, Lidia's Family Table (still in reruns around the U.S.) and Lidia's Italy, launched in April 2007. Lidia closes out every episode with a heartfelt invitation to join her and her family for a meal, "Tutti a tavola a mangiare" (Italian for "Everyone to the table to eat").

To accompany her various television series, Lidia has authored several cookbooks:

La Cucina di Lidia
Lidia's Family Table
Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen
Lidia's Italian Table
Lidia's Italy

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They are very good and inspiring. The one I know best is Lidia's Italy, which is organized by geographic region and contains interesting recipes that you won't easily find elsewhere. I would also recommend this as a travel book to people about to go to Italy; advance knowledge of a region's cuisine will make for a more rewarding culinary experience.

Lidia's restaurants are among New York's best. Felidia is consistently excellent, featuring the best food of her native Istria (now part of Croatia), as well as other regions. Del Posto, which she founded with Mario Batali, is one of the best restaurants in New York. I haven't been to Becco, which she owns with her son Joseph, in years, so I can't comment on it.

Bobby Jay

Excellent Barbecue . . . and All That Jazz

As a counterpoint to the great meals described in my last post, my wife and I went to the Jazz Standard tonight for great jazz (Steve Kuhn, Steve Swallow and Al Foster) and good eats. Usually, the food at jazz clubs is to be avoided unless necessary to satisfy a minimum charge. The Jazz Standard is different: there is a music charge but no minimum, probably because the drinks are good and the food is better than good.

The Jazz Standard is downstairs from Danny Meyer's Blue Smoke, with which it shares a kitchen. Ribs come in all varieties - smoked Memphis baby backs, Kansas City-style spare ribs and Texas-style salt and pepper beef beef ribs. There is a really smoky smoked chicken, fine burgers and excellent (so I'm told) macaroni and cheese. The home-made potato chips are totally addictive and the smoked buffalo wings are almost as good. Tonight my wife actually had a very healthful veggie burger tonight -- not something you'd dare to try at most jazz clubs -- and it was not bad at all.

Of course a jazz club is only as good as the music, and the Jazz Standard is first-rate. Check it out at www.jazzstandard.com.

Bobby Jay

Two Great New York Meals

Lucky me! This week I took my wife to Chanterelle for our anniversary and she took me and another couple to Daniel for my birthday.

Chanterelle has long been our "go-to" restaurant for special events. We took the restaurant over for my father's 70th birthday, and then again for my wife's 50th: both marvelous events. And numerous anniversaries, birthdays and Valentine's Days.

Our recent meal was one of the best we have had there. We had the tasting menu, which started with assorted sashimi for me (and a surprisingly delicious tomato consommé for my wife who can't eat raw fish), then zucchini blossoms stuffed with chicken and truffles, grilled cobia with a smoked corn coulis, aiguilletes of loin of lamb with rosemary and polenta fries, and finally vanilla brioche with cherry compote, chocolate sauce and port ice cream for dessert (although my wife selected a chocolate tart from the menu). Not to mention innumerable amuse-bouches at the beginning and mignardises at the end. The only problem with the tasting menu is that you have to pass up the signature seafood sausage, which is quite simply the best I have ever encountered and indeed one of the best things I have ever eaten. A bargain at $95, although the wine list is very, very, very high-priced. They charge $50 for corkage, though, so buy yourself a nice bottle of wine and enjoy it there.
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Daniel is not a restaurant we frequent, although we do go fairly often to Cafe Boulud and the wonderful Bar Boulud near Lincoln Center. We had a sensational six-course tasting menu that included some amazing dishes, perhaps most notably: rabbit "porchetta" with chorizo, red snapper ceviche, kataifi crusted red mullet, whole dorade "à la plancha," bacon and foie gras stuffed squab breast, lamb chop or veal three ways. Two of us had dietary issues, the others did not, so there were two different menus. I have named the dish that I thought was the better of the two for each course, having split almost all the dishes with my wife. A cheese platter and two different duos of fruit and chocolate desserts followed, with mignardises too numerous to mention. This was a special event with its own custom menu, so it cannot be duplicated without a lot of effort (and expense). However, the level of cuisine was truly impressive and we will go back again on the "ordinary" track.

As I said at the outset, lucky me!

Bobby Jay