Japan 2015 - Kyoto's Nishiki Street Food Market

Although the Central Japan portion of our tour ended in Toyama, there was a two-day extension in Kyoto, my favorite tourist city in the world.

I love going to food markets wherever I can find them: Paris, New York, Tokyo and especially Kyoto. There the Nishiki Street food market is open six days a week, throughout the day, and one encounters wonderfully fresh food products as well as an abundance of exotic prepared items, from Kyoto's renowned pickles to freshly ground hot pepper spices.

In my unofficial foodie-in-chief of our group, I volunteered to lead a tour of the Nishiki market, which my companions enjoyed immensely.

Some of the highlights of our stroll through the market are below, more or less in the order of our visit (I have tried not to repeat my post of November 6, 2013 too much):

Real chestnuts, not to be confused with those at Zeniya

A weird product, octopus head stuffed with quail egg (photo by Jan Golann)

Shrimp, dried and caramelized

Fried scallop adductor muscles - things we throw away: who knew?

Sea snails

Tea roaster and freshly roasted teas

Assorted mini fish for rice - a super rich source of calcium

Seaweed products, fish and Kyoto style natto (I think)

Steaming oden (mostly various fish cakes and vegetables)

Omelet making 101 and the final result

Cucumbers pickled in miso

The eel guy has various qualities and sizes

Prepared garlic (I don't know how this is used)

One of my favorite stands: the ichimi and shichimi  hot pepper spice grinder.

Mochi tea sweets

Real wasabi root, not to be confused with the powdered stuff

Fancy rice crackers

Although one can find many of the same items, beautifully presented, in the basement floors of the major Tokyo and Kyoto department stores, you can't beat a tour of the Nishiki Market.

Bobby Jay

Japan 2015 - River Retreat Garaku: Heaven for Ceramics Devotees

Leaving Kanazawa, we traveled by a scenic coastal bus ride to the rural Noto Peninsula, where we had a wonderful, nearly solitary visit to the very spiritual Myojoji temple complex, followed by lunch and a little shopping in Wajima, a lacquer town. The we continued on to River Retreat Garaku, near Toyama.

Garaku is a ceramics lover's dream, featuring major works by many of Japan's leading contemporary artists scattered throughout the modern, architecturally significant property. It also has wonderful food, beautifully and thoughtfully presented, with a French twist.

Breakfast plate at River Retreat Garaku

The building, by the renowned Naito Hiroshi, effectively echoes Japan's traditional square log architecture in a modern context, and has beautiful, linear public spaces and rooms.

Lobby at River Retreat Garaku

Some of the rooms feature sculpture gardens consisting of a single huge ceramic work.

Koie Ryoji

Kato Tsubusa

The food is an equal part of the experience. The restaurant, L'Evo, purports to be French, but I would say that it features elegant French-inspired Japanese cuisine.

Dinner started with a "prologue" of assorted delicacies, followed by mushroom puree with soft roe, mushroom with bayberry and chrysanthemum, egg with bell pepper and sausage and conger eel with grilled eggplant, all presented in or on interesting bowls and plates.

Mushroom puree with soft roe

Mushrooms with bayberry sauce and chrysanthemum

Red pepper and sausage with egg

Fried conger eel with grilled eggplant

Then some more recognizable dishes: gazpacho with cucumber and mozzarella, rockfish with pear a nd spice, black cod with sesame and perfectly grilled hida beef.

Gazpacho with cucumber and mozzarella

Rockfish with pear spice sauce and greens

Black cod with wild sesame

Ikeda beef with onion and mâche

And finally dessert, called "Sugar Apple/Spicebush," although I must admit that I couldn't (and still can't) decipher it. Although it was not very good, I include it here as a quiz: what  exactly is it?

"Sugar Apple/Spicebush," whatever that is

Breakfast at River Retreat Garaku is fabulous! Indeed, it merits another post, although I'll just include it here. Eaten in a spectacular room full of Ogawa Machiko plaques,

Breakfast is ready in the Ogawa Machiko room, River Retreat Garaku

and inventively served on a succession of particularly beautiful plates.

Breakfast at River Retreat Garaku

As I said, absolute Heaven for devotees of Japanese contemporary ceramics. A perfect way to end our tour of Central Japan!

Bobby Jay

Japan 2015 - Not All Good Japanese Food is Sublime

Food in Japan is not all sublime seasonal delicacies. The Japanese are huge consumers of fast food of the American variety and of their own. Every station has what appears to be an endless selection of bento boxes with fish, chicken or meat, vegetables, pickles, rice, tofu and fruit, in all kinds of combinations, neatly placed in compartments in the bento box.

We had a nice one -- in two boxes, although only one is pictured -- on our train from Kanazawa to Kyoto, the Thunderbird (pronounced "Sandabaado"), although I confess to having eaten mine on the bus between Toyama and Kanazawa.

Excellent bus bento

In Kanazawa, which ironically is known for its elegant Japanese food, a group of us went to Jiyuken, a simple Japanese yoshoku (Western-style food) restaurant that has been in business since 1909 serving, among other things, spaghetti, beef stew and rice-stuffed omelets. Here I had an old favorite, katsu curry, a breaded fried pork cutlet atop rice and a gloppy curry sauce bearing no relationship to the Indian or Malaysian variety, all topped with a fried egg and accompanied by pickled ginger. Japanese curry is a unique thing and it just is what it is: you either love it or hate it.

Katsu curry, a unique Japanese take on curry

Japan is also full of vending machines selling cold and hot tea, coffee, water, sports drinks and health drinks. Here's a photo of two with names that Americans find odd: Calpis and Pocari Sweat.

Calpis and Pocari Sweat in vending machine

And coffee, of course, an old vending machine standby.

 Coffees from vending machines

Note that Wonda Gold is "A Premium Coffee With A Radiant-like Beauty Perfected With Premium Beans." No Wonda that it's Tiger Woods' favorite (or at least he did commercials for it when we lived in Tokyo 15 years ago).

In the old days, one could buy sandwiches, beer and even sake in vending machines, but now there are convenience markets everywhere where those items are purchased, in addition to their own, less elaborate, bento boxes and, in the cooler months, oden, the steamed vegetables and fish cakes braised for hours in dashi (Japanese stock, virtually always based on seaweed and most often flavored with bonito flakes).

One of the remaining food items that may be found in vending machines is corn soup, which is surprisingly not bad. Here are two of the many brands that are available.

Two varieties of corn soup in vending machines, about $1.10 at today's exchange rate

One of my favorite things in Japan s is Häagen Dazs matcha (powdered green tea) ice cream, an intense, almost bitter confection bearing no resemblance to the insipid green tea ice cream that Häagen Dazs sells in the US. There are many other brands but -- trust me -- Häagen Dazs is best. 

Häagen Dazs matcha ice cream

In addition, our guide Andy, a great expert on Japanese culture, provided a steady stream of sembei (rice crackers) and other delights to keep us busy on train and bus rides. Among the best (well, most interesting) were the iconic Tokyo Banana cakes -- a lot like Twinkies in their cult status in Tokyo, and just as awful -- and rum raisin KitKat bars that I must admit I liked.

Tokyo Banana cake and rum raisin KitKats

Try to read the fine print at left on the Tokyo Banana wrapper. If you can't make it out, here's what it says:

People gather in Tokyo from here and there with memories of their home. And then, TOKYO gets everyone's home town. TOKYO BANANA

I could go on and on but it's hard to follow that quote.

Bobby Jay