Okinawa Part IVb: Delicious meals at Little Inn Ai, Ishigaki

I promise this is the last post on our trip to Okinawa. Our stay at 小さなペンション藍 (Chiisana Pension Ai or Little Inn Ai) was great, and the meals we had there were excellent. The owner chef of the inn used to own a small izakaya, and we were looking forward to eating the food.

Dinner

Dinner was a multi-course affair, and we enjoyed seasonal produce that are found only on the island.

Part of the dinner spread: (clockwise from top right) Goya Champuru, Salad with Italian-style dressing, Rosemary Chicken, and salt for the tempura which were still being fried as the shot was taken:


The Goya Champuru was a stirfried dish of goya (bitter gourd/melon), moyashi (beansprouts), eggs and bacon. The fried bacon pieces added oomph to this Okinawan favourite. The Salad was very refreshing with hunks of ham and a sweet-savoury tomato-ey Italian-style dressing.

Close-ups of Goya Champuru and Salad:


The Rosemary Chicken were flavourful juicy pieces of chicken thighs, minimally accompanied by a few wedges of fried potato and a couple of cherry tomatoes. The Oxtail Soup was rich in flavour and quite simply delicious - perfect on an unusually chilly day for Ishigaki. It was my first time trying oxtail soup.

Close-ups of the Rosemary Chicken and the Oxtail Soup:


We had the tempura the best way to eat it - freshly cooked and piping hot. The Vegetable Tempura were all produce that are native to the island: Otaniwatari, a type of sansai (wild vegetable); Shima-rakyou, a type of shallots (shima means island); and Shima-ninjin, a native carrot. While we were enjoying the vegetable tempura, the chef came into the dining area and placed freshly fried Gurukun tempura pieces on the plate. Apparently the gurukun is the prefectural fish of Okinawa.

Tempura: Otaniwatari (green ones), Shima-rakyou (in the foreground and the furthest back), and the Shima-ninjin (yellow sticks in the middle of the plate); and Gurukun tempura:


At our request, Satomi brought out the raw shima-ninjin and shima-rakyou to show us how they look like.


Dessert was a Beni Imo Manjyuu, a purple sweet potato sweet bun. These were mildly sweet, which was a great way to end the meal. By the way, these purple sweet potatoes are huge in Okinawa, and you can find various beni imo-flavoured items everywhere in Okinawa.

Beni Imo Manjyuu:


Breakfast

Breakfast was a more simple affair, but still well-prepared and well-liked. Spam and egg made an appearance, and this is not a bad combination. Considering its popularity in Okinawa, we'd done well to avoid Spam on this trip. I loved the toasted cheesy tomato bruschetta, and the potato salad was pretty good too. I even enjoyed the simple pleasure of eating freshly toasted bread with yuzu marmalade.

Breakfast: (clockwise from top right) Tomato Bruschetta, Spam and Egg, Potato Salad, Vegetable Salad; and the toasted bread (beni imo-flavoured and walnut) with yuzu marmalade:


We really enjoyed our accommodation at this Little Inn, and the food added the perfect accent to our stay. Highly recommended by all three of us. I booked via this this website.

Okinawa Part IVa: Ishigaki Specialties

So now that we'd eaten most of the well-known Okinawan dishes during our very short time in Naha, we were keen on focusing on eating the island's specialties during stay in Ishigaki.

Yaeyama soba at Masando

For dinner on the first night, we headed to Masando to eat Yaeyama Soba (the noodles are named after the group of islands that Ishigaki is a part of), which is apparently Yaeyama's best known dish. We went to Masando based on recommendations from wikitravel and the city's websites. Normal soba are made with buckwheat flour, but these ones are made with wheat flour and resemble more like what the Japanese call chuka soba (Chinese soba) that's used in the popular yakisoba (thinking about it, there really isn't much difference between the noodles used for yakisoba and ramen).

As well as serving the usual Yaeyama soba at Masando, they also serve soki soba using Yaeyama soba, which is like eating a double specialty since soki (stewed pork spare ribs) is an Okinawan dish. (By the way, Okinawa soba is different again to both the usual buckwheat variety and the Yaeyama soba - these wheat noodles resemble more like udon. Ordering soki soba outside of the Yaeyama islands would most probably get you stewed pork with these thick noodles.) The stewed pork was soft and delicious from the stewing sauce, the noodles were firm and springy (as opposed to overcooked and mushy), and you can't stop drinking the soup! We also got some Fu Champuru which is a stirfry using wheat gluten, vegetables and eggs. Out of all the champuru dishes I've tried during our Okinawa trip, I like this one the best. I'm not sure what Rob thought of fu, the texture of which can be likened to soggy (but chewy) bread, but I like it!

Soki Soba; and Fu Champuru:


We also ordered some fried fish cakes and Jimami-dofu, which is also another Okinawan dish. Jimami-dofu is a peanut tofu which has more of a mochi-like texture. I think that it doesn't contain any soybeans, like my favourite 'tofu', goma-dofu (sesame tofu). But unlike goma-dofu, jimami-dofu was a bit plain tasting and I couldn't taste any peanuts in it (it was served with soy sauce here). I do like the texture though!

Fried fishcake; and Jimami-dofu:


I don't recall the individual pricing of our dinner, only that the total came to around 2300yen. Good food here!

Ishigaki beef at Kinjo

Another specialty on Ishigaki island is Ishigaki beef, which is a type of wagyu. I'm not that big on red meat, but I wanted to try it since it is a local specialty. Near our hotel, there's a restaurant called Kinjyo that serves Ishigaki beef at a more affordable price during lunch time, and that was where we headed for lunch after checking out of our hotel the following day. Kinjyo is a yakiniku restaurant, where we grill our own meat to the way we like them. I ordered the Toku-jyo Yakiniku Teishoku (Special Top Quality Beef Lunch Set for 2500yen) which came with a bowl of rice, miso soup, salad and kimchi, and Rob ordered the Toku-jyo Steak Lunch (for 3500yen) which also came with a bowl of rice, miso soup and salad (no kimchi). Both came with 160g of meat. We both thought that the meat in the cheaper set was a bit too fatty for our liking, and we both preferred the more expensive meat. I guess that's why it was more expensive, huh?

Teishoku set and the accompanying dishes:


The baby woke up just as our food was being served. Here's Rob holding Zak and eating, and his order of the steak lunch:


Yakiniku action!


Unusual Gelato Flavours

After lunch, we burnt off some calories by exploring the town on foot. We were also in search of this gelateria called Ishigaki Gelato to consume more calories. There we found flavours such as Ishigaki Salt (the shop's most popular flavour) and Seaweed with Vinegar, both of which we had to try. Rob was at first iffy about my choice of the seaweed gelato, but after trying it, he agreed with me that it was nicer than the salt flavour. Two scoops for 500yen.

The range of gelato flavours; and our Ishigaki Salt and Seaweed with Vinegar cone:


Convenience food on the go

On the morning of our return flight back to Tokyo, I asked Satomi (of the Little Inn Ai that I previously raved about - I will post a separate review of the meals we had there) for recommendations on what we could buy for lunch to have on the plane. She directed us to a shop in the airport that sells a certain type of onigiri (rice ball) that cannot be found outside of Ishigaki. It's called Jyushii (juicy?) Kamaboko (210yen), a rice ball that is wrapped in a type of fish cake. Satomi said that it is something she and her husband always buy for lunch-to-go at the airport. We also got another type of Onigiri Kamaboko (165yen), and Ishigaki Gyu Omusubi (Ishigaki beef rice ball for 375yen). They were all delicious and filled our tummies sufficiently.

Our lunch to go: (left to right) Jyushii Kamaboko, Ishigaki beef rice ball and the Onigiri Kamaboko; and the jyushii kamaboko onigiri unwrapped:


We also found Spam onigiri, which is an Okinawan thing because they love their Spam here!

Okinawa Part III: Ishigaki Island and Little Inn Ai

We were in Naha for only one day, but we managed to sample quite a few Okinawan dishes, before we headed south to Ishigaki Island, the main hub of the Yaeyama Islands group. Why did I choose Ishigaki? To be honest, the wilderness of Iriomote (also part of the Yaeyama group) is a lot more appealing to me, but unfortunately, hiking through the jungle and canoeing down the river are not very baby-friendly, so I chose the nearby Ishigaki instead. Even though we couldn't have the adventure vacation, we had a really nice time in Ishigaki, better than our stay in Naha.

A pretty tropical fish in the aquarium tank at Ishigaki Airport


We were in Ishigaki for two days. The first night we stayed in a hotel close to the centre so that we could explore the 'downtown' area. We arrived in Ishigaki in the late afternoon, and although it was only an hour flight from Naha, we were quite exhausted from our visit to Shuri Castle in Naha that we just wanted to chill out and freshen up in the hotel room for a couple of hours before going out in search for dinner. The baby needed some relaxation on the bed after being held in the baby carrier for most of the day. We had some island noodles and other specialties for dinner. We didn't check out until 11am the next morning (everything takes longer with a baby), which didn't give us much time to do more than looking for lunch and taking a walk around town before getting picked up to our next destination. Ishigaki is home to a variety of the well-marbled wagyu beef, and we took the opportunity to eat some Ishigaki beef for lunch. After lunch, we took a nice walk around town, had some unusual but delicious gelato flavours, and walked down the main "mall" of the town and bought some island specialty foodstuff.

Ayapani Mall:


For the second night, we were booked to stay at this gorgeous house about 30 minutes drive from downtown called 小さなペンション藍 (Chiisana Pension Ai or Little Inn Ai) which I reserved via this website. The special thing about this inn is that there are no other guests, so you get the full attention of the owners, and they really took care of us. Their service to us began a couple of weeks before our reserved date when Satomi emailed me to arrange our arrival to the house. She was kind enough to offer to pick us up from our hotel downtown and to drop us off at the airport after checking out. And we were very happy with everything in between. When Satomi found out that we didn't manage to do any sightseeing outside of town, she drove the scenic route to the house and stopped at several scenic points for photo op. Apparently, Kabira Bay offers the nicest scenic views of the island, and with clear emerald water that sparkled even on this unusually (so we were told) overcast day, it was very pretty.

Walking through the lush green promenade of Kabira Park to the viewing pavillion:


The view of the bay from the viewing pavillion (click on image for larger view):


Black pearls are cultivated in this bay, and here's a display of the growth of an oyster (shell) over three years (my dSLR lens cap is to the top right for size comparison):


After the scenic drive, we arrived at the house where we were welcomed graciously by Satomi's husband, who is the chef (he used to own a small izakaya before venturing into the inn business). The accommodation itself is not anything fancy, but it was very comfortable, had everything we need and was very private. The room joins the rest of the house via the dining area where we had our dinner and breakfast. I loved the layout of the room and the huge glass window.

Where's baby (in the first shot)?:


After settling in to and enjoying a cup of welcome tea with locally made Okinawan biscuits called chinsuko, we took a walk with the owners' three dogs (all were strays that they took in) to see the surrounding area. We saw lots of beautiful flowers, sugar cane fields and even a vending machine in this quiet part of the island. It really is a gorgeous place with beautiful views of the violet ocean (I'm not used to seeing the ocean in this deep yet brilliant colour, which was difficult to capture on camera so I gave up after awhile).

Down the main road in front of the house; and a gorgeous view of several rice paddy fields, finished with the ocean in the background:


Gorgeous hibiscus and bougainvillae, flowers I grew up with when I lived in Malaysia. Hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia, and my mum had several bougainvilla bushes in the garden. I like to call bougainvillae "paper flowers":


Some calves bound for the dinner table, perhaps of the prized wagyu breed? Sugar cane fields are in the backdrop. Along the road, we encountered a lonely jido-hanbaiki (vending machine) which is ubiquitous in Japan:


Then we headed back to the house to relax, freshen up and wait for our dinner to be served. Dinner was excellent, and we sampled plenty of local seasonal produce, things that we would not easily get to eat in Tokyo and review of the dinner and breakfast will be posted up soon. The bed was very comfortable and I slept my first 8-hour long uninterrupted sleep in five months since Zak was born (it helped that Zak did not get much daytime naps during our trip that he was exhausted by night time). Then it was off to the airport in the morning to catch our flight to Tokyo, but not without stopping by a beach for some photo op. We even saw an endangered eagle species, the Serpent Crested Eagle of which there are only 100 left on Ishigaki Island, and another 100 elsewhere in the world.

The endangered eagle:


I think it is a shame that this inn does not receive many foreign guests because it really is quite a nice experience. And Satomi speaks excellent English (especially in this countryside town) due to having spent some time living in London. I was actually quite surprised at her fluency because I'd assumed that we would have to utilise our (not-so-good) Japanese skills - we certainly had to when getting around downtown where not much English is spoken. This little inn comes highly recommended from the three of us!

Family photo!

Okinawa Part II: Naha eats

During our short trip to Okinawa, I made it a point for us to try the unique Okinawan cuisine which stands apart from the mainland Japanese cuisine. The food in this region draws its influence mainly from China and Southeast Asia, but also from America due to the presence of U.S. military bases in Okinawa (taco rice, anyone?). The first time I encountered Okinawan food was almost two years ago, and my interest was piqued. When we were in Naha, we dropped into an izakaya for dinner and ordered the typical Okinawan dishes that I knew of. Dishes were priced at around 700-900yen each, and our five dishes came to a total of 3500yen. It was still too early for the drinking crowd, so we had the place to ourselves and the full attention of the friendly staff. One of the ladies even asked to carry Zak, which honestly surprised me, but I was not going to refuse because Zak was entertained while we ate.

It was fun eating the Umi Budou Salad ("umi budou" literally means "sea grapes", a type of seaweed) with the 'grapes' popping savoury juice onto the tongue as you bite. And it has been ages since I ate bitter gourd, so I enjoyed the Goya Champuru (Rob wasn't as keen as I was on the bitterness). My mum used to cook bitter gourd when I was a kid in Malaysia, and I used to hate the bitterness, but I would eat it anyway because my mum told me it would make my blood bitter and prevent the mosquitoes from attacking me (put me in a room with a few people and mosquitoes and I can guarantee you that I'd have more mozzie bites than anyone else). I guess the taste grew on me and I ended up liking the stuff just before we migrated to Australia where bitter gourd is not as readily available. Apparently the word "champuru" means "to mix", and I wonder if it has its roots from the Malay language because "campur" is the Malay word with the same definition.

Umi Budou Salad; and Goya Champuru:


Apparently Okinawans are crazy about pork, that it is said that the cuisine "begins with pig and ends with pig" and that "every part of a pig can be eaten except its hooves and its oink". One of the well-known Okinawan pork dishes is the Rafute, braised pork belly. Apparently, despite the dish's unhealthy appearance with the generous layer of fat, the braising method renders a lot of the fat out of the meat which makes it not so unhealthy. That's what I choose to believe anyway. The meat was juicy and tender that tasted sinfully rich.

Rafute:


Not feeling quite satisfied just yet, we asked for o-susume (recommendations). The Hirayachi was like a cheesy pancake, and was very more-ish. And the fried little fish (called Sururu on the menu) were very umami, all of them containing little sacks of yummy roe in their bellies.

Hirayachi and Sururu:


All up, it was pretty good food for an izakaya establishment.

The following photos are what I had for breakfast the next morning. I booked a breakfast package at the hotel we stayed at, and we could choose from three restaurants (Japanese, Chinese or western) all serving buffet-style. Both Rob and baby were still sleeping when I woke up, and I thought it was best if we had our breakfasts separately so we didn't have to wake the baby up prematurely. My first option would have been the French restaurant since there were more variety, but it was also the most popular choice for the other hotel guests and there was a waiting period, so I went for the Chinese restaurant (baby was due to wake up anytime for his breakfast and I was aiming for a quick brekkie). The quality of the food was good for a buffet, but I was a tad disappointed that the dishes weren't more varied. I am a big eater so I went back for seconds and thirds but I got bored of the dishes pretty quickly. Rob chose the French buffet which definitely proved to be the better one of the two. I asked him to take photos of his breakfast too, but I haven't uploaded them from his iPhone yet. Next time I'll post them.

The whole table spread with salad, condiments/toppings for congee, and tiny individual servings of cold dishes including mozoku (seaweed), fish, jimamidofu (peanut tofu) and sesame pork. The hot dishes are in the background. They were all delicious:


The hot dishes: goya champuru (I liked this one more than the previous night's one at the izakaya), a braised tofu dish, fried chicken and omelette. There were also siumai (pork dumpling) and mini pork buns in bamboo steamers at one end of the table. The next shot shows my first serving. Tea, soup and chuugoku (Chinese) congee were brought to the table (you could also choose plain rice or plain congee):