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):

Okinawa Part I: Naha

As I mentioned previously, we recently went on a short holiday to Okinawa, the southernmost (and warmest) prefecture of Japan. We stayed one night in the capital Naha and two nights on Ishigaki Island. It's the first time travelling with our 5 month old baby, and the first time in more than a year travelling domestically. In planning our travels, I usually pack in a lot of things to see, do and eat, but this time I went with a far more flexible and easy itinerary because I knew that travelling with a baby is unpredictable and time-consuming. The poor little man did not nap much during the day on our holiday (even though he was being pushed in a pram or carried around in the carrier), so he got quite grumpy. There's a hidden blessing to having a cranky overtired baby during the day: he slept much longer hours at night, even giving me a nice 8-hour long uninterrupted sleep on the final night of our trip - first time in exactly five months!

After dealing with a delayed flight, and then choosing to catch the Yui Rail and walking the 5-10 minute walk to our hotel with the baby and our luggage (seemed a lot longer than that!), we were quite tired by the time we checked in late afternoon. However, we were only in Naha for one day - we had the city to explore, and we also planned to see Shuri-jo (Shuri Castle) before we departed from Naha the next afternoon, so it was no rest for us (or the poor bub). We headed out with Zak strapped in the stroller that the hotel lent us, and spent the rest of the evening exploring Kokusai-dori which is the city's main street with a stretch of more than one kilometre length of restaurants, shops and izakaya (Japanese bars).

Crossing the intersection on Kokusai-dori to head into the strip of shops, restaurants and bars


Habu (a venomous snake) alcohol - would you drink it?; and one of the shotengai (shopping arcade) that branches off from Kokusai-dori:


The first thing I noticed was the huge amount of attention that Zak got. Not only from the usual suspects (ladies and the high school-aged girls) but also from middle-aged men! Women would talk and coo to Zak (even requesting to hold him!), and girls in their groups would exclaim "kawaii!" (cute) as they walk past. And Zak would also elicit interest and smiles from salarymen. The second thing I noticed was the lack of babies in the city's demographic. Plenty of school-aged kids and plenty of middle-aged people, but there's a gap in the child-bearing and marrying age group which explained the rarity of babies and toddlers in the city. We inferred that this was because once kids reach college age, they move to much bigger cities (like Tokyo). Anyway, we solved the mystery why Zak was the recipient of so much attention. The third thing I observed was the different fashion worn by the young people in the city. I mention this to Rob, and his reply was "Yeah, the fashion is more slutty here" - his words, not mine (that term did not even cross my mind when I made that comment). I just thought the warmer climate called for less clothing, and I'm sure Rob was comparing by Japanese standards because there's definitely more skin shown in western cultures. Besides, the handful we encountered is probably not representative of the whole city's fashion sense.

After walking for more than an hour, we were tired and wanted an early night in, so we dropped in on one of the izakayas for some Okinawan cuisine. It was still too early for the drinking crowd, so we had the place to ourselves and privacy for me to feed Zak. We enjoyed dinner where we took the opportunity to try some of the Okinawan dishes I've heard of.

Inside the izakaya we went to for dinner:


The next day, we checked out of our hotel at 10am, an hour later than planned (like I said, things take longer with a baby), and we weren't sure if we had time to do Shuri Castle before our early afternoon flight. Always up for a challenge, we decided to just go anyway and do what we can in the short amount of time. We surprised ourselves by not only completing the trip to the castle, but also arriving at the airport an hour before our flight. However, we had to separate on a couple of occasions which we had not planned on doing (I fed Zak while Rob completed the castle course, and Rob going to the hotel to grab our luggage while we waited at the station).

On the monorail to Shuri station which is a 15 minute walk from the castle:


On the road to the castle:


One of the many, many gates on the castle grounds - I lost count and track after the first one. One of a pair of shisa guarding one of the gates. A shisa is a lion-dog stone structure decoration used everywhere in Okinawa


A panoramic view in front of the red gate shown above (click on image for larger view):


There was a stage set up and a performance happening when we entered the red gate. We didn't stay long to watch because we were short on time, but it looked like a sort of slow dance (walking very slowly) accompanied by the unusual tune of Okinawan folk music. The toilet tap head was in the form of a shisa:


Rob took this shot of Seiden (main hall) of Shuri-jo (I was busy feeding Zak); and on our way out of the castle grounds to the station (can you spot Rob?):


We quite enjoyed our short stay in Naha, much to the surprise of one of my friends who disliked Naha with quite a strong passion. The success of a trip for us strongly depends on our food experiences, and now with a baby, on Zak's wellbeing. So for those who value the aesthetics of a place, Naha may not be the best place to visit. Aesthetics rate quite low on what I value on my travels (I loved Hong Kong and New York, and it sure wasn't for their aesthetics!). I recommend the Crowne Plaza Hotel - room was quite nice, the service was wonderful, and you don't have to worry about language barrier here if you can't speak Japanese.

Baumkuchen Sandwich?

Just a short post to show something we came across which we thought was slightly amusing: baumkuchen as a sandwich with savoury fillings. This was seen at a shop called Nenriya (I think there's also a branch in Ginza) in Haneda Airport. A set of 3 (tiny) sandwiches costs 600yen, and it's not something I would have considered buying, but our flight to Okinawa was delayed by more than an hour, and the airline compensated by giving us 1000yen/person to spend at any of the shops, and I thought why not give this a try using the meal coupon (also there aren't really that many shops to choose from once you go through the check-in gate). Baumkuchen is quite popular in Japan, so there's obviously a market for these sweet/savoury sandwiches here. Surprisingly, the baumkuchen sandwiches weren't bad. However, I think that if the cake slices had been thicker, the sandwiches would probably have been quite inedible.

Two sets are available: Mix Sandwich (Beef, Prawn & Avocado, and Egg) and Katsu Sandwich (Deep-fried pork cutlets) and Egg:


By the way, Rob likes to call these cakes "bum cushion" because of its slight resemblance to one, and its name (although I'm sure any German would tell you that's not how you pronounce the word 'baumkuchen').

Indian @ Bombay Club, Tokyo

We just got back to Tokyo from a short 3-day holiday in Okinawa, and I have over 300 photos to sort through. We ate a lot of local Okinawan cuisine, which is quite different from mainland Japanese cuisine with influences from the Chinese and south-east Asian cultures (and America, for the taco rice dish). I will write about our trip when I'm a bit more organised.

A couple of weekends ago, we had to go into Rob's office for a conversation lesson with our Japanese tutor, so we looked around the restaurant floors of the building for our lunch. Rob likes the food at Bombay Club, and he was eager for me to try the food. It's a New York style Indian restaurant, and just like the one we ate at in New York, there was a lunch buffet for 1100yen per person with a 90minute time limit (you can pay a little extra for some time extension). However, unlike the Indian restaurant we ate in New York, there was less variety of dishes on the buffet table. There were three hot dishes (Dhal Curry, Chicken Kheema and Hot Mutton Curry), a salad bowl, rice and dessert (fruit and yoghurt). Naan bread, potato wedges and Chicken Tandoori were cooked fresh and served at the table - we could request more of those items too. The food was good, especially considering it's a buffet-style meal, but I had to limit the amount I ate because Zak seems to have tummyache when I ate Indian previously. Speaking of Zak, the restaurant had no problems with us bringing a baby along. In fact, our waiter played with Zak every time he came by our table :)

My serving of curries: (clockwise from top) Dhal Curry, Mutton Curry and Chicken Kheema; and the plate of Tandoori Chicken, wedges and naan:


According to Rob, the a-la-carte selection is really delicious, so I would have to come back here again.

Two weekends of sushi indulgence (Part II)

As mentioned in the previous entry, a couple of my friends recently came to Japan on a working holiday (I never understood that oxymoronic term) and I had to bring them to our favourite sushi place in Tsukiji, Sushi Zanmai. The three of us were the epitome of the term tourists, as we were armed with our cameras, snapping away at the food as they were served and at the chefs on the other side of the counter. Here are my friends seated on either sides of me with their cameras:



Both A and C were delighted with this experience, which they claim is their first sushi experience in Japan. They were fascinated with the proper techniques of using the shoyu (soy sauce) dropper bottle and the correct way of dipping nigiri sushi in the plate of shoyu, so much so that they took photos of the techniques in action and put them up on their blog. Even though I'm not a tourist and have been to Zanmai countless of times, I still had my chunky dSLR on the ready so that I can show and tell on this blog. I was more preoccupied with chatting, ordering and eating than taking photos, so these are shots of only some of the sushi pieces we had.

Uni (sea urchin roe/gonads); Chuu-toro (medium fatty tuna belly) and Hotate (scallop):


Joh-Anago ("top quality" eel); Aburi-toro (flame-grilled fatty tuna belly) and Kazunoko (herring roe):


During lunchtime, there's usually a special item that is yakitate (freshly prepared), and it gets a special announcement with a bell and everything. Only the customers on the ground floor dining area benefits from this since the special item usually runs out really quickly (there are three floors in this branch), so Rob and I always felt like we missed out on something huge whenever the special item is brought out and we're on the upper floors. I was happy that a special item was brought out during our visit:



The special item was tamagoyaki (one of the many types of Japanese omelettes) with nori (seaweed):


My friends loved the Uni (it was their first time trying sea urchin "roe"/gonad), Joh-Anago, Chuu-toro and Hotate (scallops). They say it's the best sushi experience they've had, and it was my utmost pleasure to introduce them to it. It always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when I know I've done good :)