Shimura in Gero Onsen

While it was all fantastic, our favorite was the simple bowl of rice. A unique strain with a gorgeous aroma of straw and the earth. 

Shimura in Gero Onsen

On top of the Japanese Alps near Gero Onsen is a gorgeous little restaurant called Shimura. Top chefs like Michel Bras have come to this hot spot. Many of the vegetables are grown on this mountaintop garden and even some of the fish is caught by the chef. 

Nagoya Local Bites

On our way to Gero Onsen we transferred at Nagoya. We stopped to try some of the local dishes including "miso katsu" which is tonkatsu with a sweet miso dressing. The other dish, "hitsumabushi" is unagi that is eaten ochazuke style.

It is recommended when eating hitsumabushi that you eat it in three steps:

1. As it is presented, unagi on rice.

2. The unagi on rice with toppings of julienned leeks and wasabi.

3. Ochazuke style of unagi on rice with the leeks and wasabi then topped with hot tea.

Daigaku Imo

Daigaku Imo is a deep fried sweet potato, covered with syrup.
Usually we eat it as snack.

"Daigaku" means university or college, and "imo" means sweet potato in this case.
Origin of the name is that It were popular among the students.
Because it is cheap and high calorie.

We usually cut sweet potato into a bite size.
Deep-fry them in oil in low-heat.
And cover them with syrup which is made by simmering sugar in water ( sometime add soy sauce, mirin and so on) until it become sticky.

Kuromame no Nimame

This is a typical new year's dish.

Kuromame (black soy bean ) is a kind of soy bean.
"Tanba kuromame" is a famous species of kuromame.

"nimame" means simmered bean dish which is made by soaking dried beans in water, and simmer it in sweet.

The Breakfast of Champions

We started the 2009 New Year with osechi ryori that I cooked along with tarabagani crab and a sashimi platter that Shinji-san's dad made.

Osechi Ryori

This is the osechi ryori, Japanese food for New Year's Day, that I cooked for Shinji-san and his family. Iritori is the colorful box with carrots, snow peas, lotus root, gobo, konnyaku, shiitake mushrooms and chiken. 

The second from the bottom photo has the sweet items including the kuri kinton of Satsuma sweet potatoes and chestnuts, tazukuri dried sardines with a sweet soy sauce, a marshmallow-like sweet egg omelette called date maki, kamaboko and kuromame sweet black beans (made by Shinji's mom).

The third from the bottom has kohaku namasu pickled daikon, carrots and yuzu, tataki gobo with a sesame dressing, kuwai, pickled renkon lotus root, kombu wrapped around nishin, and kazunoku (made by Shinji's dad).

The picture on the top shows you the three boxes. This was packed up on the evening of the 31st and we had it for breakfast on January 1st.