Hokkai-en

On a Sunday afternoon, Sarah and I picked up lunch for the family in time for their return home from church. It was rainy that day and we didn’t want to go far, so we grabbed take-out from Hokkai-en, a Chinese restaurant located literally a five minute walk from Sarah’s apartment in Roppongi.

From what I’ve read, Hokkai-en ranks among the better Chinese restaurants in Tokyo, many people claiming that it serves the best Beijing-style cuisine in the whole city. It opened about 20 years ago and quickly grew a reputation for offering authentic, high-quality dishes.

I’m also told that the yakuza dine at Hokkai-en a lot, which could be another reason why I advocated for taking-out rather than dining-in. Perhaps subconsciously I feared the negative ramifications of a misplaced shrimp shell. I could imagine it all unfolding in my head like that infamous restaurant scene in the movie Pretty Woman…with a few extra gruesome details. I accidentally flip a clam or mussel onto a nearby table and next thing you know, I leave the restaurant with one less limb than I came in with.

When trying to place our order and ask for dish recommendations, the hostess had trouble communicating with us. She spoke no English and very little Japanese. One of the waitresses came over and noticed I was of Chinese ethnicity and started speaking Mandarin to me. Well, needless to say, she wasn’t much help either because being the disgrace that I am to my ancestors, I can’t speak a word of my native language. We ended up just pointing to the dishes that looked interesting to us.

Sauteed pea-pod stems

The pea pod stems were pretty similar what I’m used to having at the Cantonese-style restaurants I eat at – very garlicky.

Pan-fried flat noodles with beef

We wanted a noodle dish, so I suggested this dish, which I assumed was Hokkai-en’s version of gwun chow gnor hor, a very standard dish in Chinese cuisine. Their version was okay – a tad dull I thought. I’ve definitely had much better before.

Beef and broccoli with oyster sauce

Beef and broccoli is another dish I always seem to order when I have Chinese food, so it was a no-brainer to order this. It turned out pretty tasty, and the beef was tender.

Fried Rice

I think we ordered this just so we could have some rice to go along with the meal. It was good but nothing too memorable.

Sauteed jumbo prawns

These prawns were by far my favorite. They were huge, succulent and really quite tasty smothered in the light sauce with a hint of garlic and leeks.

Lemon chicken

The lemon chicken was another highlight of the meal for me, and it’s funny because out of all the dishes, Sarah and I were on the fence about this the most. We were debating on ordering something else instead but finally went with this. The meat was deep-fried but still tender on the inside and was covered in a sweet, slightly tangy sauce.

So we ordered six dishes for four people to share, and the bill came to about 15,000 yen. In other words, this was not a cheap meal! Luckily for us, Sarah’s mom treated. Overall, I thought the meal was pretty good, but I’ve had better Chinese food elsewhere for much less money.

Out of all the cities I have visited with a respectable Chinese restaurant scene – Boston, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Sydney, Toronto, and now Tokyo – I would have to say that Toronto offers the best Chinese food. I’ve been to Toronto a few times (before I started my blog), and I’ve always had great meals there. I’m still waiting to visit Hong Kong and mainland China, and I'm really interested to see how the cuisine fares in its natural birthplace.

Uoki

After our day trip to Nikko, which was much of a disappointment due to the inclement weather, we grabbed sushi for dinner before heading home. Like the restaurant we ate at earlier in Harajuku, Uoki is a kaiten-sushi bar with a conveyor belt and the pay-as-you-eat system. Located near the ANA Hotel in Roppongi, Uoki is frequented by Sarah’s father and his co-workers for lunch on occasion. I figured that if it’s good enough for the Miyakes, it’s good enough for me.

O-toro

We started off with a plate of o-toro, pieces from the tuna’s under-belly which is often the most prized (and not to mention expensive) part of the fish. At 950 yen per plate, the o-toro was definitely the most expensive item on the menu. The richness and taste of the fatty, unctuous flesh certainly justified the price, however. This was my first time trying o-toro raw in its pure form, and after experiencing it, I admit that it’s delicious but I actually prefer the regular tuna meat, which I think offers a cleaner flavor.

Sake

Next we ordered some salmon, which was slightly roasted on top but still raw underneath, creating a nice contrast. It’s quite amazing to me how different some fish like salmon can taste cooked as opposed to raw.

Sushi Special

This dish looked interesting to us as it passed by, so we decided to give it a try. This “sushi special” was a roll with a white fleshed fish wrapped around it marinated in a basil vinaigrette. Surprisingly, this was really tasty. Sarah enjoyed this so much that we ordered a second.

Hotate

During my trip to Japan, I fell in love with hotate, or sea scallop – so sweet and ever so tender. This was definitely one of my favorites.

Bonito

I experienced a lot of firsts during my trip, one of which was raw bonito. It came with diced up ginger and scallion, but I tried it on its own. It was slightly fishy and salty. The Japanese often use bonito as a base for all kinds of soups and broths, but that type of bonito is dried and cut into shavings. I’m not a fish expert by any means, but I don’t see bonito sold very often, if ever, in the US so I assume it must be a fish local to Japan.

Kanisarada

This crab salad was very simple, prepared with some mayo and vegetables – tasty but nothing out of the ordinary.

Hamachi

Not much to say about this yellow-tail, except very fresh, clean, and delicious. Yellow-tails feed on crustaceans and small fish, so their flesh has a nice natural flavor to it, which makes it perfect on its own as sushi.

Anago

Anago, or conger eel, came with a soy-teriyaki glaze and was tasty but slightly fishy. I guess I prefer unagi, which generally comes roasted providing it with a smokier flavor.

Tai

Sea bream was another first for me. It was subtle in flavor, and I could have easily mistaken it for some other white-fleshed fish.

Kanimiso

I really enjoyed this crab brain, served on a rice roll in the warship-style. It was surprisingly delicious (tastier than it looks) and resembled liver in taste – pungent, smooth and creamy.

Maguro

We finished our meal with regular tuna, which was nicely cut, smooth in texture, and perfect with a dunk in soy and wasabi.

Overall, I was quite pleased with the quality of the fish, and I left with a full stomach on an incredibly reasonable tab. Uoki’s prices were slightly higher than Kaiten-Sushi in Harajuku, but the place was a little more upscale and given its location, they were fair. I definitely miss sushi in Japan!

Koke-kokko

During our first night in Kyoto, Sarah and I had dinner at Koke-kokko, a hip restaurant in Kyoto station that specialized in yaki-tori. Yaki-tori is a traditional Japanese preparation whereby skewers of chicken are marinated in a barbeque-ish type sauce and then grilled to perfection over hot charcoals. Like don-katsu, yaki-tori is far from fancy but delicious nonetheless.

Koke-kokko was a pretty nice place with just the right mix of energy and intimacy. The wooden décor and dim lighting added ambiance to the restaurant while the meats grilling on the central cooking station shown below filled the room with smoky, inviting aromas.


Koke-kokko is about as upscale as you will get for a yaki-tori restaurant. More commonly yaki-tori is served at a stand in the street or a small casual restaurant consisting of a handful of stools pushed against the counter. Yaki-tori appeals especially to the after-work crowd in search of a savory snack before heading home. A group of salary men huddled around a table munching on yaki-tori while downing a few beers is a very common scene.

Koke-kokko offered a few dinner sets, but we opted for one of the more affordable choices, which went for 1,890 yen and consisted of stewed giblets, fresh cabbage with miso dip, and five different kinds of grilled items.


Our first dish was this stew, comprised mainly of chicken giblets and konnyaku and served with a piece of pesto toast on the side. Overall, it was tasty but a little too salty on its own. I didn’t take a picture of the cabbage but when I paired the stew with the vegetables, it was a lot better.


The first of the grilled items were these quail eggs. I love quail eggs on their own, so with the added sauce and smokiness from the grill, they were even more delicious.


This chicken breast with wasabi came next and was less impressive, however – a little dry for my liking.


My favorite item of the whole meal was probably this chicken with leeks. It was tender, moist, and savory.


Not much to say about these meatballs, but nicely cooked with good flavor.


Our last item of the night was these chicken thighs, and we waited quite a while for them. Our waitress had forgotten and apparently thought we were finished with the meal. Only until we inquired about them did she bring a batch over. It was worth the wait though – they were succulent and just delicious.

Overall, I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the food at Koke-kokko. It was a nice place to relax after a long day of site-seeing around Kyoto. I wouldn’t mind going back but I’m sure the yaki-tori served at more casual places is just as good and a bit cheaper.

Donkatsu

In Kyoto, I tried for the first time don-katsu, which essentially is the Japanese version of deep-fried pork cutlet. Panko bread crumbs are used and once the pork is all smothered in them, it’s then deep-fried until golden-brown. Don-katsu is very common in Japan and widely available, found at supermarkets, street vendors, and both low and high-end restaurants. The only difference is the quality of the pork used - from what I’ve read, the more upscale places use black pig, a rare and coveted species raised in Kagoshima Prefecture. If you're interested in making this and other dishes at home, check out my new blog, Modernist Foodie.

I ordered the standard lunch set, which came with a simple soup broth, the deep-fried pork, and some shredded cabbage. My dining companion ordered the same set, except she requested shrimp instead of pork. I tried some of each, and both were pretty good. I enjoyed the contrasts of textures - the exterior, crispy and crunchy and the interior, surprisingly moist and tender. Don-katsu isn’t anything fancy but it is rather tasty. After all, anything battered and deep-fried tastes pretty good, don't you think?


So the photos shown above are really of just plastic food samples. Ok, I'm just kidding - but they do look pretty damn close. What you'll notice in Japan is that outside the majority of casual restaurants are huge display cases showcasing the menu items you can order inside. They’re like the fake fruit you’ll find in a basket at kitchen appliance or furniture stores.
Aside from their tackiness, the plastic samples do provide some use. Most of the time they present a fairly accurate visual of the actual food you’ll eat. There are no tricks or surprises here - what you see is what you get. It saves you the rather irritating and disappointing experience of ordering a dish that sounded great on paper but in reality, looked closer to dog poo than don perignon.

American restaurants don’t share the same love affair with plastic food displays - I’m thankful they don’t. I’m not in any way suggesting that they should adopt this practice. However, it does illustrate quite well what any successful business must do - and that is, manage expectations. Dissatisfaction occurs because customers enter expecting a certain level of quality and end up getting served something less. It’s as simple as that. When you remove the uncertainty with say, a plastic food sample, it’s much easier to have your customers leave happy and “satisfied.”

Edogawa

Having lived in Japan for almost 14 years, my girlfriend has traveled throughout most of Japan. One of the few places she hadn't been to surprisingly was Kyoto, so this was new turf for the both of us. Being unfamiliar with the city, we stayed close to Kyoto's train station, a massive architectural wonder built just years ago. Being the city's main transportation hub, it was constantly buzzing with activity and just so happened to house a number of restaurants.

After we spent the morning poking around Kyoto and visiting its many temples, we returned to have a quick, late lunch at a restaurant called Edogawa, specializing in one of my all-time favorites - unagi.

We both ordered similar lunch sets, which came with soup, pickled vegetables, and a rice bowl with broiled unagi. Given my love for unagi and my appetite after a morning of walking, I thoroughly enjoyed the meal. However, I must say that although it was good, it wasn't the unagi that really impressed me - it was the soup. The picture didn't turn out too well, so I didn't post it but it was really quite delicious. Made from some kind of vegetable or seafood as its base (whichever it was, it was foreign to me), the soup was warm, savory, and hearty. I liked it so much I even drank Sarah's.


For the past three weeks or so, I've been home relaxing. I've had the time, but just not the motivation to work on these blog entries. I'm so behind right now it's not even funny. I still have a quite a few entries from Japan to do, and Las Vegas and Phoenix are up after that. My goal is to do some hardcore blogging over the next few days, so stay tuned...

Lamb Shabu

I honestly cannot say enough about the restaurant scene in Japan. It’s diverse, it’s high in quality, and you will find great places to eat everywhere you go. And when I say everywhere, I mean it – from the obvious places like the department store or sidewalk vendor to the less apparent like the unassuming building next door. A great example was Lamb Shabu, a small, intimate restaurant nestled inconspicuously in one of Ginza’s low-rises.

During my stay in Tokyo, I couldn’t help but notice how discreet so many restaurants were, tucked away on, say, the fifth or sixth floor in one of the thousands of low-rises in the city. If you weren’t in the know, you’d miss out on some great meals because where some of these places are located, you’d never think twice about looking. Lamb Shabu was a perfect example - I could have easily mistaken it for some whole-in-the-wall.

In this regard, Japan is a lot different from the States where promotion and advertising rule. To me it seems that American restaurant owners adopt a really aggressive style with huge banners and neon lights outside their storefronts, almost screaming to any joe-schmo to come in and spend some money.

The Japanese seem to have a different approach that is more mild-mannered, perhaps even elitist you could say. A lot of Japanese restaurants don’t care to serve just anyone. They don’t intend on rapidly expanding, franchising the brand to the next guy who wants a piece of the action. Their main form of marketing is not the loud, blaring lights of blue neon, but rather the positive word-of-mouth spread by real gourmands, foodies who truly appreciate the quality the restaurants achieve by keeping operations small and who return religiously because they know the next dining experience will be as good as the last.

I can’t say which approach is better or worse. Both are certainly different, and they really have to be since the competitive landscape in each country is so different. In Japan, restaurant owners face a more discerning food-eating public who have grown accustomed to the high quality of food served at the multitude of fine establishments throughout the country. They must differentiate and continually impress in order to keep customers coming back. Meanwhile, in the States, Americans grow up on a steady diet of hamburgers and hotdogs. It’s no wonder then that fine dining comprises such a small percentage of the American market. American restaurateurs can afford to be less exacting when it comes to their product offering.

While in Japan, I had several great meals at a number of restaurants, but I’d have to say that Lamb Shabu was definitely near the top of my list. Lamb Shabu, as its name implies, specializes in lamb rather than beef or pork found more commonly at most shabu shabu restaurants.

Our meal started off with a number of small plates, including edamame, rice rolls, and pickled vegetables. Since we opted for the all-you-can-eat deal, we could have as much lamb and as many of the side dishes as we desired.

The quality of the lamb meat was fantastic. The meat came served on trays as shown above and was semi-frozen so the meat could be shaved ultra-thin. The lamb was really fresh and you could eat it raw if you so desired. A lot of people don’t like lamb because of its gamey nature, but there was no such odor with this lamb.

I never ate a lot of shabu shabu before but having tried it a few times now, I can see why it’s such a hit among the Japanese and Asians in general. It’s simple, satisfying, and extremely healthy too. Overall, I was really pleased by the meal at Lamb Shabu and grateful that the Miyake family took me there because the lamb variation is quite unique. The meal at Lamb Shabu was fantastic, and it’s no wonder that it recently won an award for best new restaurant in Ginza.

Miyajima

When Sarah and I visited Hiroshima, we made a day trip to Miyajima, a small island located a short ferry ride from the city. Miyajima is considered one of the country’s most scenic islands, and naturally it is a huge attraction in Japan with thousands of tourists from around the world visiting yearly. Miyajima is best known for its massive red tori gate, built just off the island which gives it the appearance of floating on water during high tide. According to what I’ve read, the temples and shrines were built in similar fashion to avoid offending the Gods since the land on Miyajima was considered that sacred.

While the times have changed and it is no longer forbidden to tread ashore, there’s really not much on the island besides the few temples and shrines located on the coast. The majority of the action is concentrated in and around a few main streets close to the ferry dock where small shops and restaurants are located.

Being an island completely surrounded by water with access to some of the best fish and crustacean available, Japan naturally is a seafood-consuming nation. While it’s fair to say that a love for seafood is universal throughout Japan, each area specializes in different items. Miyajima happens to be famous for oysters.

There were quite a few restaurants to choose from and they all looked more or less the same, but Sarah had visited Miyajima before on a school trip and wanted to return to the place she had eaten at years ago. After some searching, we finally found it (or so we think).


We were hungry so in addition to the oysters, we ordered a bowl of cold soba noodles that came with some soy sauce, seaweed, wasabi, scallions, and a raw egg. Originally when placing the order, I thought the egg would be semi-cooked but I should known better - the Japanese love their stuff raw! We ended up mixing all the ingredients together, and it turned out so-so. I think I would have preferred it warm, and I really could have done without the egg.

So on to the good stuff – the oysters. We ordered two different preparations – raw and grilled. I’ll admit that I haven’t eaten a lot of raw oysters in my lifetime, but these in Miyajima were about as fresh and good as any I’ve had previously. They were salty, briny, just delicious. Some grated radish, scallion, and a soy-based sauce also accompanied the dish, which you could add as you so pleased.

My favorite of the two, however, was the grilled oysters. They weren’t actually grilled but more so placed on top a charcoal grill and steamed open from the heat. These were fantastic. They had a firmer bite, and because they were steamed in shell, all the wonderful natural juice – what many people refer to as the oyster liquor – was retained.

Overall, I really enjoyed the meal, though I could have passed on the soba. However, I didn’t mind too much because I didn’t come for the soba – I came for the oysters, and they were everything they were billed to be. It was a great example of how superior ingredients don’t need elaborate preparations or loads of seasoning. They are great on their own, enjoyed best simply.