She lives not far away from Tokyo. We started the introduction with quite long, several-dish menu lunch in a local restaurant. It was really very Japanese with a great atmosphere.
This is our menu card. Our choice was the second column in the first row :)
Started with a really strong aperitif drink, tasted like vodka.
Let's check the dishes:
The first one is a plate for two. From the bottom left corner: some white root with algae. Above it soba-sushi! Instead of the rice the base is from soba noodles. The orblet had a sweet potato like taste. The round studd is filled with tofu cream. In the small plate you can see tofu with miso-cream. The last one was vegetable tempura.
The second dish was misocream grilled, sweet taste! Hmm, maybe yakimiso? :)
The third dish was soba dumpling with leek, wasabi and salt/soyasauce.
The water in which the soba was cooked is used ad a drink. I wouldn't have thought it is a nice choice, but it perfectly matched to the dishes.
The fourth dish: vegetable and fish tempura. With salt and soysauce.
The fifth: soba noodles with leek, wasabi and soysauce. I gave it up at this stage :) Belly full.
Oh, I got a compliment by the waitress how properly I use the chopsticks :) However I still find it not easy. If anyone tried to eat noodles covered with black bean sauce with Korean chopsticks... they know what I am talking about :D
The city is quite small, but they have a lovely shrine and a famous bigger one on the ocean-side, where sometimes the imperial family takes a visit.
The beach:
The shrine:
There are some small mini-shrines on the right side of the road: for dead children, pets, pregnant women, against cough (did not help at all :(), etc..
I prayed by the last one and my friend taught me how to make it properly:
You go to the well, grab a wooden spoon and with right hand you dip it into the water.
Pour a little water on your left hand, try to wash it, then you change your hands (spoon into the left one, wash the right one).
Take the spoon back into the right one, pour again water onto your left palm and get a slurp. Do not swallow! Just turn it around in your mouth and spit it out. Please not into the well, but onto the stones below :)
You pour out the remaining water also. Now you are clean and ready for praying.
Find a shrine, for example this one:
- Pull what you find there (bell, drum, bang of a little girl..)
- Throw a small amount of coins into the coin-box
- Deep bow twice. With respect
- Clap your hands twice (guys quite loudly, grils are quite shy, you even cannot hear it - I was a boy this time :)
- Put your hands together and pray
- Deep bow once more
- Leave and deep lightly
Voilá, your wishes may come true :)
I prayed a lot of times for a better future, let's see.
Small statues always remind me to an anime, what Jucy recommended me. The small white stone is a wishing stone. You have to touch it and pray (description above). If the stone will be moldered, you are lucky enough ;)
My friend, Toshie lives in a lovely 2-floor house. She loves French things very much, so the house has a really interesting Japanese-French mixed interior. Very harmonic, female lodge. :)
I went through on a tasting session: she gave me several types of wagashi (Japanese sweets), umeboshi made by her aunt (got some pieces to bring home - her mother was really very funny and kind: when I put the whole plum into my mouth, she snorted... as they said foreigners do not like it. I loved all Japanese food so far, even natto is ok!)
The best wagashi was the mochi filled with dried apricots. I already made it with strawberry, absolut favourite!
And here it is a real treasure: cherry blossoms put into very salty water. Toshie's family eats it only on special occasions. Hmm, it should not be bad with vodka!
I managed to find a small empty hole in my belly: here is our dinner: sukiyaki. Oh my gosh, this was marvelous! The side dishes also excellent: tofu, green bean with misopasta, pickled ginger.
The sukiyaki is from very thinly sliced beef, grilled with a sweet soysauce mixture. Offered with noodles, tofu, leek, Chinese cabbage, mushrooms etc... and the bites are sopped into raw egg.
Just to make it more slippery: we drank sake with soft drink and also pure warm one.
Puuuukkkk...............
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