About food in Japan

Chinese - Denenkyo 田燕居

Denenkyo is a Chinese restaurant located in a residential district of Tokyo, Yoga.
The restaurant's meal concept is mom's cooking from Beijin.
Chinese food is already very well-known in Japan, but the restaurant is aiming to introduce real local home food of China.

In the menu list, we can find many familier menu and ingredients for Chinese and Japanese; gyoza(Chinese dumpling), oyaki (salty round shape cake), kakuni(diced pork stew), mapo-tofu...
What we had are surely slightly different from what we usually know as Chinese food. Cooking way is simple but I believe that selected ingredients, authentic spices and the professional chef from the hometown country make the difference.
Definetely I prefer these dishes to ones available in typical Chinese restaurants.

The port stew(kakuni, 角煮） is its speciality and is served with sauteed vegetables and thin baked rice papers.

Soup and mapo-tofu are provided by thick earthen pot.

Mapo-tofu is the best match with rice!

The restaurant is decorated charmingly with antiques. They are another delight there.
Lunch special course 8 dishes and dessert at 3500yen.

For more photos at the restaurant, please click here.

Restaurant name: Denenkyo (田燕居）
Address:　Pinepalace 1F 4-17-8 Yoga, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo
Nearest station: Yoga on Tokyu Denentoshi line
Website: http://www.kiwa-group.co.jp/restaurant/a100034.html

Italian - Boschetta

Boschetta is an Italian restaurant in quiete upscale residential area of Shirokane.

Here it is art on plates. It is beautiful but at the same time very tasty as food!
What to be great for us was the lunch course is very reasonable cosindering the quality of food. We had a course of YEN5000.
It includes two starters, two pasta, fish, meat, dessert and coffee.

The restaurant serves all menu beautifully presented on glass plates imported from Greece.
Always food make good matches with artistic plates. They look like an artwork.

Another surprise was the wine list. Wine bottle labels are drawn by hands and painted with color pencils. Even though I looked tousands of wine list at restaurants, I can never find one like that! It is also fantastic work.

Cost around 7000yen for a cozy afternoon. It has value for money.

Restaurant name: Boschetta
Address: 5-13-9 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Website: http://www.boschetta.com/

For full photos at the restaurant, please visit here.

UNIQLO - COMPANY COLLABO T-shirt OXO

Japanese casual ware producer and store chain, UNIQLO launched new design T-shirt, collabolating with American kitchen took producer OXO.

OXO'ｓ symbolic sic kitchen tools are depicted in front.

                              

And the company logo and website address are on top of the back side.   

Size: for women only

Price: YEN1500
About the OXO T-shirt on UNIQLO official website:
http://ut.uniqlo.com/#/id:05200409/

Onigiri/Omusubi - Rice ball

Rice ball is called "onigiri(おにぎり）" or "omusubi（おむすび）" in Japanese.　It may be the simplest Japaense traditional food.

A bowl of rice seasoned with salt is transfered into shape of triangle, round or bale by a pair of human hand. Black thin dried laver seaweed(nori, のり,　海苔）is wrapped around the clot of rice.

Traditionally it is typical lunch box menu for pick-nick or other outdoor events.

In modern days, it can be found at any convenience shops as one of their majour products. They are made not by mother's hands but by indstrial machine at a factory. But they are likely to be a typical lunch menu of business people.

Normally a small piece of filling is inside of rice balls.
Filling is traditionally pickled Japanese apricot or small pieces of fruits of sea, such as grilled salmon, dried bonito, kelp, roasted cod roe.
Newer and modern fillings have tons of variation; tuna mayonnaise, fried chicken, fried shrimp, pickled vegetables, grilled beef etc etc...

It is maybe from 21st century even in Japan, modern onigiri/omusubi cafes or specialized shop opens as a category of first food, while major convenience chains launches higher standard onigiris with selected high quality ingredients but at higher price than normal productes.

It is a trend back to a good old days, when healthy mom's home-made dish was common everywhere.

Onigiri/omusubi  chains:
Omusubito - http://www.omusubito.co.jp/
Gonbei　－http://www.omusubi-gonbei.com

The oldest onigiri shop:
Yadoroku (in Asakusa) - http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~yosuke/

Onigiri cafe:

Ony - http://www.ony.jp/

Yakatabune - Cruise on Japanese traditional boat

Yakatabune is Japanese traditional style boat where we can enjoy the beauty of season on cruising.
In Tokyo, Tokyo-Bay and Sumida river are typical course of cruising.
This evening I took cruise and dinner course to enjoy cherry blossoms along river side of Sumida.

The boat departed from the pier in Shinagawa after welcome greeting by the hostess.
Two staff are in service for us as well as almost 40 other guests. All drink is included so we can drink alcohol such as beer, Japanese sake, wine etc as much as we want.
But what we need to keep in mind is that alcohol affects stronger on the human body when we are on swinging boat than at normal restaurant...

After we passed narrow canal, the boad proceeds to Tokyo-Bay.
Night illuminations of Tokyo tower, the Bay Bridge and unique shape buildings in Odaiba are the first attraction.

Dinner is typical Japanese "party" menu.
Sashimi boat is one of the main dish. That makes us delighted to the eyes even for Japanese locals.

Tempura(deep oil fry) is another attraction.
It is served just after freshly taken up from the oil.
That is what we can rarely expect at Japanese casual restaurant in town.
The host never forget that we are takings this cruise to enjoy Spring season. So we can find a piece of cherry flower on plates!
It is even fried in oil and we can eat it!

The half way point is Asakusa, where cherry trees in a row on both river sides. The boat stopped at the point for a while so we could enjoy watching full blossom of the trees from the surface of the river.
We have to accept the situation that it is not only us who would like to enjoy the beautiful spring scene. Many other boats are there and many people are on the river side as well.
Nobody can miss this opportunity!

The boat comes back to the pier after two hours cruise with a nice dinner and drinks.
What a fantastic evening to have a pleasure of Spring season in traditional way!

*More photos are uploaded here.

Restaurant(Cruise boat) name:　Funasei
Website: http://www.funasei.com/