About food in Japan

Japanese breakfast set at inexpensive price

On September 2012, we have featured interesting "breakfast" (朝食, choshoku). This is the 3rd and last post of the monthly featuring. So we have picked up typical Japanese breakfast. 

You could have a chance to take Japanese breakfast at your accommodation, especially if you stay at ryokan, Japanese traditional inn in countryside of Japan. Otherwise, even in Tokyo and other urban cities, Japanese breakfast set may be offered at Japanese restaurants in hotels.  

You won't have a chance to take it in your accommodation? or if you would like to try it at more inexpensive cost? Then we introduce Japanese breakfast set at a casual chain restaurant, Sukiya (すき家).

 

Here it is!

Breakfast set at Sukiya (すき家)

 

Sukiya, whose main product is "Gyudon" (beef & rice bowl), is one of the largest restaurant chain company in Japan. Many of their units open from early morning (or for 24hours) and offer breakfast set in the morning. The breakfast set price is reasonable and ranged around Yen 200 to Yen 400.

 

Let's see what is included in the typical Japanese breakfast.

 

For Sake Choshoku (鮭朝食, salmon breakfast)

with rice in regular size at Yen 360 

Cooked white rice is the most important for Japanese breakfast.

Sukiya offers 3 different sizes of rice in bowl

with slightly different prices depending on the size.

As topping of rice, Sukiya also provides raw egg  

 with soy sauce "specialized for tamagokake-gohan"(raw egg with rice).

We observed here how much the restaurant chain puts importance

on its breakfast menu, not only their beef bow.

 

Raw egg might be unfamiliar ingredient for people outside Japan but for Japanese, it is a typical way for locals to have it with rice in the morning. If it is not easy to take rice and raw egg with chopsticks, please do not hesitate to use a spoon on your table. 

 

To be paired with rice for Japanese breakast is

miso soup

Three kinds of ingredients in the miso soup;

"Abura-age" (deep-fried bean curd),

"wakame" (dried seaweed) and

"negi" (Japanese leek)

   enough good quality, considering the price

 

Side dishes

  

A slice of grilled salmon is popular side dish.

Sukiya also provides a small bowl of

grazed "daikon" radish with "shirasu" (dried whitebait).

 

Another typical side dish that can be found at other restaurants is "tsukemono" or "oshinko" (Japanese vegetable pickles), which is often taken with rice.

 

 

Breakfast menu at Sukiya shows their offer with photos and price clearly. That will help you with finding what you want. Apart from dishes introduced above, "natto" (fermented soy beans) with a bit strong flavour is a major line-up.

 

 At Sukiya restaurants, unlike Yoshinoya and Matsuya both are competitors for "Gyudon" beef bowl, some table seats are offered in addition to a counter table that is likely to be for sole-diners. So it will be more relaxed place than ones by its rival especially for a couple and a small group of three or more people.

 

 

  Restaurant name: Sukiya (すき家)

 

 

Major locations in central Tokyo:

Shinjuku NS Building 

Address: Shinjuku NS Building 1st floor, 2-4-1 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku

View Larger Map

 

Ginza 7 chome

Address:  7-14-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku

View Larger Map

 

Shibuya Inokashira St.

Address: 31-4 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku

View Larger Map

 

Roppongi 5 chome

Address: 5-9-22 Roppongi, Minato-ku

View Larger Map

******************  Find accommodation in Japan  ***************

OSAKA / NARA / SAPPORO / TAKAYAMA / TOKYO/YUFUIN 

YAKUSHIMA / NOZAWA ONSEN / NISEKO / NIKKO /

HIROSHIMA / MATSUMOTO / KYOTO / KANAZAWA / ISHIGAKI ISLAND /

HAKUBA / FURANO / BEPPU /

 

Takemura (竹むら), Japanese traditional sweets cafe

 Have you ever tried Japanese traditional style "parfait" called "Anmitsu (あんみつ)"?

If  you would try in Tokyo, a traditional style cafe, Takemura is a perfect place for it.

We are not sure if we should call it "cafe", because it is completely different from the one from Western world. It is called "Kanmi-dokoro (甘味処, sweets place)" in Japanese, representing a place serving Japanese traditional dessert plates with Japanese tea. Usually they do not provide coffee nor a piece of chocolate cake but do Japanese tea and traditional dessert. At least it can be in same cateogry as a place where people can enjoy sweets & drink as well as chatting or taking a break in cozy atmosphere.  As Japan is modernized, many of such traditional space has been disappeared unfortunately.  Takemura with over 80 years history is a  valuable "Kanmi-dokoro" in central Tokyo. 

Takemura is accommodated in traditional wooden house, which is registered as Tokyo's historical heritage.

The intereior is also typical and rustic Japanese style with wood beams and paper sliding doors "shoji". We are quite sure that the scene would never change since it opened in early 20 century.

A part of seats are on tatami floor, where we can be relaxed after removing our shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

Upon arrival,we were welcomed with cherry flower in hot water,

instead of ordinary Japanese tea.

To visit the sweets house will be already a romantic moment to experience Japanese traditional culture, whatever you have there... 

But at the same time, whatever you order, all are Japanese traditional food. Takemura's specialities are "age-manju (fried Japanese style cake with bean paste inside)" that can rarely be found in other places and "oshiruko (sweet bean soup)" served since the cafe's opening. 

Our recommendable menu is "Anmitsu", a kind of Japanese style "parfait". As the name comes from "an" (餡, red bean paste) topped with "mitsu" (syrup), red bean paste is one of the essential ingredients of Anmitsu. It also has clear cubes of "kanten" (agar, jelly made from a kind of seaweed) and some pieces of fruits in syrup.

Anmitsu often appears on menu with several variations...

with a scoop of vanilla ice cream - Cream anmitsu (クリームあんみつ)

with shiratama (chewey starch dumplings) - Shiratama anmitsu (白玉あんみつ)

with beans  - Mitsumame (みつ豆)

At Takemura, you can also find 

with dried apricot - Anzu anmitsu (あんずあんみつ)

It is upto what you want! In any case, you can enjoy some different types of ingredients all won't be too sweet like a chocolate cake. In addition, they are healthy with beans and seaweed jelly. Surely they are better match with Japanese tea served with your Anmitsu bowl.

 

Enjoy a time trip to an old day in Japan with the fancy Japanese traditional sweets.

Takemura is about 10 minutes walk from Akihabara, the biggest electronics town in Japan. You could take a good journey to Takemura after shopping in the modern world.

Takemura is also close to another heritage, two soba noodle restaurant "Kanda Matsuya" and "Yabusoba" both already introduced on our blog previously. Some people drop by Takemura for dessert after enjoying traditional noodle at either of the soba restaurants.

 

Cafe name: Takemura (竹むら)

Address: 1-19 Kanda Sudacho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

No official website! 

View Larger Map

Wanoba Japanesque Bistro, Ebisu

Sometimes it's a bit difficult to categorize a restaurant into our cuisine type classification. Wanoba is one of them. This time we have marked it for both "Japanese casual" and "International cuisine".  

The restaurant Wanoba is named as "Japanesque Bistro" by itself. It takes "bistro" or French style casual restaurant with a bar counter and it offers plates as starter, main dish and dessert in casual atmosphere. The dishes are suit for sharing by two or more number of people and for having with a glass of wine.

Look at the menu list carefully and we found that the restaurant focuses on Japaneses ingredients or takes some Japanese flavour into their European style plates.

Let's see the examples we had with photos. Sorry the quality of photos are not perfect this time though.

 

Starter

Assortment of "Obanzai" (vegetable side dishes cooked in home-made style from Kyoto)

Cooked eggplants and cucumber with dashi stock soup (left in the photo)

and 

Cooked potato and minched tuna balls (right)

Both are well cooked into tender texture and flavour.

 

Our second dish

"Fried" pumpkin gnocchi with anchovy sauce

Sounds like Italian food totally?

Pumpkin (or squash) is also often used in Japanese cuisine.

The unique "fried" gnocchi is never oily as we had imagined.

It is crispy like "tempura".

 

Main dish

Rolled "Hyuga" chicken and "hakusai" (Chinese cabbege)

"Hyuga" from Miyazaki, Kyushu is a brand of good quality chicken.

Again the way of cooking is Western style but it features Japanese ingredients.

 

Another Pasta...

This is the dish we liked the most on this day.

Peperoncino spaghetti with "Edo-mae anago" (Edo style conger)

The simple and popular Italian pasta

arranged with the Japanese ingredient, grilled conger fish.

 

They are modern style of "East meets West"!! 

 So they will match well both with wine and Japanese sake or shochu (distilled sake).

It could be a good choice when you would like to have both Japanese and Western style food and think over between these two.

To be an important point, Wanoba aims to re-dicover and introduce the beauty and excellence of Japan. Not only through the ingredients, the modern Japanese style bistro also introduces Japanese fine tablewares and fixtures. It means plates, glass and lamps you can find at the restaurant are also selected Japanese craftworks from that point.

 

Wanoba is located in Ebisu, which is one stop from Shibuya by Yamanote-line. It is within walking distance from Westin Hotel Tokyo and is not far from Roppongi or Shinagawa by taxi.

Restaurant name: Wanoba

Address: 3-1-1 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

Official site: http://www.wanoba.com 

View Larger Map

Bills, the best breakfast in the world

You may know Bill Granger's restaurant in Australia, which attracts celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio by "the best breakfast in the world".

Would you like to try the best breakfast in the world? Of course, yes maybe.

Well you can try one in Tokyo or Yokohama  !!

Actually Bills has more number of restaurants in Japan than in his based country, Australia. There are 4 Bills restaurants in Japan with which he felt "strong connection", as per their official homepage. 

Everytimes Bills opened its door in each location in Japan, we found the restaurant soon filled up with guests during morning and even for lunch and afternoon. We guess that makes him created more units in Japan. Here again it shows how much Japanese people like to seek the best meal and to try new arrival.

BIlls' first unit in Japan opened in Shichirigahama, Kamakura (七里ヶ浜、鎌倉), being on the location overlooking beach of Shichirigahama. The next one in Yokohama (横浜) is in "Red-brick warehouse" shopping complex, standing beside Yokohama Port. Then Bills opened two restaurants in Tokyo last year and this April; Odaiba (お台場) bayside and Omotesando (表参道).

Odaiba unit stands in Odaiba beach park, overlooking panoramic view of Tokyo central area over Tokyo bay. The newest Omotesando unit is in Tokyu Plaza Harajuku-Omotesando. It is not facing to beach or sea, but is still surrounded by another type of nature, trees.

All are in selected location that may be suitable even for celebrities' breakfast and all have some tables on terrace where a pet is allowed to be in. Restaurant inside has expansive and bright in white color and narutal taste in every location.

Well, we will show you what we had at Bills Yokohama.

The menu is actually exlclusive to Yokohama unit.

 

Very berry pancake!! with berry butter.

  
Dish filled with berry flavour and the pancake is imaginably fluffy. 

In other units, still we can find another flavour of fine pancakes and other attractive menu such as fruit muffin, banana & chocolate bread, scramble eggs, and ausie breakfast set.

Bills provides different menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even for dinner, it offers the pancake menu as dessert. 

 

Restaurant name: Bills

<Yokohama>

Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse Building 2, 1-1-2 Shinko, Naka-ku, Yokohama-city, Kanagawa    

View Larger Map

 

<Omotesando>

 Address: 7th floor, Tokyu Plaza Omotesando Harajuku, 4-30-3 Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

View Larger Map

 

<Odaiba>

Address: 3rd floor Seaside Mall, 1-6-1 Daiba, Minato-Ku, Tokyo

View Larger Map

 

<Shichirigahama, Kamakura>

Address: 2nd floor Weekend House Alley, 1-1-1 Shichirigahama, Kamakura, Kanagawa

View Larger Map

Breakfast at Toraya Cafe Aoyama

Breakfast must be essetial moment for travelers wherever they go. So this month, About Food in Japan would like to introduce you nice breakfast spots in Tokyo.

The first one for today is TORAYA CAFE in Aoyama (青山). 

Aoyama is a posh shopping district with luxury boutiques between Shibuya and Akasaka or Roppongi. Toraya Cafe is adjacent to Aoyama itchome subway station and in Shin-Aoyama building on another side of Akasaka Royal Residence along Aoyama street.

Toraya is originally established Japanese sweets maker born in 16th century. Some of you may know its unit in Paris. Toraya cafe is created by the traditional sweets producer, aimed at introducing innovative products with their specialty "an"(sweet beans paste) in Western style recipe. We featured Toraya cafe in Roppongi Hills previously. Please refer the page for their modern sweets for afternoon tea break. 

Well, today we focus on breakfast at Toraya Cafe Aoyama. The breakfast menu by Toraya cafe is exclusive at Aoyama unit.

 

This is the most recommendable signature breakfast menu.

It looks like ordinary sandwich?

Yes at a glance, but it's special and Japanese version...

 

The different exists between two pieces of breads.

 

  
Still look like they are peanuts and chocolate paste?!

Could be ... but they are

"white sesame  and soy bean flour" paste

(the one in breads with sesame)

and 

"an" paste (made from red beans).

All are ingredients that Toraya often uses for its traditional Japanese sweets.

 

They are light in taste compared with chocolate or peanut paste and, we guess, less oily and more healthy. Still they are well matched with coffee rather than Japanese green tea. It's a great work by the master of handling Japanese traditional sweets.

 

Enjoy the "slightly" Japanese style breakfast at Toraya Cafe Aoyama.

The cafe provides breakfast menu from 8 a.m. for WEEKDAY. It's close on Sunday and Holiday, because of business district location.

 

 

Cafe name: Toraya Cafe

Official site: http://www.toraya-cafe.co.jp/

 

Address: Shin-Aoyama Building,West building B1F 1-1-1 Minami-Aoyama,Minato-ku,Tokyo

 

 

View Larger Map

What local foodies of Tokyo eat and where?

As we mentioned at the interview by Around Tokyo, not only for Japanese meal but also for French, Italian and other international cuisines, what are provided at luxury restaurants in Tokyo may be the second best after each their original countries'. In Tokyo not a few locals always seek something new and tasty experiences and that makes restaurants in Tokyo keep challenging and improving.
The situation results in the fact that Michelin restaurant guide has awarded the most number of stars to the Japan's capital. Now it is regarded as the best gourmet city in the world.

Well we guess that some of you are curious what and where foodies in Tokyo enjoy as their dining experience. This is a good example to introduce one of the answeres. Please let us show you an experience by About food in Japan site owner with her gourmet fellows. 

Italian restaurant Icaro is about 5 minutes walk from Nakameguro station through a good-old-days shopping street running parallel to Tokyu train line. Nakameguro is two stops from Shibuya by the Tokyu Toyoko line , being to be a popular residential town for locals. One reason of the town's popularity may be because tens of nice restaurants exist in the area. Many of such good restaurants in Nakameguro vary from casual Izakaya, like "Nakame no teppen" as our post on this April, to a Michelin star restaurant like Icaro, today's feature. Most of them have relatively small capacity and are operated by individual owner(s) rather than by a major chain. 

Well, about Icaro, the Italian restaurant has a Michein star and features local cuisines of North Italy. The restaurant is run by two brothers one working as the chef and his elder brother serves to diners as the manager. In addition to Michelin red guide, the restaurant is also highly evaluated by users of the Japanese most popular gourmet site "Tabe-log".   

 

Here, we show you a part of what we enjoyed at Icaro.

Artistic presentation of

Confit of saury ("samma" さんま),

the "icon" fish of autumn in Japan

with melting Italian cheese is topped on eggplants. 

 

Tartare of fresh horse meat

 

We shared 2 starters and 3 pasta plates by 3 people.

It was really a hard decision to select these 5 among their attractive seasonal choices on the menu. Actually we dropped main dish meat to have 3 kinds of pasta menu.

 

Taliatelle of girolle mushroom, house-made sausage,

thin slices of summer truffle on top

 

And their specialty pasta is...

Pappardelle with ragout of Yezo deer meat 

The pasta is finely soft and

the ragout is well salted to be matched with red wine.

 

 

The restaurant's owners have collected wine from Italy and other parts of the world even before the restaurant's opening and they store the wine at their own celler in the restaurant. The collection and reasonable prices considering the quality keeps attracting wine lovers for dining at Icaro.

We agree with a star awarded to Icaro, considering the quality of food and wine. As some local foodies found, actually not so many good Italian restaurants obtained a star from Michelin.

If you would, it is worth trying a good Italian restaurant like Icaro once in Tokyo. 

 

Restaurant name: ICARO
Address: 4th floor, COMS Nakameguro bld. 2-44-24 Kami-Meguro, Meguro-ku, Tokyo
Official website: http://www.icaro-miyamoto.com

View Larger Map