About food in Japan

Hirata Bokujo (平田牧場), specialist of pork dishes

High quality Japanese beef is already well-known in the world. But we believe that it is not only beef to be tasted in Japan. So we introduce a specialist of Pork meat (豚肉, butaniku) today.

Hirata Bokujo (平田牧場) is originally a big farm to breed pigs in Yamagata, Tohoku region for decades. The farm keeps producing high quality pork meat based on their continuous study. It is also knows that Hirata Bokujo feeds pigs on "rice". That results in producing healthier pork.

The specialist of pork meat runs some restaurant units providing pork dishes in the best ways.

We visited one of their unit, Nihonbashi Hirata(日本橋平田) in Coredo Muromachi, Tokyo. With other interesting dining facilities from ramen to luxury Japanese, the shopping complex is situated near by Mitsukoshi-mae subway station, just in front of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Tokyo.  

The modern but with a slight Japanese flavor interior is not too casual nor too sophisticated, where we can enjoy dishes with comfortable and relaxing atmosphere like a good Izakaya.

Beer is served by an elegant glass.

 

Let's see what were served or specialities of the pork specialist.

 

 

 

 

 

Starter salad: also includes Hirata Bokujo's pork product "raw ham"

 

Salad with raw ham

 

Second dish: assoted bacon & sausage

 Both rich in flavor and crunchy sausage!

 

Two main dishes we selected. 

cheese cutlet mille-feuille (left) - tender pork very thinly! sliced and piled with cheese and

pork grill with miso (right) - sweet miso paste well matched with pork

 

 

It was interesting opportunity to taste pork meat in different but all good way!

 

Restaurant name: Nihonbashi Hirata (日本橋平田)

Address: Coredo Muromachi, 2-2-1 Nihonbashi Muromachi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Restaurant official website (Japanese version): 

http://www.hiraboku.info/shop/butaniku/nihonbashi-hirata.html

Coredo Muromachi English website: http://mi-mo.jp/lng/eng/muromachi.html

 

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Tetoshio(テトシオ), Japanese dishes in a modern cafe, Shinjuku (新宿)

In this modern days, even in Tokyo, actually it is not easy to find a cozy and modern cafe "providing Japanese dishes". As same with many other parts of the world maybe, main guests of modern cafes or girls are likely to prefer fancy Western plates like pasta, sandwiches or French-like food rather than traditional local plates. Tetoshio knows that is not always the case.

Tetoshio is located on the 6th floor of LUMINE 1 Shinjuku, a shopping complex adjacent to JR Shinjuku station. On the upper floors of the popular shopping complex, attractive restaurants such as Spanish, Thai etc. or cafe are gathered in a place. Tetoshio is one of such restaurants. 

During lunch time, like other units on the floor, it is likely to be full and visitors are asked to wait for a while. It will be better to arrive earlier than noon or after 13h30 in order to save your time.

Inside it is a bit less lighted with dark colored fabric and funiture but it is cozy with large size sofa seats or cushion chairs. The space is suitable even for a family with young kids.

How often can we be sereved a cup of Japanese green tea?

      

 

 

Lunch set is a good opportunity to taste real Japanese food at a reasonable price. 

 

 

 

My choice - Lunch set with two rice balls.

 

 

With three side dishes of vegetables and soup.

It's healty meal presented in cute style, not only tasty.

As alternative choices for lunch, Tetoshio special 3-story lunch box (bento), fish plate, donburi (rice with main topping in a bowl), udon noodle etc are available.

For dinner, Tetoshio provides small dishes like Izakaya for a-la-carte or a few Japanese cuisine courses with cooked rice.

It will be a good choice when you would like to try real Japanese food but not feel like being deeply in entire Japanese world. Also it will be a safe and comfortable option to have Japanese dishes at reasonable cost in the busiest Shinjuku area. 

 

Restaurant name: Tetoshio

 Address: 6th floor LUMINE 1, 1-1-5 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

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Neboke a place to have the best Katsuo (鰹, bonite)

How many kinds of fish we have in Japan? We can't imagine. Katsuo is one of the most familiar fish species for Japanese but it could not be found so often in other countries. Some people might feel the smell and taste of bonite is a bit strong. Bonite is very perrishable as food and when it is served in a good condition, the fish meat won't have such strong smell.

If you have not had a nice plate of Katsuo(鰹, bonite) yet, we recommend to visit a restaurant "Neboke" (祢保希). The restaurant is specialized in local dishes of Kochi (高知) prefecture in Shikoku region (四国). Bonite is one of the most famous local speciality of the prefecture. Hence the restaurant knows the best way to serve bonite.

Neboke has several units in central Tokyo such as Ginza, Shinjuku or Akasaka. This time we visited the unit in Shibuya for lunch time. Neboke Shibuya brunch is just behind Hikarie (ヒカリエ), one of the most popular shopping complex newly opened in 2012.

 

Climbing up to the upper floor, it was not imaginable!

   
Japanese traditional flavour of decoration

with dark colored wooden beams and folk objects including cloth.

 

Lunch time is a chance to try bonite dish at reasonable cost from Yen 1200.

Lunch set includes bonite and one more dish like fried fish.

 

The most popular way to taste bonite is called "tataki".

After the fish surface is char grilled, it is dipped in special sauce.

It is important to select good quality of Katsuo and

to roast it carefully so only the skin is burned. 

It is a kind of Sashimi to be taken in a bit different way.

 

Neboke serves other local specialities of Kochi prefecture, which are mainly seafood due to the prefecture's geographic location largely facing to Pacific Ocean. 

For example, Sakato (酒盗, salted fish guts of Bonite) well-matched with sake, sashimi, grilled fish etc.

 

Restaurant name: Neboke Shibuya

Address: Shionogi Building, 2-17-5 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

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Other major units:

Neboke Ginza

Address: Nishi-Gobangai 7-6-8 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

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Neboke Akasaka

Address: 3-11-17 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo

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Neboke Shinjuku

Address: 49th floor Shinjuku Nomura Building, 1-26-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku

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Bar Marche Kodama, a big but reasonable breakfast inside Shinagawa train station

JR Shinagawa station has one of the largest and the first full-fledged "eki-naka" (inside-station) commercial zone in Tokyo. The group of commercial facilities called "ecute Shinagawa" by JR East opened in 2005 and even after that it has been developped as expantion in 2011 and renovated the older area in late 2012.

Bar Marche Kodama is one of the newest units opened in a part of ecute Shinagawa in 2012. Kodama is originally a food processing company introducing processed meat products such as sausages, ham and bacon from Europe to Japan. At several locations, the company offers Italian and Spanish restaurants also in order to introduce their processed or imported products with nice wine or beer. Bar Marche Kodama is one of such unit where we can enjoy meat processed food of European style but inside one of the biggest terminal train station, JR Shinagawa, in Tokyo. A glass of wine or beer will be good to make you chill out on the way between your workplace and home, taking a rest and released from packed commute trains for a while during rush hour.

Another fantastic way to visit Bar Marche Kodama is breakfast time. From its opening at 8a.m. to 11a.m. the bar offers breakfast buffet at Yen600. It costs a bit more than breakfast set at fastfood restaurants such as McDonald or coffee shop chains like Starbucks. But the buffet breakfast is still much less expensive compared with the prices for buffet breakfast at many hotels. 

Well, what are provided for the buffet breakfast?

Sausages, meal pate, bacon, all are Kodama's products

olives, pickles, salad, a few diffrent kinds of bread,

minestrone soup with Kodama's bacon

The buffet also includes quiche, coffee and tea of course.  

 

 

When the weather is fine, take a table on outside terrace,

if you do not mind being in a smoking allowed zone.

 Stay away from hectic real world that can be

looked over the glass window or over the bar counter. 

Further more, Bar Marche Kodama provides alcohol drinks even from the morning hours. Of course it is out of buffet menu though. If your day-time schedule allows you, it will be the best beginning of a day to have the big buffet breakfast with a glass of beer or wine. 

 

After the fantastic breakfast hours until 11a.m., the station bar still opens until 22h on evening without a break. 

 

Restaurant name: Bar Marche Kodama

Address: ecute Shinagawa, 3-26-27 Takanawa, Minato-ku, Tokyo

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Discover life of Japanese in good old days at Open Air Architectural Museum

We found an interesting spot that must be attractive for those who are interested in Japanese food and culture behind it. It is called "Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum" (江戸東京たてもの園) and it is a branch of Edo Tokyo Museum (江戸東京博物館) in Ryogoku.

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Museum is located on the outskirts of Tokyo. It might not be easy to access for non-Japanese speakers because of a bit complicated local public transportation. We still believe that, for non-Japanese tourists who are interested in discovering Japanese traditional life and culture including food, it is worth visiting and taking a half or one day there.

The open air museum operated by Tokyo Metropolitan government conserves buildings that had been used as a house, shop or for other purposes and also are considered important from the view of history and as culture heritage of Tokyo, Japan. It shows them to public as an open air museum on the land of 7ha area. 

Before going into deep of the museum, one advice we can give you.

To visit the museum, be ready to take your shoes off!! as same with modern ordinary private houses in Japan, it is required. 

What to see: For food lovers traveling in Japan, not-to-miss spots are followings. They are mainly situated in East Zone wherer traditional commercial buildings of 19th to early 20th centries are demonstrated in a row like a shopping archade.

Izakaya bar (called Kagiya 鍵屋)

 

Grocery store (Kambutsuya 乾物屋)

 

Aramonoya (荒物屋)

It is a shop selling hardware closely related in daily life such as cooking, cleaning, washing.

  

 

The open air museum sometimes shows "behind the scene", demonstrating pieces of real life at the time. One example is this tiny table (chabu-dai) with a tea set. 

 

 

When the weather is not too hot,

you will find Irori (囲炉裏, fire place) in a few of farmer's houses.

Rare to find it especially in Tokyo.

 

 

Apart from food and gastronomic fields, we can find some other interesting spots such as a perfect-look of public bath (not for taking but for looking at the archtecture and decoration) which is said to be one of models for "Aburaya" depicted in "Sprited Away"(「千と千尋の神隠し」), the award-winning animation movie by director Hayao Miyazaki. 

  

 

 

Where to have lunch: Two food & beverage facilities are in the museum. One is tea room in Western style building and another one is Udon noodle shop named "Kura (蔵)" accommodated on the upper floor of a Kura (蔵, storehouse) style buidling.

The Udon noodle shop offers several types of udon noodle dishes in local Musashino region style which includes some vegetables. This is Musashino Tsuke-jiru Udon (武蔵野つけ汁うどん, Udon with dipping sauce in Musashino style). 

To enjoy Udon noodle at the restaurant Kura, first purchase a ticket from a vending machine at the restaurant's entrance, selecting your order. Take a table and pass your ticket to a staff. It is casual style dining at resonable prices because of the museum run by Tokyo local government. But the taste of noodle is not as much as simple like the serving style.

 

How to go: There are several ways to access to the museum by public transportation from central Tokyo. We think this is the easiest way.

Take JR Chuo line from Tokyo or Shinjuku towards Tachikawa and/or Hachioji direction from East to West.

Get off at Musashi Koganei (武蔵小金井) station and go out from North Exit for the bus stop No.2 or No.3 (both operated by Seibu Bus) which are facing to the station. Take a bus from either bus stop to "Koganei Koen Nishi-guchi " (Koganei Park West gate).  It will take around 5 minutes.

Walk down through the large Koganei Park which is just in front of the bus stop, following sing boards of "Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum (江戸東京たてもの園)". You will find the building of its visitor center with large black tiled roof in mid of the greenery Koganei Park.

To help you more, please also check the map and direction explained in English by the museum from here.

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum is also described well in general, not specific for foodies, by Around Tokyo. Please visit the page from here. 

 

Name of place: Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum (江戸東京たてもの園)

Address: 3-7-1 Sakuramachi, Koganei-city, Tokyo 

Official homepage: http://tatemonoen.jp

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