About food in Japan

Farm restaurant in the biggest night sport, Roppongi Nouen (六本木農園)

 

Many maybe know "Roppongi"(六本木) as one of the largest night spots of Tokyo or Japan. Otherwise Roppongi may remind you luxury facilities such as Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown or Ritz Carlton Hotel. What we introduce today is very far from all of such images of Roppongi, even though the restaurant is just a couple of minutes walk from Roppongi Hills.

Nouen(農園) represents "farm" in Japanese as the restaurant has it on its site.

 


The restaurant was founded by a group of sons and daughters of farmer families, aiming at wiping negative images of agriculture business (hard, not cool, unprofitable etc) out.

So through the menu, the restaurant is really focusing on fresh vegetables and other gifts from the land and nature like river or sea, sourced directly from farmers day by day and season by season.  

If you feel lacking of vegetable, this is the place where you have lunch or dinner. Here it has never be possible to avoid a piece of vegetable and you will find various kinds of vegetable on a plate. They are surprisingly fresh, sweet and much more tasty than what we have had in other places. And some of them can be found only in Japan.

This is some examples of dishes served for a lunch course.

 

Soup of seasonal vegetable

Cold pumpkin soup for a summer day.

 

A plate of seasonal vegetable and poached egg

impressive iconic plate!!

 

 

Healthy cooked rice with cereal grains and beans is also offered

and served as much as you are satisfied.

Finally dessert, made of fresh fruites from farms

to be served with a cup of coffee, or green or herb tea

that may be also available and could be more suitable for the place.

For dinner, it offers some courses with vegetable and meat or fish as a main dish, rice cooked in an earth pot. These are great harvests of Japan.

 

The private rooms also remind us that this is "the farm".

We had the lunch at a green house!!

was nice environment, close to outside

 

Restaurant Name: Roppongi Nouen (六本木農園)

Address: 6-6-15 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Official site: http://www.roppongi-nouen.jp

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Fully enjoy Hokusai & his works of Mt. Fuji at Marunouchi, Tokyo

Surely you know the name of the most famous Ukiyoe woodprint artist, Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎). During this summer, at Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum(三菱一号館美術館) in Tokyo, one of the biggest Ukiyoe art exhibition "Floating World" has been taken place. Especially until 11th August 2013, under the theme "Tourism" over 180 Ukiyoe and other art works are presented. Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重) are the two major artists for the collection, of course. One of the greatest Ukiyoe art collector, Mr. Saito has contributed to the exhibition with almost all of these works brought from his private collection and his private museum in Kawasaki.

One of the largest features of the second period is the seriese of "36 views of Mt. Fuji"(冨嶽三十六景) by Katsushika Hokusai as well as "53 stations of Tokaido"(東海道五十三次) by Utagawa Hiroshige. With these great collections, we could find wonderful scenes of Mt. Fuji which will be registered as UNESCO World Culture Heritage soon.

If you are interested in Ukiyoe art and have a plan to visit Tokyo this summer, don't miss the chance!! After the second period of the Ukiyone exhibition "Tourism", it will be followed by the third period with the theme "From Edo to Tokyo" taken palce between 13 August to 8 September 2013.

Celebrating the great exhibition, Cafe 1894 attached to the museum offers interesting drink called "Mt. Fuji Float".

This is it!! Mt. Fuji Float

Inspired from the work "Red Fuji" by Hokusai

It has 3 layers of jelly and

we can enjoy the drink by adding "ramune"(ラムネ) soda

with the Red Fuji label into the glass.

 

In addition, the cafe provides special lunch menu

for the Ukiyoe exhibition as following.

 

Starter - 5 assorted starters 

with some vegetables harvested in Edo or Tokyo.

The cup for cold corn soup is also "made in Tokyo"

with Edo-kiriko (江戸切子) glass cutting technique.

It makes us feeling cool from eyes in hot summer.

 

Duck on rice, as main dish

Another choice of main dish is "conger eel" (穴子, anago).

 

You might notice unique decoration of the cafe called "Cafe 1894". The building exterior and cafe interior are modeled from the former building which had been the place in Meiji era since year 1894. Especially the cafe decoration is replication from the bank office in that era.

We guess at the place we have the lunch..., can you imagine?! 100 years ago, wads of money must have been piled up there!! How fantastic it is if we could imagine that!!

 

Related posts: Another spots related Ukiyoe

Illy cafe with Ukiyoe (浮世絵), Nihombashi Tokyo

http://aboutfoodinjapan.weblogs.jp/blog/2013/01/illy-cafe-with-ukiyoe-nihombashi-tokyo.html

Hokusai (北斎), Japanese restaurant in Tokyo Disneyland

http://aboutfoodinjapan.weblogs.jp/blog/2013/03/hokusai-japanese-restaurant-in-tokyo-disneyland.html

 

Cafe name: Cafe 1894, Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum (三菱一号館美術館)

Address: 2-6-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum: http://mimt.jp

Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum "Floating World" exhibition official:

 http://mimt.jp/ukiyoe/

Cafe official site: http://www.mimt.jp/english/cafe1894/

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Food store by a major food distributor, Kokubu with 300 years history

In SOLAMCHI, shopping complex at the foot of Tokyo Skytree, we found an interesting shop, called TONYA KOKUBU(国分問屋) offering some food and information rarely found in other retail stores.

The word of TONYA 問屋 represents "wholesaler" in Japanese. Kokubu has over 300 years history as a major wholesaler of food products. Because of the business category,Tonya Kokubu usually does not show up in front of general retail customers like us. But here on the 5th floor of Tokyo Skytree Solamachi, it provides an exhibition room of their products exclusively and some of them are available for purchase. We can find history of grocery food in Japan with some interesting packaging in old style.

 

 

 

 

Some unique products can be found there, which were developed by the established food distributor.

Here we can bring up some examples of their products which we can recommend as  good souvenir of Japan.

 

 

 

 

Age Okaki (揚おかき)

Rice crackers flavored with katsuo(bonite)  

 
It's collaboration with     NINBEN(にんべん) brand known

for the popular dried bonite or Katsuo-bushi.

Good match with both green tea and with beer.

 

 

CALPIS Yokan (カルピスようかん)

Calpis is one of the most popular lactobacillus beverage loved by locals for over decades.

It becomes Yokan, a kind of traditional jelly in Japan,

which is usually made from red beans.

 

Now they will be favourites of alchol lovers!

Canned snacks "Kantsuma" (缶つま) branded by Kokubu.

Whilte more than several choices are offered at the store, we selected two of them.

    Hotate (scalops) ほたて &  Atsugiri (thick) Bacon 厚切りベーコン  

What is great of the Kantsuma products is the ready-made snacks requires NO time to prepare nor a tin opener!! Just pull the handle and open the top. Even without heating in a microwave, it is still good. It will be easy to enjoy even while you are traveling and staying at a hotel room without kitchen. Just get a beer or your favourite drink from a convenience store. Or keep them as souvenir of Japan and bring them back to your home!!

Furthermore next to the exhibition room and retail store by TONYA KOKUBU, the company also provides a cafe exclusively serving their products in ways suggested by the producer.

 

Shop name:  TONYA KOKUBU 国分問屋

Address: SOLAMACHI 5th floor, Tokyo Skytree Town, 1-1-2 Oshiage, Sumida-ku, Tokyo

Official website: http://www.kokubu.co.jp

 

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