About food in Japan

Chopsticks with gold foil at New year party, Hakuza Nihonbashi

 At the beginning of a new year with full of happiness, we introduce a product that must be matched with such feeling.

New year is the biggest traditional event for Japanese. We celebrate a new year arrived with family and relatives in general and we wish a happy year by visiting a shrine and share cups of sake etc. We have some icons of New Year, such as traditional decorations, rice cake, new year post cart etc.

If we say in color, "gold" is a color often used for celebration of New Year. It may be same at some other countries. The most gorgeous color is often placed on celebration items.

 

We found an interesting product with gold and also related to food.

Called "Pakkin Bashi" (ぱっきん箸)

 Pakkin Bashi is a pair of chopstick produced by Hakuza (箔座), a gilder from the origin of gold leaf, Kanazawa (金沢), Hokuriku region.  

From the package of paper cover with stlipe lines in red, we are not able to find how Pakkin Bashi is different from others. 

The unique feature of Pakkin Bashi can be seen on a moment when we split apart a pair of the chopsticks. 

It's a very short time and

was too difficult to express it with a photo actually...

 

When the chopsticks were splitted,

small pieces of gold foil came down from the chopsticks.

We saw the remain sticked on a stick end.

 

These pieces of gold foil are "edible", no harm. Gold foil is traditionally used to decorate food and sake (Japanese alcohol) for celebratory feast. By gilders' sophisticated technique, thin and tiny pieces are put on food or drink, additing brilliant flavor. 

In same way, Pakkin Bashi brings us a joyful moment by splitted apart the chopsticks and decorating food before us with gold foil come down.

It's very delicate presentation with tiny pieces.

 

As for the name, "Pakkin Bashi" does sound strange? You may wonder how it comes from.

"Pakkin" implies the sound made when we split apart a pair of chopsticks. And it also comes from a word "gold leaf" in Japanese, "hakukin (箔金)". Bashi is same with hashi (箸, chopsticks). We could not imagine such elegante moment of using the chopsticks from the name with amusing sound. 

Pakkin Bashi is available at Hakuza boutique Nihonbashi, Tokyo as well as Hakuza flagship boutique and craft studio in Kanazawa. 

It will be good to celebrate your special moment with Japanese traditional gold foil decoration on food. 

 

Hakuza official website: http://www.hakuza.co.jp/english

Hakuza Nihonbashi, Tokyo

Address: Coredo Muromachi 1st floor, 2-2-1 Nihonbashimuromachi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 

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Hakuza Honten (flagship store), Kanazawa 

Address: 1-30-4 Moriyama, Kanazawa-city, Ishikawa prefecture 

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Le Bourguignon, French

Happy New Year 2013!!!

 

Upscale French cuisine is actually a food category which we recommend to try in Tokyo, after Japanese meals. Some of you may think WHY French in Japan? But it is true that Tokyo is a city where we can have the highest standard of French cuisine. The quality may be the best outside the origin country, France. We know even a few (or more?) people say that French cuisine in Tokyo is the best in the world.

 

Let us tell you why French restaurants in Tokyo are so good?...  For decades, a lot of Japanese cooks with ambitious have work experience at upscale French restaurants in France to horn their cooking skills. On the other hand, due to their good hands (dexterity) and diligence, Japanese cooks are very welcomed by French restaurant owners and top chefs. Now some of Japanese cooks take important positions in kitchen of upscale French restaurants in France. Again some of them come back to Tokyo and demonstrate their skills acquired in the origin country. People in Tokyo are very eager to taste the best dishes including authentic French cuisine. Restaurants are expected to keep satisfying such guests. As the result, as Michelin Guide's evaluation, Tokyo is one of the best gourmet city in the world and it is not only for Japanese cuisine but also for French and other types of meals. 

 

Well today's our recommendation Le Bourguignon is also one of such restaurants appreciated by local food lovers as authentic French cuisine in Tokyo.

 

Le Bourguignon is located in Roppongi and is just a few hundreds meters from Roppongi Hills and Grand Hyatt Tokyo hotel.

 

Both the exterior and interior with around 20 seats are so lovely in romantic European style. It looks like a "petite hotel" in a small village of France. That makes us escaping from our daily hectic life.

 

 

 

This time, we ordered a full-course dinner at the least expensive price Yen 5500 per person for starter/fish/meat/dessert. The quality and ingredients are much exceeded our expectation.

We introduce a few plates from the course dinner. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boudin noir (black sausage with blood of pork) with two kinds of apple

 

Some people, including Japanese, mind the strong flavor from blood sausage. Boudin noir at Le Bourguigon is totally different from others. The black piece never brings such strong wild scent but is cooked in sophisticated style by the skilled chef. We can recommend even to those who usually would not like to take boudin noir. 

 

 

Yezo deer in pie with truffle sauce

Classic French style. Normally such expensive ingredients like truffle can not be expected for the least expensive dinner course. Here we can. 

 

 

Red pepper pudding with vanilla ice cream

 

We could never imagine "red pepper" pudding!! It is one of the chef's specialty. Sweet pudding with a bit spicy flavor is interesting and delicate dessert.     

 

  

We were really satisfied with the quality, volume and also price of the dinner course, having felt like we were in France not in Japan.

 

To tell the truth, Michelin Guide has not awarded a start to the restaurant for their guidbook 2013 version. But we are sure that Le Bourguignon is still one of the most recommendable French restaurant in Tokyo. It has good value for the authentic French cuisine.

 

 

**************** UPDATE  December 2013 ****************

 

Pleased to tell you,

Michelin Guide has awaeded 1-star to Le Bourguignon for 2014 version!!

 

**************************************************************

 

Restaurant name: Le Bourguignon

Address: 3-3-1 Nishi-Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo

 

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Hits 2012 by Nikkei Marketing Journal

The Japanese major news paper specialized in marketing field, Nikkei Marketing Journal announced "Hits product ranking 2012" this month. Seeing the list ranked by categorized as Yokozuna / Ozeki / Sekiwake ... and two positions East/West taken from Sumo the Japanese traditional fighting sports, we are able to recognize what are the trends among Japanese locals. Japanese people like to discuss what I got or experienced or do know?! for products or services on the list to evaluate how much each of us could catch up with the new trends. 

Let's see the list of Nikkei Marketing Journal "Hits product ranking 2012" from the top.

Yokozuna 横綱 (the top rank) 

Tokyo Skytree 東京スカイツリー- The tallest tower in Japan opened on May 2012 is the most popular tourist spot of Tokyo among Japanese nationals. It was really lucky if we could get a ticket to climing up to the upper floor during the early months since opening.

Check out our post about a cafe as a view spot of Tokyo Skytree

Tokyo Skytree view spot - Cielo y rio, Kuramae (蔵前)

 http://aboutfoodinjapan.weblogs.jp/blog/2012/06/tokyo-skytree-view-spot-cielo-y-rio-kuramae.html 

7inchi tablet - such as iPad mini, Kindle by Amazon and Nexus by Google are arrived also in Japan and paied attentions of locals.

Ozeki 大関 (the 2nd rank) 

Low cost carrier (LCC) 格安航空会社 - This must be affected on those traveling in Japan. In 2012, Japanese established airline ANA launched Peach Aviation, and Jetstar and Air Asia arrived in Japan for domestic flights operation between major cities like Tokyo, Osaka and some resort destinations such as Okinawa, Hokkaido. It's a big change since the time only a few legacy carriers fly within Japan. 

LINE - is a mobile phone application developed in Japan and allows users to have free call and short message exchanges among friends. The communication tool captured over 36 millions users, mainly younger 10 - 20's generations in Japan.

Nikkei Marketing Journal "Hits product ranking 2012" includes total almost 40 products, services etc. Below Ozeki (the 2nd rank), we found several food related products on the list. 

Now we picked up some as examples...,

Maruchan Seimen (正麺) - The packed instant noodle was launched from Maruchan. The new product has been developed with patented production techniques for which maruchan succeeded in keeping authentic ramen flavor in the instant product.  

Japanese traditional sweets at convenience stores - Major convenience store chains such as Seven-Eleven and Lawson are competing for sweets product developped under their own brands. In spite of the small amount of price around Yen 100 to 300, the quality and taste are something we cannot ignore. 

Here we show a couple of newest example of them from Lawson Uchi-cafe sweets.

Premium roll cake with Matcha (green tea) and black beans: Both major ingredients are from the highest quality origin for each, matcha from Uji, Kyoto and black beans from Tanba-Sasayama, Hyogo prefecture.

 Matcha cake wrapping black beans cream. 

Pure fresh cream Daifuku : Daifuku, one of the most popular traditional sweets of Japan, is arranged by Lawson. To attracts more younger genrations for the traditional product, the Western ingredient, fresh cream, is added into the center filling of Daifuku.

The mochi (outer rice cake) is very soft and sticky

and filled with full of beans and fresh cream. 

Drop by Lawson or Seven-Eleben and get a piece of Japanese sweets available there.

It's a good opportunity easily to try a Japanese traditional sweets!!!

Zaku Tofu (ザク豆腐) - This is what we introduced on our facebook page on this March. It's a Tofu product inspired by Zaku, a character of animation program GUNDAM. The green color tofu is made with green soybean (edamame) flavour. Available at supermarkets and convenience stores in Tokyo and surroundings.

Look at the photo to see how it looks like from the link here. 

Yaki Gyudon (焼牛丼)- You may know Gyudon (牛丼, beef bowl) available at the most famous Yoshinoya (吉野家). Yaki Gyudon (Grilled beef bowl) chain "Tokyo Chikarameshi (東京チカラめし)" is a newly emerged rival of Yoshinoya and is operated by a major casual Izakaya chain. Tokyo Chikarameshi's beef bowl price is slightly lower than the ones of major Gyudon chains. The number of Tokyo Chikarameshi's units is dramatically increased in 2012 and it is now over 100 units within one and a half years since the first opening. 

One day we will report the grilled beef bowl on this blog!

Oreno Italian/French (俺のイタリアン, 俺のフレンチ) - Ore(俺) is a vulgar expression of "I"(私). The Italian and French restaurants imply the casual atmosphere with the vulgar word. The concept is...  a restaurant hires skilled chef (some of them have experience at Michelin star restaurants.) while it serves in "standing" style. Then it makes available plates with high quality ingredients like truffles or fois-gras by skilled chef at very reasonable price. Due to the sensational prices of plates, all of the units Oreno Italian and Oreno French are often fully occupied and even a long queue could be seen by locals every evening.

 

As some examples of their sensational menu and price, we visited the second unit of Oreno Italian in Shimbashi. Arriving early evening around 6p.m., we luckly took the last spce(not a seat) at the counter. We saw business people coming and asking place with fail time by time even after we started having a few plates and glasses of wine there.  

 

Shrimp ajillo just cooked!

Pizza Margherita - looking at the chef preparing for other guests over the counter,

we could not help but ordering a piece for us.

Both at Yen580 for each.

Scallp carpaccio with truffle

from today's daily recommendation

At Yen 980!!!

In addition to regular menu, the restaurant offers

more attractive plates at very reasonable price. 

     

Restaurant name: Oreno Italian (Main unit of the group)

Address: 1st floor 3-8-5 Shimbashi, Minato-ku Tokyo

Website in English: http://r.gnavi.co.jp/e960805/lang/en/ 

So far, as of the end of 2012, Oreno Italian has 3 units and Oreno French also has 3 units in central Tokyo area.

We are looking forward to discovering and introducing exiting and interesting food in Japan continuously in 2013.

Have a happy new year to all food lovers!!!

Information souce in Japanese:  

Nikkei Marketing Journal "Hits product ranking 2012"

http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASGF04079_U2A201C1000000/

Tsukiji Jogai market (築地場外市場)

Following our previous post about Ota Market for December 2012 monthly feature, "Market"(市場), we picked up some scenes at Tsukiji Market on December for this post.

Once in 2011 we introduced Tsukiji Market with a seriese of posts mainly for Jonai (場内, inside) or wholesale area, where it is known for Tuna Auction. This time we focus on Jogai (場外, outside) area in Tsukiji Market.

Tsukiji Jogai market (築地場外市場) is situated next to the Tsukiji Market Jonai (築地市場場内) or wholesale area. Jogai, representing "outer area" in Japanese, is targeting more at non-professional buyers or local ordinary people and tourists, while Jogai area(inside) is mainly for professional buyers such as restaurants, retailers. Jogai area looks more like shopping arcade. It is the busiest around the end of December by local people who are looking for seafood and related products to be prepared for their New Year feast.

In other parts of the world, especially in Christian culture, maybe you have a feast on the Chritsmas day with your family, while you spend fun time with your friends or a partner on New year eve and New year day. In Japan on the contrary, New Year holiday 1st to 3rd of January is a period when we share time with our family in traditional ways, while we are likely to enjoy Christmas season with friends or a partner by having parties in a modern way. So New Year holiday for Japanese is to Christmas day for Christial family. Then you can imagine why Japanese locals are eager to organize a big feast on New year holidays. 

Celebration in Japanese traditional style, seafood is one of the biggest feature among New Year plates. So local people rush to Tsukiji for high quality seafood at less expensive price. Then on the last half of December, we can find some gorgeous seafood products or delicacies which rarely could be seen in other seasons. 

For examples....

Crab, salmon roe

 

whole fis of salmon in wooden containers

 

During the last few days of December, Tsukiji Jogai market is extremely busy with local people. If you could arrive there in very early morning before 9 a.m. or earlier period, before 27th December, you will be able to enjoy finding such seasonal delicacies and vital atomosphere more comfortably, although the weather is a bit cold. It could be less than 10 C degree outside even during the day.

After or before such joyful discovery of rare Japanese seasonal delicacies, let's have breakfast or lunch at a restaurant in the area. We can find many casual restaurants at Tsukiji Jogai markets. Majority of them offers Kaisendon (海鮮丼, seafood bowl) prepared with fresh ingredients, of course, from Tsukiji wholesale market just a few hundreds meters away and some other provide ramen that must originally target at market workers.

Today's our recommendation is a bit different from such typical Tsukiji meal.

Toritoh(鳥藤) is a wholesaler of chicken meat based in Tsukiji over 100 years since the beginning of 20th century. One of restaurants which the wholesaler company operates is located in Tsukiji Jogai area. 

The name as same with the company, the casual Japanese restaurant Toritoh is specialized in plates and bowls with Chicken meat. The most recommendable specialty of Toritoh is Oyako-don (親子丼, bowl of chiekn and egg on top of rice) which is tradtional home-made style food in Japan.

 

Fresh tender chicken meat mixed with

high quality scramble eggs on top of rice

The sweet and gentle flavor suits not only for lunch but also for breakfast. 

At Totitoh, Oyakodon is served with a cup of chicken stock soup which is also very nice.

 

The restaurant is small with several seats at the counter in front of open style kitchen as well as a few of tables. From the counter seats we can enjoy looking at the chefs preparing chicken for Oyakogon or Yakitori (skewered chicken) etc. Oyakodon is cooked on a very small pan for each diner one by one. Yakitori is grilled very carefully little by litthe by the chef. They know well how much and how these chicken pieces are cooked for each menu. The casual Japanese restaurant maybe is a place where we can taste chicken plate in the best way!! although the price is just around Yen 1000 or even less per person.

 

  
Half-boilded egg with chicken on top of rice (left)

Spices offered on the table (right) can be added as accent of flavor if you would.

These spices are also produced by Toritoh especially for chicken dishes.

 

Restaurant name: Toritoh Bunten (鳥藤分店)

Address: 4-8-6 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Open: 7:30am - 14:30

Official website (in Japanese) : http://www.toritoh.com/contents/tenpo01/

 

 

   

 大きな地図で見る

 Link to related posts:

Tsukiji Market (築地市場) 

http://aboutfoodinjapan.weblogs.jp/blog/2011/04/tsukiji-market.html

 Ota Market visitor course (大田市場見学者コース) 

http://aboutfoodinjapan.weblogs.jp/blog/2012/12/ota-market-visitor-course.html