June in Japan
(click restaurant name or point of interest)
- mango juice
The most beautiful things in Japan are the temples/shrines and the food basements of the major department stores. Here are some photos taken at Misukoshi/Nihombashi. Temples will have to wait. The variety and especially the presentation is staggering.
- bread as in a cartoon
- sweets to accompany bitter green tea
These sweets are only one example of a huge category. Each maker tries to outdo the next in beaauty.
If you go to Japan allow at least an hour to browse all the sections. Fish or crackers are as beautifully presented as the sweets.
While there are also restaurants in the department stores, I have a fewfavorite restaurants elsewhere and managed a few photos. The first night and the last in Tokyo I could think of nothing more delicious than a big plate of sashimi, a bowl of cold tofu with ginger and green onion and a some black cod with miso (the last i ate too quickly and just photographed the bones.
The restaurant is called Uokatsu, and is in the little neighborhood of the International House called Azabu Juban. During the day, they have a fish store. Very handy. The cost of these 3 courses was about 50. dollars and included a draught beer.
Another night in Tokyo I went to Union Square Tokyo and had a delicious Japanese plum mojito and a hamburger.
The best snacks in Japan include some delicious greasy “sembe” crackers from Mamagen in the same street as the Uokatsu. The small bag will do, and you will not be able to eat dinner if you eat the whole bag. The other snack is “butter peanuts”, nice hard peanuts available at every train station.
In Kyoto, the only new place is a small and delicious Italian restaurant on Kita Shirakawa dori (just north of Donq, the French bakery) called — believe it or not– Bosom. Gnocchi with a cream and uni sauce was absolutely delicious. (The owner said the name appealed because it implied warm and cosy which was the feeling she wanted for their restaurant.)
Tastes better than it looks. More on Japan later.