It is a cold snowy day here in Fargo. I arrived home from Japan on Saturday but I wish I was still there. Never the less, I was faced with firing up the snowblower today and getting out in the cold. So a warm hearty dinner was just the ticket. I call this a Refrigerator Beef Stew because it was made from a hodge podge of leftover ingredients I found while cleaning out the fridge today. I had about a half pound of sirlion that I didn’t use last night when I made my own shabu shabu. There were also some leftover cut up vegetables consisting of cabbage, green onions and bean sprouts. I added some celery and chopped garlic. I found a couple tablespoons of red thai curry paste, some red miso paste and a cup of garbanzo beans. The meat was browned and everything else was added. I threw in a couple handfuls of sticky Japanese rice and then cooked it all until it was thick and bubbly, about 25 minutes. It was slightly tangy, delightfully spicy and thickened nicely by the rice. Perfect for a cold evening.
Refrigerator Beef Stew on a cold day
Shabu Shabu in Kobe
Shabu shabu is another nabe dish made by taking paper thin slices of beef and dipping them into a pot of boiling water or broth for just a few seconds to cook. More on the food in a second. Let me first describe my Thursday in Kobe. This is a wonderful city just west of Osaka. Kobe Pharmaceutical University sits on the hillside looking down upon Kobe’s numerous narrow winding streets. This picture shows one of their WIDE streets! Imagine a street as wide as one car twisting and turning through densly packed homes up the side of a hill. Their big taxis climb those hills every day.
In the morning my host Naito Sensei took me to the Hatsukura sake factory for a tour of their sake museum. There I learned all about how rice is polished, infused with koji spores to convert starch to sugar, and then fermented with yeast. Of course we left with a taste and a bottle!
Dinner that evening was a slighly formal shabu shabu dinner. We ate at a traditional low table on the tatami mats. Actually there was a hole under the table for your feet so you didn’t have to sit cross legged for hours. See the nabe pots ready for action?
This sake is made especially for this restaurant. I have to say it was quite good.
We started with a small appetizer of marinated raw fugu. I would call it a Japanese seviche with its vinegary marinade.
This is onion, garlic, radish and chives to garnish the dipping sauces for the shabu shabu.
A sashimi course, of course!
A bite of crab, seaweed and cucumbers.
This is a bit of fried monkfish. The chili was not very spicy. I’ve never seen a pink batter before. Very festive for the holiday season.
Our sever brought the plates of beef and vegetables.
I am always in awe of the wonderfully marbled beef. Makes for tender shabu shabu.
Our server demonstrated the shabu shabu technique. Grasp the beef slice with your chopsticks and swish it back and forth in the boiling pot for just a few seconds. The dish is names shabu shabu after the sound of the beef swishing in the broth.
The flash cooked beef is immediately plunged into a bowl containing a sesame sauce and eaten.
After the meat is eaten, next come the vegetables. Here you can see tofu, enoki mushrooms, green onions, bean sprouts, mushrooms, carrots, some greens and napa cabbage. The noodles are for the end of the meal.
The veggies cooking away.
We had two kinds of noodles – the clear ones you see served with the vegetables above and these wider noodles that were brought to the table after the vegetables. Also in the pot are some sticky rice cakes cooked along with the noodles.
A perfect end for a wonderul meal – a bowl of macha green tea ice cream. I like the fact that this ice cream is not as sweet as our American versions.
Japanized Chinese
On Wednesday evening I went to dinner with my friends from Osaka University. They took me to a Chinese restaurant way up on the top of a skyscraper with an incredible view of Osaka. I would say some of the things in the restaurant may be traditional Chinese but this was definitely Japanized. Our meal was served in many small courses. I would say the flavors were quite bland compared to what you would find in China but it was pretty tasty.
First course was a variety plate containing some barbequed pork, jellyfish, some kind of roll with vegetables and rice, and I think the fried piece was chicken.
Second course: Shark fin soup. Not nearly as good as the shark fin soup I’ve had in China.
The third course tasted pretty good. A piece of fugu was accompanied by a scallop, mushrooms, and baby corn.
For our fourth course we had a lightly battered and fried shrimp served with pineapple and a beef and vegetable dish.
These steamed delights were our fifth course. They looked gorgeous and tasted so so.
Another soup to top off the meal.
Finally we had dessert. It was some kind of mango pudding I think.
And me and my hosts. Professor Mishima on the right and Professor Ohshima standing next to me on the left.
Osaka Eats
On Tuesday I arrived in Osaka. My hotel is right next to the Umeda station in a busy, bustling part of town. This place is a maze of underground shopping malls and department stores and it is hard for even the local people to find their way. But I have been managing ok. After my train ride from Kyoto I was hungry for some lunch. In the underground maze I found a ramen shop with an advertized special of pork and ramen with a bowl of rice for only 700 yen (~$7). It was quite a deal and filled me up.
Here is a photo from my hotel room looking down on the Umeda train station. Yes, that is a ferris wheel on top of the Hep Five building.
After spending the afternoon exploring night was falling and I was starting to get hungry for dinner.
The Hankyu department store is just one of the many huge shopping conglomerates here. Actually I think all of Japan is one large shopping mall. They certainly are in the christmas spirit here.
I wandered around and found many of these narrow streets lined with all kinds of resaurants, pachinko parlors and shops.
I could have gone to She’s Bar or spent only 500 yen and be served by Ladys staff.
Although I think the idea of throwing darts and looking at girls is more appealing, I was looking for an Osaka specialty for dinner and it wasn’t to be had here.
I did pass by this place on the way. It was snorting at me as I walked by. I presume you can get pork there!
Finally, in the underground Umeda maze, I found a very nice okonomiyaki shop. This is an Osaka favorite. Kind of like a pancake but different, okonomiyaki literally menas cooked as you like it. The base is a mixture of cabbage and a batter. You can add all kind of things to it. Mine had pork, squid and shrimp. Some places have you cook your own at the table side griddle but at this place the server came over every so often to tend to my meal. So all I had to do was watch as she expertly shaped it into a perfect round using a wide spatula.
Ah, it’s crisping nicely.
Topped with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonaise, it’s ready to eat. This was further accented with dried bonito flakes and seaweed. It was as delicious as I remember.
More nabe in Kyoto
Near to Kyoto University on a narrow dark out of the way street sits a wonderful little soba-nabe restaurant called Kawamichiya. I had dinner there with my hosts from KU on Monday evening. The restaurant is actually located next to the house of the president of Nintendo. I think my son would be more impressed with that! The entrance through this gate leads to a small Japanese garden and to the door of a 130 year old building. Dining is done in small cozy individual rooms.
Of course we had nabe at this restuarant. You an see my friend, Prof. Tomioka watching as the server fills the pot with chicken, fish cakes and vegetables.
Bubble, bubble, I think it’s ready to eat.
This nabe did not have the noodles in the pot in the beginning. After we ate everything out of the pot we then cooked the soba and udon noodles in the flavorful broth.
From left to right, Prof. Ohno, me, Prof. Takemoto and Prof. Tomioka.
