Cultural submersion is one of the great delights of traveling.  Of course, we often just skim the surface because we run from one ‘must see site’ to another in a rapid blur.

However, a meal is an opportunity to pause, and to allow ourselves the opportunity to effortlessly sink a little deeper into the soul of a place.

It, of course, does not need to pillage the pocket-book.  Indeed, it often does not.

I swear– I do stay and eat much more cheaply than what I have implied by the posts I have done so far.

But of Kaiseki, it is $$$$ so to speak.

However, it is well worth the price.

Much of what I write here of course is gleaned from the web.  However I do wish to point out 3 resources that are easy to access as they are available on Kindle and are truly wonderful.  The first is The Foolproof Table Manner in Japanese Cuisine I  by Takumi Kawano.  Another is The Taste of Kyoto: A Guide to Dining and Sightseeing in the Old Capital by Richard Opheim.  Finally, Washoku, written by Elizabeth Andoh, focuses on home Japanese cooking.

There are 3 genres, if you will, of Japanese cuisine.  First, Chuka Ryori:

Above: Ramen at a restaurant in Ramen Alley in Tokyo

Above: Gratuitous photo of cherry blossoms.

Look.  At.  Those.  Buns.   Yet, however, they derive from Chinese cuisine, and arrived  into Japan in the past century.  While Chinese in origin,  Chuka Ryori dishes have morphed in cuisine that is uniquely Japanese.   Gyoza- who does not love Gyoza??  Or there is Karaage (唐揚げ), or Japanese fried chicken.

The second genre is Yoshoku, or food from the West.  Katsu, curries, spaghettis are examples.  I honestly I don’t know much of this- amazingly I did not go to McDonalds in Japan (more on the later).  Family restaurants are popular in Japan- trust me I had no idea except from reading Across Tokyo by Patrick Foss.  Apparently, you can get pancakes, bacon, a ham-burg- which is a cross between a hamburger and meatloaf.  He did note some rather attractive attributes about family restaurants:

• good club sandwiches
• fantastic French fries
• you can stay as long as you want
• the drink bar: tiny cups, but the re-fills are endless, which is fantastic when staying as long as you want

Ok I know nothing about the family restaurants as I have only been to Japan once as a traveler (but I will return dammit! want to live there too…. Sigh….).

So, the third genre: Washoku.   This is Japanese cuisine based on cuisine pre-dating the Meiji era.  There are a number of types, including Kappa Ryori which is similar to Kaiseki but not as elaborate.  There is Shojin ryori, or buddhist temple cuisine which came to Japan from China by the monk Dogen, the founder of Zen Buddhism.

There is also Yodofu, which is also vegetarian.  Tofu is the star here.  We dined at a superb tofu restaurant  Yudofu Sagano in the Arayashima district of Kyoto (near the bamboo forest).  The garden was also quite stunning:

The view outside:

Dessert:

Ok so not the best picture.   Tofu can be labeled as ‘silken’ versus ‘regular’.  It may be because I live in the U.S. but I can’t say I have ever had silken tofu that deserved the monniker here.  But this silken tofu dessert did.  So luscious, creamy and light.  It was a wonder.

Washoku is traditional Japanese food.  ‘Wa’ means Japan, and ‘shoku’ means food or to eat.  ‘Wa’, though, also means harmony, so it can also literally mean ‘harmony of food’.

Let me go over the principles of Washoku, as described by Elizabeth Andoh in her book Washoku.  This helped me to begin to appreciate, even if only at a slightly deeper level, what is behind Kaiseki cuisine.

I prize well written cookbooks.  Classics like Mastering the Art of French cooking (Julia Childs), Indian Cooking (Madhur Jaffrey), Mexico One Plate at a Time (Rick Bayless) and Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Marcella Hazan) are utterly much more than a collection of recipes as you likely know.  They offer windows into their respective cultures, and in particular, the daily lives of people.  Most often, the best of people.

Washoku was like that for me.

Ms. Andoh is very astute, and cleverly rapidly wraps one up in the desire to learn more about Japanese cooking.  Well at least for me.  She does not dumb anything down and everything is so well-organized.  She helped me create a Japanese pantry in a snap. And my husband, an avid fisherman, is indeed quite grateful.

I shall hopefully paraphrase (not plagiarise) her, albeit I just won’t be as eloquent.  I’m just trying to be a decent student.

There are five principles of Washoku.  Sounds familiar.  Actually the number five plays a role in a variety of cuisines.  But what I dimly know now of Japanese cuisine, they are:

Go shiki: I am trying to learn Japanese. ‘Go’ means five.  Go shiki refers to ‘five colors’, that is red, green, yellow, black and white.  Regarding black, eggplant or dark mushrooms count.   It seems to me that a bit of seaweed in dishes can add the black element as does grilling.  Clearly the cover for the Washoku book demonstrates the five colors, but as I go through our pictures, I see this as well:

Go mi or five tastes: salty, sweet, bitter, sour and spicy.  Salty would refer to ingredients such as, well,  salt, and soy sauce and the myriad varieties of miso.  Honey, mirin and of course sugar are sweet ingredients.  With sour there is vinegar and citrus.  I am particular fond of homemade ponzu, a citrus based sauce used in Japanese cuisine.  Hmm, bitter.  Well, bitter helps clear the palate and …. Oh!  I just discovered that Ms. Andoh has a website while I was typing this up.

http://www.washokucooking.com

How fabulous!  I adore Japanese food, and I need all the help I can get with trying to re-create even a weak facsimile in our kitchen.  Did I mention my husband likes to fish?  We have about 150 pounds of fish in our freezer that needs some Japanese love.

Now, on the website, regarding the tastes and in particular bitter,  she points out that “In the mountainous areas of central Japan, a group of (naturally bitter) vegetables (ferns, bracken) known as sansai are foraged early in the spring.”  I know here in the U.S. we use a number of bitter greens as well.  These greens are good for nutritional content and aid in digestion.  I am thinking mainly of kale, endive, and my favorite: dark chocolate.

Regarding spicy: peppers, and then there is wasabi.  Much of the wasabi in the U.S. is not true wasabi.  It’s green tinted horseradish.  The real stuff still packs heat, but is far more subtle.  It has much more of an herby taste.  This is what wasabi the root looks like:

We took this picture at Tsukiji market.  Real wasabi and the shark skin grater used to grate it deserve their own post at some point.

Go ho: There are five methods of preparation: grilling, steaming, frying, and simmering.  And then simply having food presented raw.

Go kan: Five senses.  With food, the focus is not just on taste and smell, but also sight, sound and touch.  Again look at the variety of textures here:

With this dish, we were instructed to eat items in a specific order, which heightened the contrasting textures.  We started with the rice cracker encrusted Chiba octopus.   We followed with the corn- that is Hokkaido sea urchin in the middle.  What an amazing little sandwich!!  The corn was slightly chewy and that urchin just melted all over the tongue.  Then, we had the snappy fresh crispness of the asparagus followed by a slice of Wagyu heaven.

You may think it odd, but actually my favorite bit of this was the simmered sweet potato. It was not at all mushy as you can clearly see, and while eating it, one could fool oneself easily to thinking one is having a somewhat unripened peach.  It might just be, though, I am easily fooled.

I am now much more aware of the contrasting textures in my food.  The last time I truly thought about textures to the same degree was the savory mushroom mousse we had in Portugal which involved… pop rocks.  That was insane I have to say.  Maybe, a little weird?

Go kan mon: These refer to five outlooks. Ok, I’m going to quote Ms. Andoh: “They instruct us, first, to respect the efforts of all those who contributed their toil to cultivating and preparing our food; second, to do good deeds worthy of receiving such nourishment; third, to come to the table without ire; fourth, to eat for spiritual as well as temporal well-being; and fifth, to be serious in our struggle to attain enlightenment.”  How beautiful is that?

There, these are the five principles.  But did I mention seasonality?  The above dish was served in late summer.  And here is one of my desserts during Sakura, or the cherry blossom festival in spring:

This was a silky matcha mouse topped with cherry jam and cream.

Sigh.  I could eat like this every damn day.  But of course I cannot.  Kaiseki is the haute cuisine of Washoku and was intended for special occasions and banquets.  It is a cultural masterpiece for certain.  I am studying a little more on Kaiseki.  Mrs. O and I will be re-visiting Kenzo soon- will delve more specifically on Kaiseki in the near future…

On our second day at Gora Kadan, we crammed in so much.  We did not waste a minute.

We went into town, purchased a suitcase full of various bric-à-brac.  Hiked in a bamboo forest.  Visited the Tori Gate, took a lake cruise…. We ate sushi.  We went diving in the lake… while eating sushi.

I’m a liar.  No we didn’t. 

We behaved in our typical princess fashion.  We slept in.  Actually I sunk my big old badonkadonk in that sublime private onsen as the sky was midnight blue at 3 am.  

And then promptly slept in.

We had a Japanese multi course breakfast.  Guests can choose the Western breakfast, but if one does that, well…

Shame on you.

Sigh I just love tamago, i.e. egg in Japanese.  But I am incorrect.  What I truly love is Tamagoyaki.  That is what is at 11 o’clock below.   This is a form of  Japanese omelette, which is made by rolling together several layers of cooked egg.

Ooooh and silky tofu….

The chopstick holders are so very…  What is the word?  Nice?  No.  Sweet?  Maybe.  Ah, I know!  Kawaii…

Oooh finger food:

And then we went for massages.  No I did not take a camera there!!  So no pics.  But I do want to talk about somebody incredible I met after the massage.  Somebody who relaxed me like no other.  Someone… Ok, it’s a goddamn chair.  

Gora Kadan has three of these beauties.  Yes, after my massage, I went for more massage.  With him.  It will be a separate post.  That is, my obsession with massage chairs which apparently is something that Japan and I share.  In any case, Gora Kadan: thank-you, thank-you from the bottom of my withered heart.  These massage chairs are to die for.

We tried to mingle with some other guests in the lounge area after our massages.  We met three 50-something Persian business buddies.   We tried to discuss software or medicine or news of the day or politics or food or booze (not necessarily in that order).  

But, alas, they just kept asking us where our husbands were.  So after that titillating conversation we felt we should go revel in the beauty of our rooms.

More onsen:

Even the bathrooms were so simple and elegant:

By the way, about Japanese toilets.  Much has been written.  However, what I will say is that they are not complicated!!!  And they rank right up there with Gora Kadan.  Almost. Ok not quite at all.  But I want one.

Will discuss in a later post about toilets round the world.  I bet you can’t wait…

The decor just fills one with peace and relaxation:

Ahh, dinner.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t see this every day:

This is, of course, Wagyu beef.  I have eaten this a number of times outside of Japan, but I have never had the quality of Wagyu I had in Japan.  No exception here at Gora Kadan.

The velvety smooth utter deliciousness of Wagyu derives from a number of factors.  The fat in Wagyu is more dispersed intramuscularly as opposed to more of a rind around a muscle.  Wagyu is high in glutamic acid and inosinic acid, two molecules responsible for the taste known as umami, one of the qualities that makes Japanese food, in my humble opinion, some of the most savory on the planet.  Wagyu fat is higher in monounsaturated fat,  and omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids compared to other beef.  Not only are these the ‘good fats’, but they also melt at lower temperatures which further enhances the deliciousness.  And texture.  It can be said that in addition to tasting delicious, Wagyu feels delicious.  Again, regarding the best of Japanese cuisine, texture matters greatly.

How all this is achieved is somewhat of a mystery.  Although I know some of it involves giving the cows massages- I believe to soothe muscle spasms- and giving the cows beer in the hot summer months to increase appetite.   This is certainly different from what I have seen here in the U.S.  Although I readily confess I am rather ignorant about all of this or perhaps biased by what I see driving down I-5 in California or reading in Supersize Me.   I have read, indeed, some Wagyu does come from the U.S. and also Australia.

I digress.  More food porn:

The beef was very quickly cooked in the pot with the vegetables added.  We had these for toppings:

The beef was nothing short of spectacular.  Not sure if it was the sake or the beef or both but we were in such a state of bliss that we took no further pictures of this incredible meal.  My body was in a state of Wagyu shock.  I’m pretty sure that- actually quite certain- this will be the closest I will be allowed to Heaven.

The next morning we had another fabulous breakfast:

Sigh, it was time to leave this glorious place.  Look at how lovely this is:

But we were headed to Kyoto.  Which was not a bad place to be, either.

I know this is not subtle like the above scene, but I truly recommend Gora Kadan.  We will be back…

Gora Kadan

Ok not done with Gora Kadan part II yet.  Instead, after going through our trip pictures, and after a particularly delightful week at work, I needed a bolus of cuteness.

We all love things that are cute.  Babies are cute.  Kitties are cute.  Puppies are cute.  The show ‘Too Cute’ is, well, so damn cute.

But no people in the world kick ass at cuteness more than the Japanese.  This is doubtless a fact.  It’s known as Kawaii.  To borrow from Wikipedia:

The word kawaii originally derives from the phrase 顔映しkao hayushi, which literally means “(one’s) face (is) aglow,” commonly used to refer to flushing or blushing of the face. The second morpheme is cognate with -bayu in mabayui(眩い, 目映い, or 目映ゆい) “dazzling, glaring, blinding, too bright; dazzlingly beautiful” (ma- is from 目 me “eye”) and -hayu in omohayui (面映い or 面映ゆい) “embarrassed/embarrassing, awkward, feeling self-conscious/making one feel self-conscious” (omo- is from 面 omo, an archaic word for “face, looks, features; surface; image, semblance, vestige”). Over time, the meaning changed into the modern meaning of “cute”, and the pronunciation changed to かわゆい kawayuiand then to the modern かわいい kawaii.^[8][9][10] It is most commonly written in hiragana, かわいい, but the ateji, 可愛い, has also been appended. The kanji in the ateji literally translates to “able to be loved, can/may love, lovable.”

Ok enough of words.  I just feel like posting a bunch of photos from Japan from March 2018.  Self-explanatory.

Are you going make prayer offerings or requests?  Better make them cute!

Are these key rings?  Are they something to pin on your backpack?  Who cares??

The Japanese love Snoopy.  Because of course they should.  There is a shop in Kyoto selling all things Snoopy et al.

These are Dorayaki.  Dorayaki are two pancakes patties typically wrapped around a filling of sweet Azuki red bean paste.  Some Westerners are not overly fond of red bean paste.  Although, it might be because they have not enjoyed ones of high quality.

That is not the case for me.  I love those damn things, quality be damned!  But part of this is sentimentality because of a film I am rather fond of.  It is a Japanese film called ‘Sweet Bean’.   If, after watching this film (which I strongly urge you do), if you don’t develop at least a little desire to understand the fuss of cooking beans correctly, well… Screw you!!  More dorayaki for me!!

Ok, clearly I don’t know how to review or sell movies.  If food is part of the movie’s subject, I consider the film fabulous.  It’s like how some folks just have to have explosions, or major recognizable cites imploding, or superheroes or Benedict Cumberbatch.  For me, Big Night, Eat Drink Man Woman, Ratatouille are among my favorites.  I think it is because I am obsessed with absorbing cultures, although I know it is done at most very superficially.  Yet nothing in my humble view is better than going down a culinary path of absorption.  What is the worst that can happen?

Actually I have only gotten food poisoning from Western deli type items that they serve at hotels trying to please Westerners.  In places like Peru.  Actually I did get damn sick in Crete from a breakfast pastry buffet.  I hoovered through an amazing pear tart until the last bite when I realized that there was mold on the bottom.  We went to Knossos right after.  I had dreamed and dreamed for a long time about going to that place, but now it is mainly associated with some things I was not aware my intestines could do.

Ok not cute.  Back to cuteness.  Look, we landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo and look what greeted us:

There are cute statues everywhere:

Cute dog and cat cafes. I mean, dog or cat cafes.  Both together, maybe, not so cute unless you like fighting and fur flying.

This is Peach:

Even restaurant magnates love the cute:

Ok, actually this is actually about Sakura.  I will get to that.

So, I’m pooped.  Going to go cuddle with this:

This is my Josie.  So Kawaii!!

(not necessarily in the right order)

When we visited Japan in March, we stayed in Tokyo, then Hakone and then finally Kyoto.

Let me discuss our Hakone leg first, as I have decent pics for that part.  Mrs. O has the rest on a hard drive we need to find.

So, Hakone.  The lake here is Lake Ashi, near the base of Mount Fuji.  When the cloud veil that envelops the peak of Mt Fuji lifts, and if the lake is calm, the reflection is utterly spectacular.

Alas, it was overcast when we were there.  So I can only know about the reflection based on pics from the web.  But, it did not matter a wit.

We were going to Gora Kadan.

We messed how up how we got there.  Got on the wrong bullet train.   Tried to get on the right train.  BLOCKED.  We stood on a platform in Yokohama flummoxed- how the heck to get to Hakone?

And you know what?  We got a taxi from Yokohama to Hakone.  Cause we just had to get to Hakone, dammit!

It was very windy and overcast.  Could not see Mount Fuji.  Saw 2 cool biker gangs though.

Ok here are their asses.

But we have travelled many miles.  No Mount Fuji.  No beautiful Tori Gate next to lake.  Of course, it was there, but we could not see from where our exasperated taxi driver was desperate to dump us off.

However, overall we did not mess this up.    

Because we went to Gora Kadan.

What the frack is that you say?

Gora Kadan.   I don’t know where to start?

I lie, I totally know where to start.

You have heard of the the hot springs in Japan, no?  Also known as onsens.  Well…

We had our very own private onsen nestled in our own Japanese garden:

The rest of our ryokan was as disappointing.  Take a look:

Ok this is from my phone.  Mrs. O has a much finer picture.  No idea where that damn drive is.

But here is our room.   Or rather ‘one of the rooms’ of our little oasis.

Stunning.

But, let me digress.

Back to Kaiseki.  

Ryokans will include food.  This can be communal.  But we asked for it to be private in our room.

Here is our meal night #1.  Remember we are staying during Sakura (ok a later post but essentially middle spring).  Cherry blossom time.   Don’t forget about cherry leaves as well:

Unfortunately, at this point, I was not aware I would end up blogging.  But this was our first course.  And while I do not know all the ingredients, I think the colors suggest Sakura pretty nicely, no?

Next plate:

The visual aspect is stunning with Kaiseki.  However, it is not simply the colors.  The mixture of textures is astounding.  When we think of texture, we think of what we touch, including how the food feels in the mouth.  I feel the textures come out so visually as well with Kaiseki.

Look at the textures of this next dish:

The choices that are made, with the food, how it is prepared, how it is presented, generates this plate of contrasting elements that somehow make a coherent whole.  And all the pieces enhance each other.  It’s like how different colors enhance each other and bring out the most of their essence- like pairing yellow with purple makes purple that much more purple.  The extent this is done with Kaiseki, the sophistication of the choices, well, almost, leaves me wordless.

Another course:

The sashimi- again there are no words.   The prawn with that sauce- with what I now suspect is edamame tofu…

So sublime.  Sensual.  Sensational.

Will post our next meal soon.

However, what I work on next is a post where I wish to go all food nerd.  I don’t know about you, but I find it rather empty to just go through pictures without some sort of context.  I feel my knowledge of Kaiseki is just about nil.  I know it exists.  I have eaten it.  And I have been transformed.  However, I am excited to try to simply learn just a bit more than nil, then post my thoughts.

I thought of him while on my Bodega trip.  Sitting, supping some wine, enjoying the beautiful Pacific, I think to myself:

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton