*Nahoko Morimoto is a Tokyo-based photographer. Her work has been featured in Brutus and Vogue Japan.

Happy New Year!  I can’t believe the holiday season passed so quickly, and now we are in 2012.  Soon we will be bitching about the hot summer.

I was in Japan for the holidays, and had quite a few good food moments. I am really thankful to iPhone since I can now take pictures anywhere (and pretty decent quality ones).

Wine in a can.

Top part becomes a glass for your drink — a brilliant idea. But it tasted pretty crappy. I bought this before my flight to Melbourne, after enduring a 13-hour flight from New York to Tokyo, and I went right to sleep after drinking it, so thank you crappy canned wine.

Very pink shabu-shabu beef from Nagano. I think I had four shabu shabu meals during my stay, and every time the beef was extremely pink. I am not young any more, and my doctor warned me that my cholesterol is too high and to avoid beef, but when I am in Japan, it’s just impossible not to eat fatty beef.

People say you don’t need teeth to eat these babies, and it’s very true. They literally melt in your mouth.

MOS burger. The best hamburger chain EVER.

Despite so many selections like pork tonkatsu with cabbage, or teriyaki chicken with crispy lettuce, which are two of my favorites, I ordered the original MOS burger, which has a huge slice of tomato, minced onion, and meat sauce. Heavenly.

For the first time in my life, I went to the Tsukiji fish market. I was not interested in seeing bunch of fish, but I was very much excited about going to a sushi restaurant there. Since they are directly connected to the market, the quality of fish is superb, and prices are very reasonable.

Neighboring restaurants Sushi Yamato and Sushi Dai, are the most famous ones in the area, hence the lines are very very long. I hate waiting in lines, and I asked one of the shop persons in the area for another recommendation and he suggested Iwasa Sushi. We still waited about 30 minutes, but it was SO worth every minute of the wait.

I am still salivating from looking at this picture.

From left: very sweet squid, aji (horse mackerel), kohada (gizzard shad), fatty tuna, and my favorite of the day, katsuo (bonito).
The katsuo was so sweet, and almost creamy, as was the tai (snapper). So good.

This place  features a lot of different kai (clams), and my friend ordered kai galore. I can’t remember what they were, but they were apparently awesome.

Uni, say no more. When I was in San Francisco, I had very good Santa Barbara uni, but it doesn’t compare to this one.

Shirako, aka raw fish jizz. It literally bursted in my mouth…

It was like dessert.

This is the original Yoshinoya.  I had no idea they started in Tsukiji.

After Tsukiji, I went to Kappa-bashi, which is sort of similar to Bowery Street here in New York. Store after store of restaurant supply and kitchen gadgets. I was in heaven. Look at these food items made out of wax!

The reason I went to Kappa-bashi was because I was picking up my press. I ordered MOTO logo press. How cool is this?

How cute are these coffee cup balconies??

I was done with busy Tokyo, and went back to my hometown. On my way back to rural Japan, I stopped by at a home supply store (I needed to buy scissors to cut nose hair since they were getting way too long), and found bags of fermented cow poop as fertilizer.  I mean we all know animal poop is used to fertilize soil, but I’ve never seen them packaged and sold in bags. Look how happy both farmers and a cow are.

Japan is obsessed with crab meat during holiday season. Holiday season is all about spending money, and Japan is no exception. In the US, the holiday meal is usually turkey, ham, steak, etc., but in Japan, it’s crab or beef. This was a newspaper ad filled with crab meat.

My brother went fishing in the middle of the night one day, and came home early in the morning with super fresh horse mackerels.

He served this fresh sashimi for breakfast.

Unfortunately there was no rice to eat with, so I had a bagel. Bagel and horse mackerel sashimi for breakfast. I usually don’t care too much for small fish, but these were super fresh.

By the way, WTF does “Orange & Lemons said the bells of saint clements” mean on the plate?  Is this a total Japangrish? What an odd mixture of dishes, too. Anders wouldn’t approve of this. Soy sauce on a fake Pooh-print dish? My home is equipped with very odd mixtures of dishes, in sets of 3, since mom, brother and sister-in-law are the only regular residents of the house.

A couple days before New Year, I tagged along with a friend of mine to a fish market nearby. Extremely busy, since everything there was quite reasonably priced. Snappers are also big during the holiday season, and there were bunch of them. Did you know there are various types of squid? Mongo, aori, yari, to name a few, and each has different shapes and texture.

Here are the items I brought back from Japan.

This is one of the fine purchases from the trip. Silicon cooking chopsticks. I wanted dishwasher safe chopsticks since my wooden ones got pretty bent from high heat, yet I refuse to hand wash them.

These are far better than wooden kind since the tip grips extremely precisely. Unlike the wooden kinds, they don’t slip at all.

Do you know what this is?

Slide in a piece of seaweed.

And it punches out smile face. How cute?  There were a couple of different faces. I bought them at a dollar store. I may have to start character bento spree.

These are very convenient — you can now make conbini (convenient store) style rice balls. Seaweed can be stored separately and so whenever you eat it, it’s always crispy.

Japan is filled with cool food stuff.

I don’t miss Japan much as a whole, but I do miss Japan’s high quality food. I went to Mitsuwa market in New Jersey to feel good, and surely I found a lot of good stuff, but Mitsuwa is always very dangerous. $32o, for I don’t even remember what I bought….

By Sasha Wizansky

On October 27, a crew from OPENharvest woke up at 5am and headed up into the mountains, into Nagano prefecture, for a series of farm and producer visits. As usual we made a few pitstops along the way. Tal, head roaster of Four Barrel Coffee, experienced his first highway rest stop breakfast: udon at 7am.

Once in Nagano, we met up with chef Norihiko Fujiki and his staff at a local farmer’s market. Fujiki had put together a packed itinerary to showcase Nagano prefecture specialties.

Newspaper reporters and a local television crew were there to meet us. It was explained that this particular market
allowed farmers to sell fruits and vegetables that weren’t perfectly formed enough for the big supermarkets. To our eyes, the produce here did look perfect.

Our next stop was a mountain potato farm. The farmer, Eiko Ouike, demonstrated the new machine they are using to dig up the roots. He is conducting an experiment into organic processes. So far, his new methods yield mountain potatoes that are a bit smaller, but with a viscous texture, a prized quality for these slimy vegetables.

A stop for lunch in a quaint mountain restaurant, Douhira, followed.

Fujiki grated one of the mountain potatoes from Ouike’s farm, and served each of us a small bowl of the thick, white stuff to mix with the broth for the soba.

We had new soba, made with the season’s fresh buckwheat crop. New soba is made with 100% buckwheat, which creates a stronger-tasting, textured noodle. With less gluten, these noodles are generally shorter. We watched the proprietor of the soba shop as she drained the noodles for our lunch and decorated each portion with autumn leaves.

Jonathan Waters enjoyed his first restaurant meal in Japan.

To keep on schedule, we rushed off to Chiyoko Komura’s herb farm. Chiyoko-san greeted us warmly, and showed us around her impeccable farm.

Chris commented that all the herbs were delicious, and ordered a wide selection for the wine dinner planned for several days later at HOUSE.

It was a dazzling autumn day. We walked down the road to see the new buckwheat drying in a field.

A quick stop followed to see some terraced rice fields.

And then we stopped again at an apple farm. The apples were the biggest we had ever seen.

As time was getting short, we split into two groups. I opted to visit a mushroom farm.

After getting an official welcome from the mushroom company owner and the mayor of the town, the owner’s son who runs the farm showed us around. The “farm” is a series of humidity- and temperature-controlled rooms, each calibrated for a particular mushroom variety.

I was very inspired by the misty, dim, atmospheric rooms.

The other group visited the Moshida-en chestnut farm instead. Apparently, this farm has been in the family in that location for 400 years. The proprietor, Toshiko Moshida, served up a selection of chestnut preparations: fried, boiled, and mashed. The chestnuts were sweet and delicious. Kayoko took photos:

The final tour of the night was at Obuse Winery. The young winemaker showed us the barrels of grapes fermenting in their skins. He uses natural yeasts.

Photo by Kayoko Akabori

We enjoyed sips of several of his wines in the tasting room before heading off in the van for a snack and a bed at Fujiki’s restaurant and hotel, Espoir De Maison.

*Sasha Wizansky is the Editor-in-Chief and Art Director of Meatpaper magazine, a print journal of art and ideas about meat and meat culture.

**All photos by Sasha Wizansky

***This post was originally posted on www.openharvestjapan.com.

Now, I’ve always considered myself quite the noodle connoisseur, but I had never heard of the houtou noodle before. Originating in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan, the noodles are like thicker versions of udon, but flat, ribbon-like and looooong. It is served in a miso broth with many vegetables and meats, in a heavy steel pot. Nabeyaki style.

Naoko and her mom took me to a place in Yamanashi that specializes in houtou, called Kosaku.

There are many varieties of houtou, including venison. Game is widely served in this part of the country.

Plastic displays not for eating.

The interior of the restaurant was very homey, old-Japan style. Many people can sit around this table and admire the steel fish.

I didn’t really know what to expect, but one thing was certain: I better be hungry.

I ordered the oyster houtou, as it was proudly hand-written as a seasonal special on the wall.

However, as Yamanashi is a landlocked part of the country, I really should have gone for the meat variety. But the kabocha pumpkin was sweet and delicious.

Here is the actual noodle. So thick! So long!

The contents of this soup included sansai (“greens of the forest”), kabocha, shiitake, carrots, and even potatoes. Yamanashi’s winters are harsh, so I imagine that this is the ultimate heart-warming, comfort food in this region. Especially with such a hearty miso broth, this was certainly a meal for lumberjacks and burly hunters. Ha. I kid. Actually, according to the Wiki page, houtou was considered the poor-man’s food until restaurants such as Kosaku started popping up around town. I guess adding ingredients like oysters and gochujang is considered a montrosity to locals. Ain’t modern life grand??

I bet houtou would be great first thing in the morning, before heading out for school or work, getting ready for the icy cold day ahead.

Burrrrrr. I love California. Time for some ice cold somen!

A cat cafe is not a place that serves cat sandwiches. It is a cafe… with cats.

Cat Cafes in Japan were very popular in the early-mid 2000s and still remain peppered throughout Tokyo. Building on the otaku culture of manga, maid and mimikaki (ear cleaning) cafes, cat cafes provide solace for people who love cats but can’t have cats in their apartments. Unlike the maid and butler cafes, cat cafes entice both sexes and are much cleaner and innocent than some of the more gender specific cafes in Akihabara (i.e. imoto or “little sister” cafes).

Cateriam is a cat cafe located near the west exit of Shimokitazawa station. Kayoko and I were walking to Second House for coffee and cake, when we stumbled upon Cateriam’s curiosity-inducing signage “3rd Anniversary: 300 yen for 15 minutes.”

After laughing and pointing at the sign for a few minutes, I suggested that as Umamimart (a media machine that brings you pressing issues in Japan), it was our duty to patronize a cat cafe.

Upon entry we were given a short, concise run-down of the rules.

Take your shoes off…

Wash your hands in the sink provided…

It is the customer’s responsibility to keep track of the clock.

Scan the menu…

Don’t mistreat or startle the cats.

Photos are OK.

Kayoko and I intended to stay there for only 15 minutes so we wanted to explore as much as we could, quickly. The general scene include about 15 cats draped all over cubbies, nabe (clay pots), book shelves and shoeboxes. Kayoko and I quickly found our favorites and admired their clean coats and pink paws.

Kayoko’s fave:

My fave:

Meanwhile, the server took our order and came back with a tray of our beverage and a little snack sized Aero chocolate.

I would say the most bizarre aspect of the cat cafe was how sedated these cats looked. Garfield would have been proud of these cats — pampered day and night by strangers whispering sweet nothings in their little, furry ears, eating Japanese canned cat food and having an array of toys to choose from. They were so out-of-it that I couldn’t tell if they were even looking at me. Their food must be really special…

Zzzzzzz…

Zzzzzzz…

“Why are you bothering me?”

Going to the cat cafe made me realize how cynical I can be. The staff and patrons seemed so genuine, not finding any part of this to be silly. Erecting shrines for cats that have gone “bye-bye” and setting up twitter accounts for some of the cats, there was something perfectly innocent about this whole operation.

Shrine for deceased Caterium cat…

Birthday illustration from fans…

Follow your favorite cat on Twitter…

Or friend them on Mixi (Japan’s Facebook):

Pink paws…

Some cats have their own DVDs.

We asked the staff person how the cats reacted to the earthquake back in March. She said that all of them piled into the corner of the room and refused to come out for a few days. These cats have recovered nicely, sleeping out in the open and providing therapy for their human admirers.

Teishoku is a pre-set meal — a main dish, always with miso soup and a bowl of rice, and it builds from there according the chef’s seasonal fancies (pickles, tofu, salad, etc). These meals are very popular during lunch, when salarymen and women can quickly run into a restaurant and get a warm, complete meal for as low as $10.

Teishoku often arrive to your table on gorgeous laquered obon (tray), or sometimes simply on a janky, run-of-the-mill cafeteria tray. But no matter — most important is what’s ON the tray. The plates and bowls each vary from tray to tray, and there are usually no “matching” tableware on any of them. During our three weeks in Japan, my OPENharvest colleagues and I had many teishoku sets. Here are some highlights.

Sanma (pacific saury) teishoku. Uokatsu Restaurant (1-6-5 Azabu Juban, Minato-ku, Tokyo. Tel: 03-3401-7959). By Yoko Kumano.

Hayashi raisu with kaki fry (fried oysters) teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Kelly Ishikawa.

Breakfast at Hakkaisan Brewery. By Sasha Wizansky.

Maguro teishoku. Tsukiji, Tokyo. By Yoko Kumano.

Okayu (porridge) teishoku. Higashiya Restaurant (Pola Ginza bldg. 2F 1-7-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Tel: 03 5720 1310). By Aya Brackett.

Shirasu-don (white fish rice bowl) teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Kayoko Akabori.

Tempura-chazuke. Kondo Restaurant (Sakaguchi Building 9F, 5-5-13 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Tel: 03.5568.0923). By Aya Brackett.

Sanma teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Sasha Wizansky. 

Onsen (hot springs) breakfast. Hakone. By Yoko Kumano.

Chirashi teishoku. Tsukiji, Tokyo. By Kayoko Akabori.

Oden (fish cake stew) teishoku. Azabu-juban, Tokyo. By Sasha Wizansky.

Hayashi raisu teishoku. Azabu-juban. By Yoko Kumano.

I personally did not get to eat sanma at all while in Japan, and am gravely regretting it. However, I did have hayashi rice meals TWICE, however. Both Kelly’s and Yoko’s photos came from the same little grubby hole-in-the-wall in Azabu-juban, Tokyo. It had had a very 60s, Tokyo Drifter vibe. During lunch, the place was packed with salarymen, all whom were indecisive of what to order from their long menu. Cigarette-smoking and manga-reading optional.

Don’t forget the tissue. By Kelly Ishikawa.

That place was definitely one of the more memorable spots during my trip. I am craving hayashi rice now that I am back, and will make some, per Yamahomo’s recipe.

*Top photo of the buta no shyoga yaki (ginger pork) teishoku by Aya Brackett. In Odaicho, Mie prefecture.

**Aya Brackett worked as a photo editor at Dwell Magazine. Based in San Francisco, she now freelances for magazines, book publishers and companies worldwide.

***Kelly Ishikawa is a San Francisco-based photographer and the co-owner of The Perish Trust.

****Sasha Wizansky is the Editor-in-Chief and Art Director of Meatpaper magazine, a print journal of art and ideas about meat and meat culture.

Photo by Kelly Ishikawa, a San Francisco-based photographer and the co-owner of The Perish Trust.

*This is a part of an ongoing exclusive series on Umamimart, Radiation + Japan. Please check out these other posts and videos for more:

Testing of Food in Japan, By Yoko Kumano

Interview with Washio, Bar Owner (Tokyo), By Yoko Kumano

Testing Report and Thoughts, By Howie Correa

Interview with Satoshi Imai, Rice Farmer (Niigata), By Yoko Kumano

Before leaving for my big trip to Japan, I knew that the one and only thing I really wanted to eat was unagi. Eel! It is quite a delicacy in Japan, and is pricey as hell. Often they are run by families that have been serving eel for generations.

Since childhood, my grandfather has been taking us to his neighborhood unagi-ya (shop), Outone. It is near the Katsutadai station in Chiba prefecture, and we would go every time we visited him and my aunt. The Akaboris adore this place, and it is where most family functions are held.

So when my aunt asked me what I wanted to eat when I visited her, I of course said UNAGI! It was closed the last time I was in Japan three years ago, and I have been craving a good kabayaki for years. She made a reservation at Outone, picked me up at the train station, and we walked straight to the restaurant. It is funny–no matter how many years go by, eating rituals never really change much, do they?

I am unsure of how long exactly Outone has been in Katsutadai, but by the looks of the architecture, I would say decades, at least. Most likely the owners live upstairs.

If you look closely, the うof ü-nagi has a distinct typography. This is pretty status quo for all unagi shops throughout Japan, as it symbolizes the slithery eel. Pretty clever.

The never-changing menu is in a display case under the sign.

We were the first customers at the restaurant, at 11:30am. My aunt immediately asked how many pieces of unagi I wanted. I opted for two and a half. Even though we were the only people in the restaurant at that point, it still took 20 minutes. Perfection takes time.

I snooped around while waiting for lunch. Right by the front door, the chefs work openly, preparing the fresh, live unagi and grilling right there. (Watch Kuni prepare anago, here).

Forget that pre-packaged, frozen stuff from Thailand we get here in the states. This is the real deal!

Lunchtime.

Hooray!

Two and a half pieces of glistening, just-murdered unagi, grilled and sauced, over a hot bed of rice. I want to pet them.

The unagi is buttery, fluffy and savory.

Grill marks.

Last bite. Sadface.

The meal comes with  gorgeous suimono, which is a clear soup with dashi taken from unagi guts. It’s lying right above the uzura (quail egg) and shiitake. Mitsuba is a must (sort of a Japanese parsley).

The end.

I knew I shoulda gone for the three pieces of unagi.

Outone inscribed unagi boxes.

I can’t wait to see my aunt again…

My dad’s sister. Don’t I look exactly like her?

…and visit Outone in Katsutadai.

That, and I’ll also need to visit Nagoya for some hitsumabushi!

Ramen is all the rage here on both coasts in the US, and it’s still going strong in Japan. Strangely though, I didn’t eat too much of it during this trip to Japan. Unlike Sam White, the host of our OPENharvest adventure, who had upwards of 50 bowls of ramen during his month-long stay, I only had three bowls. Once in Saitama, for a quick slurp before a whisky distillery tour; another at 10am one morning after a treacherous night drinking with my family; and lastly this shop in Chiba called Tonikaku.

We were on our way to the Natural Harmony center in Chiba to check out the process for testing radiation in food. Our guides Tou-san and Yoshikai-san wanted to take us to a good ramen spot for lunch on the way there, per Sam’s obsession for it. After making a few circles through town while studying the map on the cellphone, we finally found it.

There was already a long line out the door when we got there. A lady came around to take our orders before we were seated, and would not allow us to order for Tou-san, who had gone to park his car. She was very strict about this, and I loved her for being such a hardass. This would never fly in the States, as it is natural to cut in and out of line for anything, which aggravates the hell out of me. I really liked that they held people accountable for not being there IN PERSON.

Once we were in, we paid at the machine.

Whoever invented this is a serious genius.

We sat at the counter. Of course!

Three dudes behind the counter, making all the ramen and side dishes.

The man in the red was the owner, I believe. He said that Tonikaku has been around for six years now.

While I excitedly waited for my ramen, I went to the restroom. On the way, I peeked into the window of a little side room and saw this small factory:

Holy shitballs, they make their own noodles! At this moment, I knew Tonikaku was serious.

Back at the counter, I watched the boys make ramen. First, they would dunk a little scooper into a huge boiling pot. Each scoop was the soup base for the ramen bowl, that they would then filter through a sieve because it was so full of bones and the fat and all the GOOD STUFF!

Then, the noodles. Here is a little video of the guy shaking off the water from the ramen noodles.

My compadres and I were mesmerized as we watched the guy methodically shake the noodles. Sam noted that each ramen chef has his own way of doing this, like his own signature style. Like a barman’s cocktail shake.

Instead of the typical gyoza pieces, they have a gyoza bou, or log.

A little silly, but quite good. Just onions and pork and nira (garlic chives).

And, the moment of truth:

The housemade noodles were thicker than usual, and springy, just the way I like it.

The Egg!

And the broth. Oh the broth! I drank it all. It was so thick and heavy and oily and so full of flavor and umami.

Do you see all the bits of STUFF? There are ground peppers and all sorts of spices and bits of onion and meats. The oil pockets glistens under the fluorescent lights. Can’t you just smell this???

When Japanese people eat ramen in the States they are often disappointed–the broth is too light and frou-frou. For them, ramen soup should be heavy, hearty, and greasy enough to nurture you after a night of heavy drinking. Tonikaku satisfied all of the above , and after the meal, all I wanted was to be wheeled out and taken to a bed for a deep sleep.