YAY a Mikka update
I'm such a fan of this type of marketing. That mixology looks good. I did one on blue chair rum so that one worked on me too.
Thank you for still hanging out here!
Blue Chair Rum, hm, I had to look that up... I'd never heard of it. And now I want to try the Coconut Spiced Cream version. That sounds delicious.
So, Happy New Year, everyone, by the way. I forgot to say that yesterday. Hope everyone was safe and happy for their celebration.
So, after the Deep Eddy demonstration, it was, well, hot. So we just sort of wandered over to Japan and hung around in their lobby till the event started. As it was a slow time for meals, no one seemed to mind. These days, they're calling this the...
JAPANESE FOOD AND WINE PAIRING LUNCHEON
(Or something like that.)
...But here's a hint: there's no wine involved.
If you've read previous threads I've made, you'll know that mom and I love this event. I think this is the third or fourth year in a row we've went. This year, though, the price jumped up immensely: it went from being a fifty or so dollar experience to more like a hundred. We seriously discussed did we still want to do it, but in the end, our love for Japanese food won out (so much that we did two Japanese pairings, at that- we did the Teppen Edo habachi one, too). And, honestly? The quality of food went up amazingly. It was always good, but this year it was crazy delicious, and probably in my opinion even better then the habachi meal (which was still lovely). It was one of my favorite meals we had. You could see that the price had changed things, though: other years we've went, all the tables in the center area with the sushi bar have been full. This year, I think there were only three or four tables. I suppose it made for a more intimate experience, though, and more time to bug Gavin (or is it Garin- I swear his nametag says the first, but if you look him up online it's the second), who still recgonized us from the years before. Hee. Oddly, though, we didn't get a picture with him this year. Hm.
Oh, and we had the lucky experience of being there on October 1st, which is Sake day. Woo!
Place setting with the usual pretty folded napkin, water, chopsticks folded cranes, and the sake information card. If you click the picture and zoom in, you might be able to read it. It has the Japanese name of the sake, the translation, the type of sake, the SMV (sake meter value- negative is sweet, positive is dry, water is 0), and the kura- basically, the producer or brewery. (The word kura is really hard to read for some reason.) We were to be served a three course meal (paired with three sakes), though a dessert sake and a little apetizer was also included. Sake, save for the dessert sake, was basically unlimited- they just kept coming around and pouring.
You are seated at a table of four, so that was two strangers for us, but we all warmed up to each other quickly. They were an older couple who enjoyed F&W events, and we discussed ones we had been to and ones we were going to. They were very friendly, and it was up there with that French regional lunch of a few years ago in awesome tablemates for a food and wine event.
The appetizer course included a beer (or ale, rather): Tama no Megumi, a 'Tokyo craft beer' according to my information sheet. In this case, they're using it to mean to 'Blessing of Tama', which I assume is the region they got their water or hops or something from.
We didn't get too much information on the beer: looking online, I'm finding various experts all using different terms to describe the smell and taste. My opinion? Smelled like beer, tasted like beer, but as far as me and beer goes, it was a drinkable beer (an American Pale Ale, if anyone was wondering). It was very, uh, beerish. ...Yeah, that's really all I can say. It wasn't bad. It was one of the beers that was to be featured at the craft beer in Japan event that they had this year, so I suppose it was a good one?
More interesting to me is the appetizer: Asari Clam Tsukudani. Asari clams are, well, a type of clams- native to China, but they're now found on the west cost of the USA and Canada, too. Tsukudani is the method of preperation: simmering the meat/seafood in soy sauce and mirin (mirin is basically a cooking sake- tends to be slightly sweet, and often goes with soy sauce). This made for very salty-sweet little strips of delicious clam. It isn't that appetizing looking, no, but it was delicious tasting.
(Note: everything we ate was delicious. I will likely be using that word a lot.)
The first sake, served in the 'horse-riding cups'. These glasses were originally designed so the samurai class could drink their sake on horseback without spilling it. I assume they were still riding pretty slowly, though. This was a Junmai Ginjyo, which is called the most pure sake: rice, water, and koji (the yeast/mold that ferments it), with nothing else, with the rice heavily polished (though as this was a sweet sake, it was only polished as much as it needed to be to fit in to the catagory). This particular one was Hanakizakura, out of Kyoto and made by Kizakura. This brand I know I can find here in PA, though I've never seen this paticular sake before. The koji is made from cherry blossom flowers, and this sake truly does have a lovely floral smell. It's lightly sweet (it was actually sweeter in SMV then the dessert sake) and had a bit of a fruit notes. It would be a lovely summer sake.
First course: sushi! In paticular, Japanese style sushi.
This is something I feel like I have to explain on the boards every few months, when someone throws a fit about how Tokyo Dining doesn't have a good selection of rolls (or Morimoto's, or even Kimono's (which does have a pretty big Western selection) or wherever). In Japan? Rolls are like the one on the left. An item- cucumber, beef, fish- wrapped in rice, wrapped in seaweed. Not five items wrapped on seaweed deep fried with roe and then a shrimp stuck on top just for the hey of it. Minimalistic is better, and they want you to be able to taste each individual item. Rolls- such as the famed California roll- were almost all invented in America (and Canada, and occasionally Europe) to get foreigners to try raw fish when they wouldn't before. Out of the top 100 sushi items ordered in Japan, the only Western-style roll that makes the list is the California roll. Do you like rolls? Great, I do too! (Mom loves them, in fact.) But if a restaurant is at least trying to be authentic Japanese, their sushi list is more apt to be simple fish on rice (or without it) then a list of various rolls, as that's what's commonly eaten in Japan (my Japanese friend, in fact, refers to eating rolls as 'Eating American', similar to getting burgers). So please people, stop complaining about restaurants trying to be somewhat-authentic not having western style rolls, because then they might get rid of the authentic stuff to put the stuff you can get at any generic Asian Fusion place in the world on the menu. ;_;
Sorry for the rant, but I
am passionate about that subject.
So, here is the traditional (Edo-style) sushi. Starting from the left, that's beef filet in the roll. Then we have tuna: it wasn't toro, but I believe it was blue fin. Then jack mackerel (done with some salt and vinegar), shrimp from Japan (tastes different then shrimp from around here), Japanese saltwater eel (tastes very different then the eel you usually get in the US), and then a pickled daikon radish, fresh real ginger, and soy sauce. You can see there's a little dab of wasabi on the tuna and mackerel: that's traditional, where the sushi chef will usually add as much wasabi (and soy sauce) as he or she feels the fish needs. Let's just say none of the items on the plate needed the soy sauce on the side (though it was nice to have): all were done perfectly, and were extremely flavorful on their own. Tuna, for instance, can be very bland: but this was good tuna. Everything was, guess what? Delicious!
The real stand out was that pickled radish, though. That radish was great. (Mom also loved the ginger.)
Second course brought it's interesting little deal. A box cup of sake, and... salt!
First, I still haven't quite mastered drinking out of the box. The corner is the easiest place, but it still seems hard. I have to keep trying with that. This was Jun Tenzan Junmai sake from Saga, which was very neutral, rating at +1 on the SMV (again, water is 0). Not dry or sweet, it actually had a bit of a sourness- sort of citrusy, perhaps. Tasty, though.
The salt? There was yuzu (that's a type of Japanese lemon, basically) salt, green tea salt, and wasabi salt. Technically, my sheet says it was wasabi, yuzu, and green tea, but there's no way the bright green salt was yuzu. I think it was the green tea, though it could have been the wasabi (wasabi isn't really naturally that bright of a green, but it's so expected basically everyone colors it). They all tasted- well, exactly how you would expect them to taste. The wasabi salt was spicy, the yuzu salt was sour, and the green tea was lighter, and maybe a teensy bit sweet.
The salt was designed for...
This! Tempura! Deep fried kisu-fish (smelt), scallop, kobatcha (pumpkin), shishito pepper, and, oh yes, LOBSTER. What one did was choose one's salt of choice, and rub it on the tempura and eat. It was awesome. My favorite course by far, because coming up with combinations was incredibly fun. Almost everything tasted good on everything else. Green tea and pepper? Sure! Wasabi and lobster? Great! Yuzu and pumpkin? Awesome! Gavin (have I mentioned that he's an awesome presenter?- because he is!) gave us some suggestions, but we were encouraged to make things up and try everything with everything. It was a lot of fun.
But that wasn't even the full course!
(We were encouraged not to eat the sticks. You know. Just in case.)
Part two of the course was Sarashina Buck Wheat Soba (that's the noodles) and duck breast with wasabi and hari-nori (that's needle roasted seaweed, on the top). In this case, I even liked the seaweed, despite not usually being a big fan. The noodles and duck were amazing, though, and a bit of wasabi brightened them up (though they certainly didn't need it). Putting this with the tempura, this might have been my favorite course of everything I ate the whole vacation. Duck, lobster, scallops, pumpkin, fish, pepper, noodles, and tons of salt? I'm game. I'm very game.
Next course, though, would have it's own charms...
As they brought this around for us to oooo and ahhh over. You know what that is? Wagyu beef. You know what wagyu beef is? The best thing ever, clearly.
In the background as we finished course two, we could see (and smell!) the chef cooking the third course... sukiyaki. The same thing we had at the demonstration. But this would be a very different sort of sukiyaki.
First, though, sake, served in the more traditional cup. This was Karatamba Tarekuchi, a Honjozo from Hyogo, and by far the hardest of the sake's to find hanging around the USA. This was a dry sake that could be done anywhere from chilled to hot (including on the rocks) that I thought had a hint of fruit, though not as much as the first sake. This seemed like it was designed to go with salty dishes (though the internet says it would do well with spicy ones, too, and the internet never lies... /beat), and paired much better with the sukiyaki then the red wine had earlier.
And just look at this. And compare it to the picture above. I'll wait!
This had green onions and grilled tofu, but that's the common part. The noodles were potato noodles, not udon, and a much bigger serving (to make up for the lack of rice). There was mizuna ('leafy greens') and that cute little star thing is momijifu. That's basically a bread like substance made from wheat gluten, if I'm understanding my notes correctly. Bean curd is then added. It's sort of soft yet chewy. Finally the beef- that's wagyu. Sukiyaki with wagyu beef.
And, of course, it was delicious.
Chef Aphisek came out a bit later to talk to us: he noted that the version he made was the kind of version one could make at home. This is the kind you go to fancy restaurants and have them make for you.
For good reason, I think.
And... that was basically it.
Save for the dessert sake!
On my list, all it says is 'Pineapple Nigori'. Talking to Gavin, it actually seems like this was a Kanbai shochu with pineapple juice added in. It was thick, creamy, and sweet. Very enjoyable, and a lovely little ending.
This, then, is the bottle of beer and the bottle of the three sake's the courses were paired with (though not the last nigori/shochu or whatever it was). We were allowed to examine them and read them, which was nice. As we were, as usual, the last ones out, we also had a long conversation with Gavin about paper cranes (he kept ripping them when he tried to make them flap), shochu versus sake and the beer pairing- which looked like it would have been a ton of fun, if I could stand beer.
...This was a long post, huh? Well, to summarize: it was lovely, great, enjoyable and of course delicious. Though we keep saying we're not going back to Disney till they finally finish some of their projects, not going to the food and wine next year will be ridiculously hard, and I'm unsure if I can handle it. I want to be at Disney right now, in fact... agh, reading other people's dining reviews is torture! Er. Ahem.
Coming sooner rather then later, hopefully: two quick stops.
But you had no choice since you need to report on it for all your food report followers! 
That is something I need to try!
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