Flavor Boulevard

When I saw GaijinPot published 2 pieces on summer food and summer festival food in Japan, I wanted to write a piece on the same topic, but I got skewered like a dango stick in work. Now that summer is on its way out, here’s an account of what we can (and should) eat in summer in Tokyo – for next year, that is 😉 .

THE SAVORY:

Unaju at Oodawa (~ $20 per set)

1. Eel: this is THE summer food. We Asians believe that eels help cooling the body. Do I feel bad helping to decrease the dwindling number of eels? Yes. Do I get scarred for life by the horrific eel massacre scene in “Jiro: Dreams of Sushi”? Yes. I can proudly say that I had not eaten any eel this summer except this one unaju because my friend’s boss recommended my friend to recommend me of this Oodawa shop near Kashiwa station.
(Gotta say though, most Japanese dishes are naturally 548 times better in Japan than in the States, BUT unaju is not one of them.)

2. Grilled ayu on a stick: basically you should eat anything on a stick. This “sweet fish” is grilled on coal, coated with enough salt to pickle your stomach, and full of tiny bones. You eat it for the spirit of festivals, mostly.

Katsushika Iris Festival in Katsushika Park – a rainy Sunday in June

3. Cucumber on a stick: can’t get any more heat-combatant than this.

4. Cold noodles: soba, somen, cold pasta with boiled anchovies. They’re MUCH better than they sound to our hot-soup-acquainted ears.

5. Okonomiyaki: not the ones in okonomiyaki shops, but the ones highschoolers make at their school festivals. We chanced upon one of them right next to Kencho-ji when we were exhausted by heat and humans in Kamakura. It was cheap and delicious.

Standing in line with all those kids in uniforms, I felt as if I were in an anime.

One of many temple structures in Kencho-ji, the oldest Zen temple in Kamakura.

THE SWEET:

1. Mitsumame: I know some people would MUCH prefer kakigori, but thirst-quenching as it is, I have a morbid fear of eating shaved ice because in some distant past, my mom said kids who chew on ice would soon lose their teeth. So I seek shelter in ice cream. Mitsumame has ice cream, and mochi, and fruits, and syrup.

Two types of warabi mochi on the far left – at a mochi shop in the Sky Tree center.

2. Warabi mochi: of all types of mochi, dango, and daifuku, warabi mochi is the lightest, mildest, and coolest. It just soothes your throat. Green helps too, I felt like I was eating something healthy.

3. Fruits: eat fruits if you have no more windows to throw your money out of. Remove 2 zeros from the price tags and you get the price in USD. $14 for a pound of grapes and $35 for a few peaches?! This is one of those times when I don’t like Japan.

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Guest blogged by C. from Katsushika, Tokyo.

Ramen is all hip now and if I were that into ramen, I probably would try a ramen shop everyday until I exhaust all options in Tokyo (it will take only a few lifetimes). But honestly, there’s SO MUCH MORE about noodles in Japan that I’m glad I didn’t spend all my time with ramen. I don’t regret one bit that I had only ONE bowl of ramen in Tokyo the entire stay. When I think about the spaghetti with boiled anchovy (you can also have it raw) or somen and rice with clam(*), I’m filled with joy. (I really am!)

Ziggy’s Pasta is an unassuming shop a stone’s throw away from Koutoku-in in Kamakura – the temple with the great copper statue of Buddha, where 60% of the tourists stick their hands out for a statue-carrying pose.

When we visited in Kamakura, my life goal was too eat shoujin ryouri (精進料理) – traditional Buddhist vegetarian meal, but that goal was quickly quenched because everybody and their grandma were lining up outside every restaurant during lunch time, and no shoujin ryouri restaurant was opened for dinner. So we walked along the street in dejection, and suddenly I saw Ziggy’s Pasta. If I can’t have what I want, I might as well eat the first thing I see – pasta.

This is their menu. The guy recommended the left page as their specialty: cold spaghetti in 3 different types of sauce topped with shirasu (which I didn’t understand but was in for the thrill anyway), which can be served either raw or boiled. I’m not into tomato sauce and I didn’t know what “sudachi” was (the first category), so that’s that. With “bajiru”, I just felt a chance of knowing what it meant, so I asked him what “bajiru” was. He thought and thought, and tilted his head, “bajiru desu ne…? sorewa, italy no …” (loosely mean “bajiru huh? It’s an Italian …”) and tilted his head some more. I tilted my head too, to search for an Italian thing that is green and starts with “b”. It took me a good minute. Can you guess?

Here is spaghetti with boiled shirasu (anchovy) in bajiru sauce. Admittedly it neither sounds nor looks too heart-warming – I had never had cold pasta with fish before, much less boiled fish, but this dish confirms that the Japanese knows how to work their fish into everything. The fish is not at all fishy, just a tiny bit salty, the pasta and the sauce work together splendidly, and the coolness from the plate to the silverware to the pasta lifts you up from the afternoon summer heat like no other. I was revived.

The sudachi option with raw anchovy has more zest, but I think I’m not quite there with the raw fish, they go down a little too… smooth? This dish was definitely going for the slimy smooth theme, considering the raw egg and ikura (salmon roe). The myoga (Japanese ginger flower buds) adds a much appreciated crunch, though.

Thinking back, the evening at Ziggy’s Pasta was one of the more memorable meals I had in Japan. It’s worth missing out on the traditional Buddhist meal. Sure, spaghetti is much less Japanese than shoujin ryouri, but where can you find spaghetti like this but in Japan?

Address: Kamakura Ziggy’s Pasta
神奈川県鎌倉市長谷1-16-25
Kamakura, Japan

(To be continued)

Foodnote:
(*) Somen and rice with clam will have to wait until Noodles Part 3. Originally I intended to do them with cold spaghetti, but as I wrote on, I realized that cold spaghetti deserves it own post, and so does somen. 🙂

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Guest blogged by C. from Katsushika, Tokyo.