Tag Archives: kanazawa

But What About the Food?

Beautiful way to start our meal - Kikunoi Roan

Hassun course at Kikunoi Roan: skewer of miso-marinated avocado, smoked salmon and Tai liver; grilled squid with nori seaweed and egg yolk; fava beans, mountain yam “butterfly;” poached egg-bearing octopus; Tai sushi with Kinome pepper leaf; Yurime lily root petals; Udo stalk petals; ikura.

Indeed, what about the food?  The trip was planned after all, in CCDD fashion, around food.  It’s been absolutely glorious – from the high-end to the low, from street food or market stands to Michelin-starred establishments and smoky izkayas, train station ekiben or small ramen-yas filled with salarymen… we’ve been eating very, very well.

In Osaka, I think I quite had my fill of takoyaki; DD kept wanting to sample these wherever we went, and we ended up tasting some from 4 different vendors.  We also loved sushi fresh from Kuromon market and Endo Sushi in Osaka’s Central Wholesale Fish Market, similar to, but not as big as Tsukiji.

Okonomiyaki in the Dotonbori

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In search of Sakura

Bugbears in bloom: Ume no Hana in Kenrokuen

We’d read that the best times to visit Japan were either in the Spring or Autumn.  DD, reluctant to miss porcini season in the Bay Area, made the decision easier and we selected springtime for hanami, or flower-viewing – when most of the country goes crazy for the beautiful pale pink cherry blossoms that are spread so widely across the entire nation.  We arrived in Osaka to find it a bit chilly and indeed, a bit too early for sakura; buds were still green and tight among the trees we saw…

After a few days in Osaka, we traveled by shinkansen to Takayama, a mountain town in Central Japan known for their well-preserved old town of machiya, or merchant’s houses.

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