In a hurry after the end of my language camp, we dropped by the 105yen sushi store. But the fish there doesn’t compare to what followed…

Dinner with the family, sashimi *grins*

There were several other dishes of fish, but impressively it was finished off with this. It was quite a surprise to have this placed in front of me. Two eyes staring up at you.

The next day for lunch… Sushi Train!

You can actually taste the difference between the fish quality, compared to the day before.

My advice if going to the 105yen sushi train is to get the sushi with only one piece on the plate. It tastes so much better than the ones with two on a plate.

And if you’re visiting Japan, definitely go to a proper (tiered plate pricing) sushi train. Get recommendations from locals as to which restaurant is best, but you’ll be doing yourself and your taste buds a favour.

At home, for dinner, I got a whole fish to myself.

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On New Years Eve, we eat soba and watch Kohaku on TV. On New Years Day we go to the shrine and then come home to the below scene.

You can see why I like New Years so much!

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The minimum spend was ￥20,000, which is around AUD$250, and you get about 15-20 pieces of sushi. What I didn’t realise was that when the Taicho asks you “Can you still eat more?”, he’s giving you a subtle reminder that you’ve reached the threshold, and that if you keep eating, you’re going to pay more. Apparently, it isn’t uncommon for people to spend between ￥30,000 and　￥50,000 a night.

The reason for the price difference is evident when you actually taste the sushi. It’s so fresh, so soft and tasty…

The restaurant only seats 7 people at the counter, and an additional 4 people in the back room. The service was amazing, with the cups of tea being replaced, rather than being refilled, the washcloth replaced several times…

The rice is also super special. The taicho has a special rice field which is specially grown organically and other things (there were newsarticles about the rice in the bathroom…but they were in japanese…)

The taicho asked us if there was anything we didn’t like, or if there was anything we wanted.

I like pretty much everything, so we said we would leave it to the taicho to decide.

As two of us weren’t drinking, we were started with sushi.

When you drink, you start off with sashimi, and only get given rice/sushi near the end. Only one of us was drinking, and they started off with this.

The prawn sushi was amazing. It was so fresh you could literally taste it.

And they weren’t kidding when they said it was fresh. The tank was right behind us.

After we ate the prawn, they gave us the baked tail, salted. It was surprising yum!

Tuna is my favourite fish. In Australia, when you say tuna, we think canned tuna which is meh at best. But this tuna was being soaked in a super tasty marinade.

The taicho is quite strict (which is apparently normal) and for whatever reason, he wouldn’t let us use soysauce (he, in the past, allowed soy sauce). So it could have been the way he was preparing it this time that made it ‘special’ that soy sauce would have offended him.

The abalone was simply amazing. It was so soft and slightly sweet. Words cannot express.

The sushi prepared as it comes. The pace is rather slow as the taicho is serving for each of the seven customers, which is good for drinking and talking.

Which is probably all part of the experience. The businessmen, and their female ‘partners’, would be talking and then ask for a particular type of fish, then talk for another 10 mins or more, just ‘eating’ that one piece of sushi.

mmm. Octopus. One of my favourites!

The rice grain is smaller than the normal one, and is soft and so tasty. It’s taken rice cooking to a whole new level.

It looks so ordinary! It looks so lonely on the plate. But damn is it good! If only we could get this in Australia!

This sushi experience was undoubtedly the best one I’ve ever had. 

Given the price tag, this is definitely something to do for those ‘special’ occasions. If you enjoy eating sashimi and raw fish sushi (as against teriyaki chicken sushi), this is one thing to add to your “To Do” list for Japan!

Australian sushi train has, over the years, become increasingly faithful to the japanese model, and introduced many of the japanese dishes. However, Australian sushi has lots of chicken sushi, which doesn’t feature in Japan (much), and can be a shock to some travelers (who tend to not eat raw fish at sushi train in Oz). The seafood down under is also, all too often, frozen or canned.

We went to a fairly popular local ‘train’. Notice the live fish swimming in the window.

There was the familiar conveyor belt, filled with sushi and options for ordering.

Have you ever been to a sushi train and you order a dish and they just take it off the conveyor belt and give it to you?

I was surprised that in Japan, if you order a dish from one of the chef’s (masters), they have to (and they do) make it fresh for you.

Below is Aburi Salmon, available in Australia (I still remember when they introduced it into the Sydney Sushi Train), and one of our favourites.

My favourite dish is ‘jou magarou’　(good tuna), which means it is a better cut of the tuna, and thus more expensive, but TASTES SO GOOD!

The sushi train has a special dish (pictured below), for birthday people (me) with a range of different seafoods, and it is a ‘service’ (that means free). Yum! And yay for being free!

The scallops are SO FRESH! They taste amazing! They literally melt in your mouth.

It’s all about the fish. Buri (mature hamachi). Yum.

Below is chawanmushi, which means ‘boiled bowl’, and is egg with various things inside, such as prawn, mushroom, fish, scallop and unidentified beans. Tastes good though.

 Below is Toro, a special part (the best and most expensive) of a Tuna. It doesn’t look that special, but you can actually feel the fattiness of the tuna as you eat it. 

I’m still learning my way around the different fish and cuts. But I don’t mind. It’s a yummy class!

The miso soup they had was also really nice, with proper seaweed and chunks of salmon in it.

I have lots more photos, but they don’t look that special or that different, so I won’t bore you. It’s in the taste that you find a world of difference.

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Here’s a short pictorial overview of some of the great stuff we’ve been upto here in Japan from when I got here in mid-December up until New Years Day 2010.

Please feel free to comment at the end by clicking on “Comments”.

When I first got to Japan, after the drama of my flight being cancelled by Jetstar (and ruining a bunch of plans), we had a combined welcome party for both myself, and the latest JET program teacher and his family who were visiting.

His girlfriend came a few day later and we had another party, with Japanese curry for dinner.

As Christmas was coming and my mum had given the family a gingerbread house as a present, we, together with a friend, built our very first gingerbread house!!

And a triumphant group after finishing!

We had Christmas dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Lots of fun!

Fun for everyone!

After christmas we gave the doghouse a makeover and painted it pink!

It suits her!

My birthday was up next. We went to a nearby hotel where we went for a hike in the beautiful mountains and used their onsens, which faced the mountains and the bay.

We also had a special blowfish dinner (yes the poisonous kind the chef needs a license for). Yum! And we’re still alive

And the birthday cake! When it is cut, it makes little heart shapes! Cute and smart (and tasty!)

We then went to Matsue in Shimane and stayed at a hot spring hotel, Cho rakuen (長楽園). This place has the largest natural outdoor onsen, and it is mixed bathing, which is fairly unique for Japan.

It also has great food. Here’s us having a special set dinner.

We’re in our own special dining room.

Great food and drink.

And here’s the food. This was the first course. There were several other courses as well consisting of lobster and fish.

And the Sashimi platter. Did I mention Sashimi? YUM!

And after all the eating. This is the entire family, including grandmother and great-aunt.

We had a cold change come through and it started snowing!

One other great thing about the hotel is that we were staying in the suites. Which had their own private onsen per room.

I loveeeee hot springs. At our overnight stay I went 7 times into the hotsprings. Which is quite a lot, but it’s soooo good!

Driving back was a little scary with all the roads snowed over. Several feet of snow in places!

And a family photo as we were leaving.

We came back on New Years Eve, in time to have some soba and sushi for dinner, as well as watch the special NHK New Years Eve TV show.

New Years Day is big in Japan. We went to the temple and then came back for brunch.

And everyone welcomes in 2010.

Including shin-shin.

2010 has just begun. A new chapter with lots of new and exciting adventures awaiting.

Wishing everyone a safe, prosperous and happy new year for 2010.

For those that have read my posts about food, the fact that I love sashimi comes across pretty obviously.

The new years massive obento’s I blogged about yesterday have already disappeared to a better place, and today is also an important New Years day for Japanese.

We also went to another shrine today, a bigger one, and prayed for good luck. This shrine also had a lady who shook an oharai (a paper rod thingy) over us, which is meant to get rid of our sins.

So, when the parents came back with this special box this afternoon, which will be the centerpiece of our dinner tonight, I was literally jumping with glee. Yes, glee.

Update: Outside, we’re cooking Oysters, massive ones, on an open fire, which is pretty awesome!! This is one batch of fresh oysters being cooked. Nice dinner anyone?

I am going to have a very, very awesome dinner tonight. Happy New Year everyone =D

On Friday we went to a buffet restaurant called “Cotton Club” which had three floors, and the buffet. It had a very Western/marine feel to it, similar to the train we took to Fukuyama. The restaurant was very popular and had lots of parties in there, but the area we were in was very cozy, and most importantly, close to the buffet!

And the first set of dishes we ate. The food had everything, from pizza, to fried tofu to daikon to dumplings, noodles, potatoes, beef, fish and everything. <3 The photos don’t really do the food justice, but they are really yummy!

On Sunday, to celebrate our ‘mini-anniversary’ or what I call K-day, we went to an all-you-can-order-food-and-drink restaurant, which was only 2800yen for males and 2600yen for females. I guess guys eat and drink more than girls. But 200yen isn’t that much of a difference…

The restaurant had nice tables and enclosed areas, and a vague Japanese atmosphere.

The drinks were a nice size. You could only order the next round once you had eaten/drunk everything first. Stops us from being too greedy =p

The food was yum. We ordered, well lots of stuff, and this was the first batch to arrive. Once the food started coming, the photos stopped being taken. You can see Takoyaki, pork and cheese rolls and karaage chicken.

Tabasco sauce, as my mouth can attest to, has not lost any of its potency through being exported from the USA to Japan. It went really well on the pizza we got (picture of pizza missing as it was in my stomach already).

But now we come to the best part. In China, you were limited to one plate of sashimi. But here in Japan, you can order as many – as – you – like. It makes going to the buffet WORTH IT. SUCH GOOD VALUE!!

The first plate of sashimi. You’ll notice my drink is Calpis, which is an awesome drink that we don’t have back down under. The sashimi plate had prawns, tuna, squid and salmon.

The second plate of sashimi was just Salmon, but it was REALLY FRESH! Like, omg, fresh!

The third plate of sashimi was Salmon also. I love salmon. <3. This photo also features a flying fried dumpling-like food.

The fourth plate was the sashimi selection platter again. They had several other sashimi plates available, but <3 salmon and tuna. Jealous yet?

We then took a break from all the awesome food to have dessert.

After dessert, when the last order time came around, I simply HAD to order another plate of salmon sashimi, and here you see the 5th and final plate of sashimi we had.

With a good exchange rate, it would have been AUD$28 for the meal, and even with the crappy exchange rate we have now, it was AUD$45 for the meal. The sashimi alone (not counting everything else we ate and drank) made it EXCELLENT value.

Man, I love sashimi, and where better to have it than in Japan? We’re going to another all-you-can-order restaurant for Christmas Eve. *grin*