I realised after the last round of posts, I missed a photo because I was in a rush to meet Emma for breakfast. (sneak peek behind the scenes, I tend to select the photos I'm going to talk about while I have hotel wifi, hibernate the laptop, and then write the text on the train, since the loading of the photos is the only bit that requires a network connection.)
As a result the first photo is from Nikko.
Anyway, the vending machine in the hotel sold this:
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| I assume it means that it's now contains 20% more beef. |
So I did the obvious thing.
I bought a bottle, said "Hey Emma, I bought you a drink" and filmed her reaction to drinking it, as I sipped on the Orangina that I also bought from the vending machine.
Anyway, onto Takayama, or at least starting with the train ride there...
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| Shops at the train station sell Bento boxes |
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| This one is a selection of regional styles of food, from a very wide region. |
Takayama is in a region called Hida which is famed for it's beef.
So for dinner one the first night, we had sushi. I mean, what better idea when in a mountain town, four hours train ride from the nearest ocean, than to consume raw fish,
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| The sake carafe, with its ice chamber. |
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| The "Chef's Selection" |
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| crab miso soup |
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having finished that, we started ordering by the piece.
Uni, Ikura |
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| ika, boiled tako |
not pictured: a clam of some description, hotate.
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| Toro, Chu-toro, o-toro |
Not pictured: Raw tako
Not pictured: Angler fish liver.
There was a lump of orange and beige goo under the sushi counter glass. I asked the chef in my broken Japanese what it was. He picked up a nearby tea cup that had some fish drawn on the outside and pointed to one of them, and said "liver".
Emma declined to try it, but I had a piece. Very rich and creamy/fatty. It was like foie gras had sex with a sea urchin.
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| Red bean ice cream |
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| The angler fish on the cup. |
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Buffet breakfast at the hotel.
Any breakfast that involves beef ribs is a breakfast I can get behind. |
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| Honey meringue cube! |
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| Fish cakes! |
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| This one is pumpkin filled. |
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| Mid-hike Pocari Sweat |
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| An apple I bought at the morning market. |
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| A welcome cookie at the Ryokan. |
Dinner at the Ryokan.
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| Pear liquor |
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| Mostly tofu. |
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| Sashimi |
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| tomato, plus stuff. |
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| matcha rice goo, prawn, stuff. |
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| beef with curry sauce. |
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| shabu shabu - my most hated of soups. |
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| beef filled bun |
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| seasme salad |
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| beer, in completely inappropriate cups |
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| Sake, allegedly from the local area. |
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| rice, miso soup, pickled stuff. |
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| Cheesecake, canteloupe, almond pudding |
The food was okay, but for a place that advertised as specialising in Hida beef, I was a little dissapointed. (They do offer a selection of what look like quite decent steak related meals at room service prices, so I guess technically they do)
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| breakfast the next morning. |
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| any breakfast involving stir-fried beef... |
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While we were killing time waiting for the train
Emma had an espresso served in a cookie cup |
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| I had a piece of the cup, it was quite tasty. |
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| grilled beef |
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| more beef buns |
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The quality of the region's milk is also really high
as such this matcha topped vanilla pudding is quite probably the best
matcha topped vanilla pudding I have ever had, even though it came
from a convenience store at the train station. |
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| THE beef. |
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| A fish themed bento box |
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| Many fish things |
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The fish I told Emma I got her for lunch.
It's made of processed fish goo. |
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| In which I rectify the mistakes of years past. |
We waited upstairs in the building next to the train station in Kanazawa for around an hour to get into this place (mostly because going elsewhere would involve walking somewhere and just sitting down was the path of least resistance, but trip advisor also rated it quite highly)
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| Kaiten sushi, with a touch screen ordering system. |
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| right to left: toro 5 ways, sweet shrimp, half half uni/ikura, grilled eel, clam |
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| clam 5 ways - right to left: abalone, ark shell, scallop, clam 1, clam 2 |
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| prawn 5 ways: I ate the sweet shrimp before I took the photo. |
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| Raw firefly squid |
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If something you ordered needed to come from the kitchen
rather than a sushi chef behind the counter, it was delivered via
a little food shinkansen that ran along the platform on top of the train |
Go little food shinkansen, go!
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| half half salmon/ikura |
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| 3 different bits of the same squid |
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mayonnaise sushi.
There's grilled slamon under there somewhere. |
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Right to left: Matcha and Red Bean Cheesecake,
Black Sesame Icecream, Matcha Icecream. |
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