While in Japan, we went out to eat on weekends. We had two favorite restaurants that we made sure to go to at least once a month. Not only was the food good at both, but we got to be good friends with the owners/ proprietors. Both were Mom and Pop places, run by family members.
Jiro's
Jiro's was within easy walking distance from our apartment. Actually, both of our favorites were. We often walked when the weather allowed it.
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| Dad cooked, daughter served, and Mom helped prepare and cashiered. It was a family affair. |
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| The thing I loved most about Jiro's was that the entire place was lined with windows and the window sills were lined with beautiful flowering potted plants. I loved driving by and looking at the beautiful plants in the windows. |
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| I had three favorite dishes I would get there. This was one of my very favorites. The picture doesn't make it look that good, but it was delicious. The dish on the left was a macaroni/ mushroom gratin. Man, it was macaroni and cheese at its best. It was served with chicken nuggets, cabbage salad and a delicious homemade roll and orange juice. My mouth be a'waterin. |
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| Ken liked the garlic pork and this meal- katsu don. Their katsu don was different than anyone else's- not much sauce, no onions . .. but it was so flavorful and delicious. He also got a cabbage salad, miso soup and tskumono. |
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| This was another of my favorites: seafood spaghetti, a fried shrimp, a fried mussel cabbage salad, and yogurt with fruit sauce. |
Hana Dining
Our other favorite was Hana Dining. Ordering there was easier. We always, always, always got the same thing. In fact, after a few visits, they didn't even wait for an order- they just prepared our usual. It came on a tray and we always feasted with our eyes first. Isn't it beautiful? Rice, Miso soup, Fried katsu and shrimp, cabbage salad, dipping sauce for the shrimp (tasted like egg salad), tskumono of some kind. Then, there were always two other dishes, but what was in them was different every time. Cook's choice. They were always delicious.
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| I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but there was interesting cultural difference at this restaurant. Though we ordered the same thing, and the cost of our dinners was the same, I was always given a smaller bowl of rice than Ken. That would never fly in America. It actually was just fine with me, but we thought it was interesting. |
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| The lady in the center was the owner/ cook/ proprieter- Hada san. She was very nice. Behind her is her son. He helped cook. He spoke a little bit of English, too. |
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| This photo was taken a different night You can see the side dishes were different. |
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| Ken likes salt. No, Ken loves salt. In Japan, there are rarely salt shakers on the table. Japanese are generally very health conscious and know salt isn't that good for you, so they don't put salt on the tables. Ken always requested salt wherever we went. After the second time, this dear lady always made up a special salt for us. It had salt and black sesame seeds- to make it more healthy- she said. Ever after, this salt dish was always served with our dinner- but only to us. Also, she knew that we were Mormons and that we didn't drink tea. She always had mugichau (wheat tea) for us when we came. They kept it on hand just for us. |
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| Oh, I forgot to mention. There also was a little dessert. Usually a small bowl of fruit of some kind. Again, it was never the same twice, but always delicious. |
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| It was kind of dark, but this is Ken in front of Hana Dining. |
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| We miss Hana Dining- a lot! |
PS We had one other favorite place. We actually went there most every week. Sakata eikaiwa was about 40 minutes away and started at 6:00pm. We often went over to Sakata in the afternoon and did visits before eikaiwa started. Class finished at 7:00, then we always stayed after visiting with class members. We usually stopped on the way home and did our grocery shopping at a big store we liked that was between Tsuruoka and Sakata. We usually had the elders with us, so took them home. It was then nearly 9:00 and we were hungry. So we would go to a local fast food place on our way home, Hotto Motto and get Japanese fast food.
The food was inexpensive and good. Our favorite dish was the chicken nan ban. We didn't discover it until near the end of our mission. After that, I ordered it every week. It was less than five dollars and delicious. It was a chicken cutlet with a tartar-like sauce on top. It came with a package of sauce to put over- kind of a sweet and sour sauce. The combination was delicious. It had a little tskumono with it and a teaspoonful of potato salad and a bowl of rice.
So, though Hotto Motto wasn't exactly fine dining (it was take-out only), it really is the place we went the most often and we both enjoyed and appreciated the food after a long day.
So, there you have it: Our
three favorite restaurants in Tsuruoka. We are really missing them!
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