I could live in Japan. Seriously, I mean, immerse myself in
the culture, learn the lingo (far beyond food terms), go onsen-hopping nightly,
live on a diet of pickles, sea urchin, sour plums and sushi, and be perfectly
content for the rest of my life. At least that’s how I feel when I visit the
island nation.
But for now my foray lasted less than two weeks, and I felt
as though I were pumped full of methamphetamines as I tried to keep
up with my flitting travel companion as we speed-walked (and flew) from Osaka
to Kyoto to Tokyo; we ate as if
there were soon to be a food shortage in all of Japan, felt moderately guilty
for overindulging in our fair share of what seemed like torrents of seafood,
then ate some more, if only because we soon grew hungry again from so much walking.
For my edification, my travel tour guide/companion made sure
I experienced a broad range of Japanese cuisine, from amazing kushi katsu to Tsukemen dipping ramen, to green tea-inspired desserts and even
potstickers at Tokyo’s Gyoza Stadium. But for the sake of this blog, I will be staying
on the subject of sushi. Don’t worry…plenty there to be covered still.
In Japan, food overflows, from bountiful food halls in just
about every department store and subway station, from tucked-away eateries and
supermarkets and convenience stores. Dotonbori in Osaka is like a
seafood-themed Universal Citywalk on steroids. And with our dollar currently
stronger in Japan (81 cents to 100 Yen) than in years past, we felt it was high
time to eat our way through the three major cities.
Kyoto is a city in which the modern and traditional coexist;
despite the massive steel-and-glass Kyoto Station, beautiful temples can also
be found in this town, along with the famous geisha district known as Gion.
From the food halls of Kyoto’s Takashimaya Department Store,
the unusual, wonderful combination of squid and shiso in a hand roll beckoned
from inside its glass-encased confines. It wasn’t your common California roll,
or the average spicy tuna roll with cucumber inside; it wasn’t even a typical shrimp
tempura roll that was sitting there and getting soggy from being out of the
fryer for too long. This was squid with
shiso…wrapped in seaweed!
In the States, squid can be a dodgy sushi item to order
because it can be chewy and tough, depending on the caliber of the restaurant
serving it. Yet here were these cylindrical hand rolls, not tapered at the end
like a cone, nor cut into slices; this brought back memories of the way hand
rolls are served in Australia. These were also cheap, and ready to eat (¥195
each, or about $1.60 each in U.S. dollars. You couldn’t find a squid and shiso
hand roll for this low of a dollar amount in the States).
I tried one and not only was it fresh, without the cold
“refrigerated effect,” but the squid was soft and not hard to chew at all. And
there was something else here, perhaps ume
(plum paste) had been applied inside the roll to make it taste just a bit tart,
which blended perfectly with the shiso. And lightly dotted throughout were what
appeared to be tobiko, or flying fish eggs. I wanted to stand there and ingest
at least five more of them, but I knew there was more food around the corner to
explore.
Of course, the assorted crab sushi box was the next thing
that grabbed my attention, and I had to have it. I devoured it—the gunkan-style
ones, the maki, the nigiri, feeling a tad of compunction about leaving behind
some of the sushi rice so I could continue to eat more without getting too full.
(I noted this crab sushi assortment tasted better than a similar crab sushi box
from the food halls of Matsuya Ginza, which I had visited years before.) So
many choices, so little time.
Takashimaya
Department Store 52
Shincho, Shimogyo-ku,
Kyoto 600-8001,
Kyoto Prefecture,
Japan
+81 75-221-8811
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