Showing posts with label sushi in kanazawa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sushi in kanazawa. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

KANAZAWA: Omicho Ichiba 近江町市場 - Yamasan Sushi honten

I have been taking things really slow the last few days, we were in my favourite city in the whole world - TOKYO ( and I say were because we are currently on the shinkansen to hokkaido), recharging for the next 2 weeks of skiing :D

And the reason why I haven't been blogging is because, Nick and I practically binge-watched this newly on netflix high school teenage british show - Sex Education.
We loved it, it's so funny. Well done to all the actors, esp Otis and Eric ! My favourite duo :D

Continuing where we left off...
Kanazawa is an amazing city to have seafood because it's just right off the sea of Japan.
Eat to your delights, minimal radiation. The downside, if you dreamt of having X-men mutant kids, your chances of having one from eating the seafood here is unlikely.

Having been once to Omicho before in the huge snowstorm last year ohgosh, don't even get me started. There were limited shops opened. Last year we randomly ate this kaisen don restaurant and even so, it was amazing, just look at the overflowing amount of fish!


And if seafood is not really your thing, there's also stalls selling wagyu beef sticks.



Yummy



This year we came more prepared, we did more thorough researched, rather Nick did the most thorough research and for the first time he told me " we need to eat at this restaurant"



Quite overwhelming stepping into this restaurant, there's this old chef dude just standing near the doorway, and he isn't doing anything apart from slowly disassembling you from top to toe with his watchful eyes.....
And behold, the whole reason why Nick chose this place is because, they serve the MOST beautiful kaisen-don (topped with goldflakes! ) 
3000yen FOR THIS BOWL. heaps of seafood including snowcrab!


Incidentally past by this heavily queued oden shop. Aiya, I was brought up in Asia so I always have this asian mentality of " QUEUE AH? QUEUE = VERY GOOD" 
So I joined the queue, but meanwhile we needed to have a strategy because tables were taken up very fast, and Nick can't possibly stand at an empty table without any food while I queue.
So we ordered from cooked dish from the same stall. 

Fried oysters because oysters are my favourite and oysters are in season :D 


Grilled scallop in butter, YUMMM can't ever go wrong 


And this is the oden menu.

Look at how long the queue is!


Me almost approaching the queue

Our motto for this trip is " Eat the Best only " Meaning, lets say shop A sells beef. But shop A's specialty is Chicken. Just because I like to eat beef doesn't mean I have to eat beef. So I should only eat Chicken from Shop A. 

So I ordered oden that only can be found in Kanazawa


The bowl that I'm holding on my left hand ( your right), it's nogoguro ( black throat sea perch) meat stuffed in a crab shell. It was AMAZING. 


 Kanazawa is really close to Tokyo, about 2.5 hours via Shinkansen.
I really recommend a day trip out of Tokyo to Kanazawa if you have days to spare just for the seafood ( very very reasonable price! In fact I would even call it cheap for the seafood quality you get! ) and....

BONUS HERE. I usually don't review/post pictures of tourist attractions but.. my next post... shall feature..... Kenrokuen Gardens, one of the top 3 gardens in Japan, is really beautiful. And I highly encourage all to make a trip to this garden if you're ever in kanazawa. Its worth more than the 310yen admission fee.

Friday, 11 January 2019

KANAZAWA: Otome-zushi 乙女寿司

Goodness I'm now 5 days behind my schedule ! :o  This post is going to be out of chronological order, but I thought I'd better blog it quick before I forget this wonderful dining experience.

Nick and I are currently in Kanazawa now. And looking thru my older posts, I realised that I still haven't blogged about my Kanazawa post last year :/ Anyway, when we were here last year, Kanazawa had a HUGE snowfall and we were essentially rendered handicapped. Most shops were closed, the traffic wasn't moving. 

This was me last year, knee high in snow. 


We had a booking at Otome-zushi, a 1 michelin star restaurant at 5pm last year which Nick and I were half an hour late for. However, that was one of the best sushi meals we have had in our lives! And at a very reasonable price too. 

Hence we purposely made a trip back here this year to do all the touristy stuff and to visit Omicho market again, AND to eat at otome-zushi AGAIN. 

Otome zushi is a MUST MAKE reservation restaurant. We have seen multiple people being turned away as they do not have any reservations. There is 2 seatings for dinner, 5pm and 7pm. Each sitting able to accomodate 8 people at the counter and max 4 people in the private dining room. They are also opened for lunch tho I'm not sure about the timings. 

I'm not sure if they have a caller ID or something but when we used an Australian number... goodness.... nobody picks up........
We had to get our Japanese friend who lives in Adelaide, to repeatedly call them, I'm not sure if she even activated her parents ( who lives in Kanazawa) because her message to us was " I left my parents number with them as a contact " 
Anyway, today when we got our hotel to call them to reconfirm the booking as per their instructions... immediately they got thru. hmmmmmmm 

Anyway, don't complain la huh, what matters is.. WE GOT THE RESERVATION! :D




I always order an ume-shu with my dinner


Hirame ( Japanese flounder) 平目


Amaebi ( Sweet shrimp) 甘エビ

Buri ( Japanese amberjack) 鰤 


Some kind of clam


?baby tuna

Fugu Milt ふぐの白子
Its my first time trying fugu milt and IT'S so good! Super creamy and full of umami 


Snow crab with vinegar
This dish is a super stand out for me. I don't think I've ever eaten a snow crab so sweet. The roe was so intense, rich, creamy and fresh

Nodoguro ( Blackthroat sea perch) 赤むつ
If you have read my other posts, it's my favourite white fish !


Tai shirako ( Snapper milt) 鯛の白子


Amaebi ( Sweet shrimp) 甘エビ


Amaebi ( Sweet shrimp) 甘エビ from another angle


Kurodai ( Black seabream) 黒鯛 


Toro ( Come on, I'm sure we all know this..... Fatty tuna)  とろ


Ika ( Squid) いか


Nodoguro Aburi ( Flame grilled blackthroat sea
perch) 赤むつ


Kohada ( Gizzard Shard) コハダ
A tokyo favourite


Aji with vinegar Konbu ( Japanese horse mackeral with vinegar kelp) あじ
I've never eaten a sushi like this before. The vinegar and the aji just blends together so well. 

Saba ( Mackeral )  鯖


Uni gunkan ( You should also know this hahaha. sea urchin  ) 海胆


Miso soup with hata ( Miso soup with grouper) 石班


Anago ( Conger eel) 穴子


It is such such SUCH a satisfying meal with fresh seafood directly from the sea of Japan and rice from Noto peninsula in Ishikawa. I have been repeatedly told by the local Kanawaza residents that if you wanted the best sushi in Kanazawa, THIS IS IT.

I was actually expecting a similar repetoire of fish given we were also in Japan around the same time last year. But it was really quite different , I mean some fish are the same, but they were done differently this time!

I apologise that I can't remember the exact names of the fish I had last year, but I shall let pictures do the talking and perhaps you may take a guess to see how many fish you can identify :p

This was Nicholas last year..... hahaha in the snow... trying to find Otome-zushi.


Told you I like to start my dinner with Ume ( plum wine) haha

 Amaebi ( Sweet shrimp) 甘エビ

Shirako soup ( Milt soup ) 





 Toro 

Nodoguro 


Snow crab with roe 


Uni


Awabi ( abalone) 


Miso soup with hata ( Miso soup with grouper) 石班


Anago ( Conger eel) 穴子


Negitoro handroll 



Really really really enjoyed this meal. Definitely going to be my sushi place to go if I'm in Kanazawa.

Otome-Zushi 乙女寿司 ( 1 Michelin star) 
 4-10 木倉町 Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture 920-0988, Japan
12-2pm, 5-10pm