I’ve mentioned this before, but these days I hardly eat out and mostly cook for myself at home. When you spend a dozen-plus hours a day doing desk work – and even your downtime is spent watching movies in front of the computer – you can’t really go around enjoying high-calorie food. Just as pro boxers cut weight and pro bodybuilders (and some actors) live on chicken breast, I’m keeping myself in shape with a low-carb, low-calorie diet. But eating like this every day gets old fast and the stress piles up. So I make regular trips to good restaurants that blow all that stress away in one go, even if the calories go a little over. Of course, I don’t forget to move my body that much more afterwards. I’m not bragging about being diligent – it’s just that I’ve reached the age where life gets tiring if you don’t start looking after yourself. In my twenties I barely gave any of that a thought and got along just fine.
I usually try to do a food + travel outing about once every two weeks, but since April started I hadn’t managed to hit any place worth mentioning. Since I was out anyway on a weekend with lovely weather, I headed to Naniwa Sushi. It’s a genuinely delicious and cheap sushi place, so I’d love to make it my regular, but it’s far away, which sadly means I can’t go that often. This time I went alone, and a whole hour before opening at that, yet the chef welcomed me warmly. That’s the nice thing about sushi counters as opposed to Western restaurants. I’ll have to come here often from now on.
Kirin FREE, non-alcoholic beer
I’d driven there, so I couldn’t drink alcohol and ordered this instead. I wondered whether something non-alcoholic could really count as beer, but it was surprisingly good and gave me more or less the feeling of drinking beer. Like drinking a very watery beer, I suppose.
Kanpachi on the left, buri on the right
Kanpachi (greater amberjack) is a relative of buri (yellowtail). Its season is winter, but it was still good now. Once again I felt it was worth coming even if it’s a bit far from home. If you’re going to eat sushi, it should be at least this good.
Hirame
Flounder. It has a wonderfully chewy texture and is a hugely popular sashimi in Korea, but in Japan it doesn’t show up that often – just now and then.
Ebi and ika
The squid came sprinkled with salt. It’s a different kind of pleasure from eating it with soy sauce.
Uni, sazae and toro
The turban shell was in great shape that day – a texture that outdid abalone.. I asked how they manage to serve such fresh turban shell, and was told there’s nothing special about it, they just buy it at the market. Hmm.. I wondered if that’s really all there is to it.. but I suppose since it comes straight from where it’s caught, it’s fresher than your average fish.
Iwashi
Sardine, which they say is in season right now. Who knew you could have oily blue-backed fish at this time of year. It’s a different treat from the gizzard shad we eat in autumn. It came topped with scallions, so they gave me soy sauce on the side.
Octopus
Toppings like octopus aren’t expensive and are tasty. It’s with basic ingredients like this that you can tell a place’s skill.
Salmon
A flavour that always delivers, whatever the season.
Sazae tsuboyaki
It showed up again today ^_^
Anago
I think the sauce may have been a bit too strong. Just salt would probably have been delicious enough.
Akagai
They do shellfish sushi well too. I made a resolution to come regularly and try all kinds of toppings..
On the house: chirashi sushi
They brought out a tiny chirashi sushi on the house. This place always gives you something extra, which is impressive. I mentioned how much I’d liked the persimmon gratin they served before, and was told that’s something you get at high-end Japanese restaurants – an ordinary sushi shop can’t make the numbers work, so they don’t serve dishes like that.
Tekka maki, ordered because I was still a little hungry
Tekka maki made with tuna and negitoro. It’s one of my favourite kinds of sushi. I was tempted to ask for some to take away, but I’m on a diet -_- so I held back. And with that I walked out having had a generous helping of first-class sushi once again. And having eaten so well, I had to go burn off some calories.
Sunset at Hirata
I’d heard there was a small hermitage with a great view on a hill near my way home, and took this on the way there. The sunset with the harbour in the background was lovely. I’ve never seen the sunrise over Korea’s east coast, so I can’t say, but I still vividly remember the beauty of the sunsets over the West Sea that I watched so many times as a kid, turning the whole sky red. Rose-tinted memories.
Spring flowers along the road to the hermitage
It was dark, so unfortunately the photo didn’t come out well. As I was driving up this road, a deer suddenly leapt in front of my car and I very nearly hit it. Luckily I braked in time and avoided that, but the deer body-slammed the car, and I hope it wasn’t hurt. It was my first time seeing a deer (or was it a roe deer?) living in the mountains, and it made me think there really are mountains where wild animals live.. No wonder gibier tastes so good around here, I thought.
It was a day that made me feel spring had fully arrived… My life out of the sunlight will go on for a while yet, but I’ve got to get out for some fresh air like this now and then, at least on weekends.