A few years ago while traveling to Milan I was shopping ｃooking ingredients and gears to bring back to Japan with me to extend my Italian experience. I may be French in Japan, Italian cuisine is, I think, what I love best. Useless to say that I came back with about a full suitcase of pasta, rice, semolina, dry porcini, olive oil and other magic ingredients. So during this Milanese grocery shopping spree I discovered Trofie. This rolled little pasta is just so good that it has been our favorite since then. I haven’t try yet to make my own, but I soon will for sure. In the mean time dry trofie are my favorite pick for a rapid fix, and they suit very well any time of pesto sauce or vegetables based sauce, or just with olive oil and salt and pepper it’s also perfect. I usually use Barilla trofie Liguri http://www.barilla.it/prodotto-barilla/trofie-liguri, and luckily recently trofie can be found in any good grocery stores worldwide, and Japan is no exception!
This time I just cut a small zucchini and half of a yellow sweet pepper that I cook a few minutes in a pan and finish with some delicious olive oil. That’s all it takes to prepare a delicious and colorful plate.
On Saturday evening I often prepare bread to have something fresh and delicious for breakfast on Sunday morning. This time it’s a bread called gâche. I used half whole wheat flour (83g) half white flour (83g) to prepare it, then the usual 8g of sourdough, 2g of yeast, 3g of salt, 100g of water. It takes about 90min for the first rise, 60 for the second, and in between plan about 45min. Baking time is about 18min. If you’r in Japan I would recommend to prepare your bread right before being eaten because the weather is so humid that the crust gets soft very quickly, and originaly the crust of that bread is quite soft.
Well, if this bread was just perfect for breakfast, I then went to Eataly (I mentioned it in an earlier post) . Eataly is my best provider for delicious fresh Italian products, in particular San Daniele ham, pancetta and fresh cheese. They use to have fresh ravioli, but it didn’t last long. This gâche bread with a little La Tur cheese was just stunning!
After a whole week in Seattle, it’s good to be back home. Though the city has numerous farmers markets, with very attractive food, the hotel life allows only for limited purchases and preparation. There are also a lot of food trucks but honestly the idea of having lunch standing or seated like punks in the street is not very attractive, though the food looks good. As for restaurants, food was ok, fresh but I didn’t find anything outstanding. The best we had was surely grilled salmon or grilled halibut with asparagus. There might be some nice places serving local food (not limited to seafood, which is not what I like best) but we couldn’t find them… It’s really a pity because driving around Seattle one can find again tones of organic farms selling their products, fruits, veggies, delicious yogurts…
Chimacum local farmers shop
So being back home it is time to go back to the kitchen and improvise some summer recipes with fresh food and light enough to beat the jetlag and the heat. So we’re back to the basics: quinoa and bulgur as a base, baby leaf salad, cherry tomatoes and cucumber, yellow zucchini, ocra, and to finish pumpkin seeds, flax seeds and white chia seeds. Back on the tracks!!
My experience of making croissants was great but not perfect, so before I manage to make the best croissants in town, I am still looking for the best you can buy. You know, the one that are light and buttery, crispy outside and melty inside, well… THE perfect croissant. Hunting truly delicious croissants in Tokyo is as difficult as in Paris and I must admit. There are really a lot of bakeries that make croissants, and I’ve tried quite a lot of places already. In many places the taste of butter is not present, in others they top the croissant with some sirup making them too sweet, and sometimes they just have the appearance but nothing for the tate. Here is my list of bakeries in Tokyo making “real” croissants with hopefully a permanent address (a lot of shops move, open, close in a short time so it’s hard to track them):
1. Johan (in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi, but there are some other places for sure)
2. Le grenier a pain near Hanzomon
3. Kobeya kitchen at Hiroo crossing
4. Vie de France (pretty much everywhere near a train station)
There might be some local stores I haven’t tried yet, so if you have a good address let me know!!!
There are a few big names in the bakery market but for croissant you can forget about Paul (never liked them, even in Paris), Viron (too dry and crispy, baked too long it seems), Kayser, Le pain quotidien (not fresh enough, and buttery enough)…
I’ll keep you updated if I find anything to add to that ranking, but you can send your addresses too and I’ll try!
The other day I was introducing some locally produced cheese by Komagata cheese factory in Ohara, the problem is that it’s not easy to find and so far I’ve seen it only at one of the local product retailer Na no hana. So that’s quite limiting.
Sunday morning we went to Ohara market on the harbour. I thought it would be fish-only market but in fact it is a quite big (for Japanese standards) farmers market, selling also fresh vegetables and many other things than fishes. That’s where I found the stand for Takahide cheese factory. A farm higher inland in Isumi, near Kuniyoshi. Their cheeses look a lot like the ones from Komagata, with a little variation. I picked the Isumi white moon (いすみの白い月) and did not regret that choice. It is perfect!!!
Takahide farm
Very much pleased with that choice, we decided to go and check out the farm directly. It’s a short drive from our house and a nice one among rice paddies and traditional farms. The Takahide farm is up a hill in a kind of group of dairy farms. There is a little shop where they sell directly, but the stock is not big and I recommend giving them a call before if you are looking for something specific because it seems they don’t hold stock very long and depending on the time not every thing is ready yet. They also sell fresh milk and seems to organize some events.
Where it is interesting for you, if you live in Japan and looking for delicious cheeses is that you don’t necessarily have to go to a big department stores or an import stores to buy some cheese from France or Italy anymore! Takahide cheese factory has an online shop where they sell their cheeses and fromage blanc!!! It’s not cheap but it’s really worth the try and it’s local at least.
Since cheese cannot be dissociated from bread for me, at least the cheese that you eat, right not the one to top pastas etc… I prepared a plain fougasse with just a little of salt to eat with the Isumi no shiroi tsuki cheese, a very good match. And I tried their reblochon style cheese: Makiba no taiyo まきばの太陽 with a whole wheat bread. It’s just insanely good!
Isumi no shiroi tsuki and fougasse (Plate from Kutani yaki)Makiba no taiyo with whole wheat bread
Information:
Takahide farm in Isumi 高秀チーズ工房: http://www.takahide-cheese.com
Ohara farmers market 大原朝市: every first and third Sunday morning of the month, plus some extra days during holidays, on Ohara harbour.
When traveling it’s always hectic with food for me, I don’t like eating out 3 times a day. Most portions are way too big and I get quickly bored with the amount of mix tastes that surpasses my imagination. As you may know now, I like simple delicious things. So when in the US I really enjoy organic groceries that can be found pretty easily in main cities and sometimes opened round the clock (even better for jetlag and busy working days). It seems particularly true in Boston. There, you can buy things I didn’t even imagine exist, almond milk yogurt with coconut taste, super delicious cereal bars, fresh cut fruits, natural cheese, teas (i usually pack on Chai), tons of different types of flours (well I’m not baking in my hotel room…) and my favorite drink, non organic though but from sustaible harvested ingredients: the Naked fruit smoothies, just perfect for middle-of-the-night-breakfast!
During this short stay in Boston I tried the new to me (haven’t been to the US for 2 years!) pineapple-mango-coconut water Naked, and just loved it, not as thick as the regular mango one! And I found super delicious bars from Earnest eats, my favorite is the almond trail mix. The taste of almond is really strong but it’s really good and just not too sweet. That and a bowl of fresh raspberries was my post-swimming breakfast.
Because, yes! I always pick hotels with a swimming pool. I love to swim early in the morning to recover from jetlag. Doing laps before starting a long business day, after a long trip is just making me feel really good. How do you do to keep a good balance when traveling?
If you like cooking and tableware, Kappabashi dori is a must go when visiting Tokyo. This street between Ueno and Asakusa is the home of many shops selling cooking gear and tableware for professionals. Most of the shops sell also to individuals (but it’s better to ask before being disappointed). There, you can find pretty much anything from metal sakura shapes to amazing laqueware bowls. Crazy knives and delicates bamboo baskets. With Prunellia we spent a few hours there the other day, and got plenty of new things to cook with!
A few months ago my local grocery store in Koganei changed its branding (probably due to some group acquisition). After a few days a lot of the products I was buying vanished from the shelves, replaced by low quality products and I was left with almost nothing decent to shop there. No more delicious organic lemon, no more Italian honey soft candies… I started to shop elsewhere.
A few weeks ago the shop went under massive renewal, and recently I’ve been checking in again and realized that they’ve completely changed their pitch: now half of the products are organic from fresh vegetables to smoke salmon, tea, spices… and they even have a nice selection of familiar imported products of good quality mainly from France and Italy!
It seems that the organic trend is finally making its way in Japan, after years of undergroud unlabelled existence… How good is that going to be?
