Tag: Tokyo

Plain and simple

Well well well… I was hoping that this week would be slightly less busy than the previous but, we’re Friday and it’s not going to happen. Running from one meeting to an other, from a lecture to an other, to solving problems in the lab, and revising papers, preparing my next talk coming much too fast, I hardly managed to squeeze in time to study Japanese and to practice kyudo but that’s all I could do. So food-wise we’ve been going for super plain and simple food: veggies, pasta, rice and beans. It’s also getting colder and a lot of people seem to have caught colds, so we’re packing on fresh fruits: tangerine, apple…

Not to say that I can’t wait to be tonight for two reasons: 1st because I’m supposed to receive a present, oh oh oh!; 2d because we should spend the week end in Ohara and I’ll have plenty of time to cook and paint (and see if Pablo is still there!)

A bowl of plain Japanese rice with soya beans and sesame
A bowl of plain Japanese rice with soya beans and sesame

Meisen kimonos – 銘仙

After a too long break I went to my Japanese class (which is basically drinking tea while reading articles about Japanese history, culture, craft and arts) and Takeda-san (my teacher for more than 10 years now) told me about a nice exhibition in a small museum in Roppongi: the Sen Oku museum. The exhibition features the collection of Nagano’s “classic museum” meisen (銘仙) kimonos. Meisen kimonos are some kind of cheaper kimonos made of lower quality silk, and that became super popular in Taisho period and early Showa. And as you may remember, this is one of my favorite period in Japanese history (see my earlier post on Taisho period and Taisho architecture). The meisen kimonos are very colourful, with many large patterns made with stencils with a very interesting technique of dying. I recommend you read this very nice article about meisen techniques from Anna Jackson of the Victoria and Albert Museum if you want to know more about it. Her article features many pictures of the making.

Coincidently, my favorite kimono magazine: Kimono hime (kimono姫), had its new issue on meisen.  With as usual, tons of beautiful pictures that make you want to wear kimonos every day, and some nice places to visit in the region of Chichibu, a place known for making meisen kimonos. I thought this was a sign and time to go and explore meisen. After a quick check going to Chichibu is not far from Tokyo but a rather crowded drive on week-ends in particular in autumn because of the surrounding nature. So we postponed the trip there for a day we can go during the week. Instead we headed to the museum in Roppongi and went to see the exhibition. It’s a small exhibition, so it didn’t take much time, but the kimonos exhibited were really nice and the movie explaining the making was also really interesting. It revived my love for wearing kimonos, for mo-ga fashion, and for modern Japanese paintings. It revived it so much that when out of the exhibition I had colorful patterns in my eyes and in my mind and it came naturally to us to go to Ginza to visit a few art galleries that have modern Japanese painters.

The tour was quite quick, we park in front of Tamenaga, that will have a Foujita exhibition starting Sunday, so we decided to come back on Sunday. Then we headed to an other one where didn’t find what we were looking for, finally browsing some leaflet, we found that Shihoudou may have what we are looking for and went there while stopping on our wayhere  and there in others. And yes! Shihoudou had exactly what I had in mind, a simple modern psinting of a girl in a colorful kimono. I love so much the contrast of the kimono and the european style painting, it is just the essence of this period for me. I dream of having such a painting!

Ochanomizu-Akihabara revival

The west of Tokyo with it’s big centers like Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shimokitazawa… has been for long the most lively and trendy places of Tokyo, while the east was mere old areas attracting old people, sometimes falling appart or for the tourists: Asakusa, Ueno, Akihabara, Nihonbashi, Ginza… The area between Ochanomizu ad Akihabara, and the one between Asakusa and Nihonbashi (right where we live), have changed slowly in the past 5 years with a lot of cafes and craft shops opening here and there. The trend was confirmed by two big initiatives using the under-track space of the Yamanote line in Okachimachi and the Sobu line in Manseibashi: aki-oka artisan 2k540 and Maach ecute. If I knew about both for some time and have been to aki-oka quite often, I’ve never really had the chance to go to Maach which opened more recently, until yesterday. Since it is an “ecute”, the usual name for stations shopping mall I was expecting to see the same fashion and accessories brands as in every ecute, but it was a completely different thing. Under the arcades of the tracks there is a path and shop, or rather stalls continuously span, without knowing exactly what brand it is. The space is very beautiful, and since I went there around 20:30 it was extremely quiet. The majority of shops are interior and natural clothing shops, which is again the typical new image of Tokyo east side, with similar trends in Marunouchi, in Nihonbashi… There are also a number of cafes and restaurants. I went to Fukumori, because I like their food from the north of Honshu and their simple concept very much, and have been often to their other shop in Bakurocho, but there are several others cafe I’d like to try. I’ll keep you updated!

I didn’t regret paying a visit there, and I think that’d be one of my hide away for rainy days! 

The perspective in the shopping gallery
The perspective in the shopping gallery

Ingredients for bread

Multi grain and whole wheat little bread made for breakfast
Multi grain and whole wheat little bread made for breakfast

At first when I started to bake my own bread I didn’t know much about it and I didn’t know how to chose the ingredients. As in any preparation the quality of the ingredient is crucial and it is not easy to understand what is a good flour and what is not, and also there are so many types of flours and bread that it took me some time. More over as I access information about bread mainly from French sources adapting to the Japanese available products was a hard task!

After using a lot of French organic products and random flours I could find in Japan, I think I have found a good set of resources locally. My main source of ingredients and in particular raw yeast is Cuoca. They have a wide selection of products, you can order on-line, but for me the best is that they have a shop that covers half a floor at Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi. My favorite flour there is the “Tradition Francaise” by Viron, perfect for every white bread, and in particular baguette.
For most of the bread now I use the organic flour I can find in the supermarket. It is not a local product but the whole wheat flour and the hard flour are really perfect for my breads.
For the seeds, I haven’t find yet something that satisfies me fully in Japan. A lot of the seeds are not organic or comes from China, which I must say worries me because of pollution problems. Right now I use seeds that I buy in France in any organic shop such as Bio C Bon, Naturalia etc… but I hope I’ll find something suitable soon in Japan!

Happy week-end, for me it’s going to be a lot of baking I know!!!

Hectic week

This all week has been pretty crazy.  I knew I would be very busy at work and that I’ll have to go early to the lab too, but what I didn’t expect is that the train to commute would let me down so many times. Usually trains are super reliable in Japan, but once in a while there are incidents, and usually they happen all at the same moment. Spending more time to commute then usual I didn’t have so much time left to spend in my kitchen and still needed to indulged with some simple food to keep : rice with sesame seeds, and greens with soya sauce, and since I knew that wouldn’t be enough for my husband, I stopped by Saboten and added some pork filet katsu to the menu.

Okinawa fresh products

I discovered passion fruits while traveling to the Seychelles when I was 6. On Bird island I ate my first one and immediately loved the juicy, sour, sweet, crunchy little fruit.

Back in France I’ve eaten passion fruits but nothing to compare with the one that haven’t travel so long.

Japan islands span over such a long  North-South axis that Okinawa offers delicious tropical fruits and it’s only A a 2h-flight away from Tokyo. When we travelled to Ishigaki three years ago we fojnd several farms growing pineapple, passion fruits, mangoes, dragon fruits… That also offer to send to Tokyo anytime you want. It’s a very nice manner to have super fresh fruits from Okinawa in Tokyo. The other way is to go to Ginza Okinawa’s shop. (Each region of a Japan has a sort of antenna shop where you can by local products, most of them are located in Nihonbashi-Ginza area)

The shop sells Okinawaian products of all sort, and the visit was originally motivated by my husband needed some accessories and parts to repair his sanshin (Okinawa’s traditional music instrument). And so it was a good opportunity to get some delicious fruits and in particular perfect passion fruits!! There is nothing as such to start a day than a little salad with pineapple, passion fruits and blueberries!

Gâche bread and Italian cheese

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! 

Lyla restaurant

Chef Narikiyo (picture from Figaro Madame Japon) 
Chef Narikiyo (picture from Figaro Madame Japon) 

Since Prunellia has written a post about the restaurant Abri in Paris, I couldn’t help writting a post about the restaurant Lyla in Tokyo, which was recommended to Prunellia and Aurore by the chef at Abri when they came to Japan last February. So we went there together to discover and really appreciate the refined, delicate cuisine prepared by chef Narikiyo. And since then went again to enjoy some more seasonal food. 

Each time the food was perfect, with special attention to each member of the party likes and dislikes and with a genuine style to prepare vegetables mixing French cuisine and Japanese kaiseki. The plating is also a delight, and desserts are as good as the rest. As a personal policy I don’t take picture of food in this kind of restaurants and prefer to remember the taste and colors, so you won’t see anything I have eaten there. I can only give you hints like bisk sable, greens with carrot leaves jus, lemon curd in kuzumochi…

Since I’m not a big eater I always picked the “carte blanche” menu which was just perfect in proportion, and allow you to enjoy everyhing from start to end.

Even though Lyla has received a lot of attention in the press, the chef is always there to say good bye and chat with you, and for the moment it is still possible to book a table on late notice which is really apppreciable. 

http://www.lylatokyo.com

Once the booking’s made the staff will call you back to verify your likes, dislikes, allergies, special diet etc…  because there is no menu, it’s all up to the chef.

Sardines, radish and comte cheese (picture from Asahi) 
Sardines, radish and comte cheese (picture from Asahi) 

Tokyo’s croissant ranking

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! 

Vie de France
Vie de France

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