吃飯了嗎？

Restaurant Chinon, Appi Grand Annex

Our tour bus wound its way up mountain roads to the Appi mountain resort, where we were staying at the Appi Grand Annex for the evening. The air was getting chilly and there were signs of the snow on the ground, but it was still a few more weeks before the ski resort would open for business, so it was definitely the slow season. I imagined the travel agency got quite a deal on the rooms, which had plenty of closet and bathroom space, much unlike the typical Japanese hotel room, in order to accommodate skiers and their gear. And there was the obligatory onsen hot spring bath to soak away any lingering chills.

Our tour group had the hotel restaurant mostly to ourselves. A little bit of DIY yakitori action for dinner. Definitely a step down from the our other hotel's dinner offering. But still better than most Japanese set meals you'd find in Taiwan or US. And the kid loved the tender chicken chunks fresh off the grill pan.

安比グランドアネックス
Appi Grand Annex
岩手県八幡平市安比高原
0195-73-6511

きりたんほ

To break up the monotony of the long bus ride across Iwate we stopped in at a workshop for some hands-on kiritanbo-making and souvenir shopping. To make kiritanbo, first mash the cooked rice to extract the starch and make it stick together, but still retain some shape of the grains without totally bashing it into mochi.

The grandmas stayed on the bus with the napping kid. Wife's aunt did come along so we had somebody with actual cooking experience to help. Formed the mashed rice onto a thick dowel before grilling on the hibachi. Brushed periodically with a spicy miso sauce to add some zing to the plain rice and to help form a crispy, charred crust. One can also remove the crisped rice roll from the dowel and cut it into pieces to enrich soups and nabes, and we had it a couple more times in our subsequent meals.

Hotel Morinokaze

This was the first time I've traveled to Japan with a tour group and stayed at a large vacation resort instead of a business hotel or traditional ryokan. Tour groups try to put the nicest meal/hotel at the start, to make a good first impression, and the massive Morinokaze hot-spring hotel-complex in Iwate Prefecture was our first evening's resting place of our Tohoku trip. Usually I'd prefer something more intimate or historical, but as the Chinese-speaking hotel hostess went over all the amenities available one starts to see that size does have its benefits.

We've stayed at fancy ryokans where one night's sleep plus two meals cost more than the entire tour fee of this trip. But I've got to admit that the big hotel with tour-group's economy-of-scale advantages can sure dish out a lot of tasty food for a fair price. Our group had a large banquet room to ourselves, with gilted ceilings and tatami floors.

Most of the meal was already laid out on the table in anticipation of our arrival, except for the tempura course. Our own fry chef didn't start battering and frying until we arrived, to make sure everyone could have fresh-fried tempura the way it was meant to be served. The paper-nabe contained local vegetables and rice cakes cooking in dashi broth. For the beef yaki-bowl, they light the fire at the start of the meal, so the slices of Japanese beef is hot & ready by the time you're ready to dig into the meat. I almost filled up on just the sashimi as wife and mom gave me a part of their portions for being too much. Sampling the local Ginga Kogen Beer, made with clean alpine snowmelt water in the style of a German Hefeweizen. Much tastier than the usual Asahi Extra Bland.

The large room and relative privacy allowed plenty of space and freedome to take pictures to our hearts' content. Our hostess even brought out her daughter and grand-daughters to perform the drum and dance routines from the local matsuri. Makes for cute entertainment for us and a good practice session for them.

A brief rest after the large meal then it was time to seek out the hotel's other entertainment amenities. There was a kids' arcade featuring simple carnival games. No live goldfish scooping here, but marbles made for a good substitute for the kid to keep. For the elderly visitors, and us, there was a taiko drum performance, followed up by a little old-style enka songs. To entertain the kids there was a mochi-making demonstration, complete with kid-sized pestles for the rice-pounding. Afterwards, the audience each got a piece of the warm fresh-made mochi in a bowl of sweet azuki-bean soup. Later in the evening, the noodle bar and izakaya area come alive with the men on company-sponsored tours drinking and snacking, while us tourists and the old ladies retreat to the onsen hot-springs for a long soak.

The rooms were so much larger than the tiny city-hotel rooms we usually stay in. And one can't help but sleep well after the good meal and the relaxing hot bath. Unfortunately that made us late for breakfast the next morning and we only made it once 'round the breakfast buffet with the tour bus waiting. Missed out on the fresh-made French toast with local milk and eggs.

ホテル森の風 鶯宿
岩手県岩手郡雫石町鶯宿10-64-1
10-64-1, Oushuku, Shizukuishi-cho, Iwate-gun, Iwate
019-695-3333

郭公丸子

Our tour group landed at Sendai Airport in the late afternoon. When we got on the bus it was still too early to go to the hotel, but the sun was already low in the sky in northern Japan. Good thing the tour company had it all worked out so we were able to hit this one tourist destination before nightfall. Genbikei Gorge might've been a gorgeous autumnal scene in daylight with golden leaves. But we were already past the fall-colors season, so the leaves had already turned brown and fallen away, and the light was rapidly fading with the sunset.

Thankfully the sad foliage wasn't the only attraction at the site. Although most of the nearby shopping arcade had already closed their doors, the famous mochi house located on the river-shore had stayed open by prior arrangement. They even put up Taiwanese flags on the outside to welcome our tour group. No need for us to cross the river and squeeze into the small shop, either. Instead the shop sent down a basket from their second-story window on a cable line across the gorge to our side. Our tour guide wrote down our order and put it in the basket with the money. They pull it up to the shop and soon sent the basket back filled with boxes of mochi and a big pot of hot green tea.

Each box contained skewers of marble-sized mochi balls, each skewer coated with azuki, sesame, or sweet shoyu sauce. The sweet sesame and red-bean spreads are similar to wagashi fillings, except spread over the outside of the mochi instead of being wrapped within. The salty-but-slightly-sweet thickened-soy-sauce sauce was a bit funky, but it's a very Japanese flavor and made for a nice change from the standard sticky-sweet fillings. A couple of skewers made for a perfect afternoon snack, washed down with hot tea in the cooling air. Unfortunately we had to eat it in a hurry to catch the bus before it got full dark, instead of relaxing by the river under sunny skies as it was meant to be. By the time we were leaving the mochi shop was already readying another basket of goodies to zip across the river to the next Taiwanese tour group which arrived just after us.

郭公だんご
岩手県一関市厳美町字滝ノ上211
0191-29-2031

らあめん花月嵐

The new Hankyu Department Store's strong point is its array of Japanese fashion brands. Similar philosophy extends to their food court. The new restaurants right next to the busy Taipei City Hall subway station meant that lines extend out the door during mealtimes. I was on my own for dinner but I wanted something a bit more interesting than Burger King. So I figured that of all the lineups the ramen store line would move the fastest. Still look longer than I liked, but I was already in line and it wasn't as if I had anything better to do. The tables and bar seats weren't so different from Japanese ramen shops. The cooks were mostly work-study students instead of some wizened noodle master, but it seemed to be run efficiently enough. Decided to go with the advertised special ramen. The recipe was developed by a TV Champion Ramen Challenge winner. The soup base was a shoyu broth dressed with charsiu meat and lots of bean sprouts. The key ingredient is the dark-caramelized onion bits to add a smoky, sweet flavor to the bowl, balanced by the spicy tang of fresh-chopped scallions. The ramen was salty and flavorful enough that I was glad to have my glass of Coke from the combo meal. But I still felt that it wasn't quite as salty as they would do it in Japan, which to be honest is probably too salty for Chinese tastes. It was a satisfying bowl of noodle, although I'd be more enthusiastic about it if it didn't involve a half-hour wait every time.

らあめん花月嵐 (阪急台北店)
台北市信義區台北市忠孝東路五段8號B2
02-8789-9000