11.21.2006 | Raison d'etre
I always make fun of people who film their food. You see them all over the place, banal places, lenses in peril of smear.
I was in those shoes for once. Course after course of exquisite food. I couldn't take it and succumbed to the desire to preserve the unpreservable.
Tsuruya Yoshinobu
There's a matcha bar at Tsuruya Yoshinobu. You can pull up there, pick your sweet, and watch the chef make it. Then they give you a bowl of matcha to wash it down. Needless to say, I visited this place more than once.
Omogashi, the main sweet. You see one of these puppies, you're only seconds away from drinking a bowl of matcha.
Chakai at Shozenji
Kaiseki at a chaji requires eating swiftly and cleaning the dishes and utensils thoroughly before they are retrieved. This leaves little time to take pictures.
Individual meal tray. Photo credit: another guest (whose name I don't know).
Thin soup. That is a bushel of tofu skins tied in the middle. Photo credit: another guest (whose name I don't know).
Omogashi.
Sakurada
Haute cuisine: unimaginably good food served on very expensive dishes. At least nine courses.
The square box holds various seafood, including roe, and some veggies. The two circular dishes are sake cups, one for hot sake and one for cold sake.
Thin soup.
Okawa.This one has gingko nuts and tofu.
Thick soup.
Rice and pickles -- we're getting near the end.
That's marscapone cheese making a pillow for the grapes.
Omogashi -- we're having tea with this meal!
Banquet
Extravagant event at an old restaurant in northern Kyoto. Eleven courses and all the beer, champagne, wine, and sake we could drink.
Thin soup. Unagi atop a block of tofu, with veggies and daikon.
Thick soup, with turnip and prawns.
Shabu Shabu. We each got our own burners (the tall thing in back) for cooking the goods. The paper is filled with hot oil.
Side dish of seasonal items. That's a gingko nut skewered with a pine needle. The large brown shape is a chestnut.
Persimmon with cinnamon, black sesame ice cream, and (what tasted like) a coffee mousse.