Kiyosato Cookout
In Japan for more than just a whirlwind 10 days of eating in Tokyo, I trekked out to my friend Soma-san's vacation home in Kiyosato (3 hours west of Tokyo by car). Rather than visit one of the many restaurants in the area which, by the way, resembles California's wine-country, we hit up the local grocery store, a handmade bread shop, sausage store and local brewery for a cookout feast.
Beer and salt and well-traveled chopsticks... (photo by wjc)
After setting up the grill, we paraded out the grillables and proceeded to get our cookout on...
...beer kicked off the festivities and a local brew at that. The Rock Brewery (actually the Yatsugatake Beer Company) makes four different brews ranging from pilsner to dunkels. We bought two of each so that we could taste all of them. The Dunkels was the clear winner with a creamy, rich, smooth taste. But to be honest, all of them went with the food we were about to consume...
One cannot possibly believe the variety of seafood in Japan. Even more astounding are the prices. Given that there were just three of us, I really wanted to buy one of everything just on price principle alone. But saner heads prevailed and we ended up with some small trout, prawns and cockle shells for the grill.
Small and delicious trout... (photo by wjc)
The trout were the clear winner. Fresh beyond belief, the off-white meat was moist and pulled away from the bones with ease. The minimal salting gave it that extra little boost.
Yes, those cockles were pretty big... (photo by wjc)
The cockles were pretty huge and cooked in their juices with a little sake and soy sauce. Texturally, they take some getting used to but the hot liquid more than made up with the chewy mouth feel.
OK, now just hold on a second...I will eat anything once. When we were in the supermarket, we passed by the meat section. And right along the side they had packages of horse meat (basashi). I had never eaten horse but was assured that it was one of the most delicious meats around. Oh, did I mention that it was horse *sashimi*?? Actually, horse meat is low-cholesterol and low-fat and has a real brilliant red color - it's sometimes referred to as "sakura" for it's cherry-like color.
Basashi (horse meat sashimi)... (photo by wjc)
The dish is served with garlic and ginger puree and soy sauce. As with katsuo no tataki, you dip-dip-dip into the three flavors and devour. I was pleasantly surprised at the taste and texture, No, make that completely blown away by the taste and texture. The meat itself has a creamy-ish texture which resembles butter and the taste is on the mild side along the lines of carpaccio. Mixed with the garlic and ginger, I could not stop eating it.
Kiyosato Ham knows their pork products... (photo by wjc)
Finally on the grill-parade, was sausage from a local smokery. They were a typical Japanese pork sausage - small, nearly one mouthful bite-sized with snappy casings - but the flavor was anything but typical. Having smoked my share of meat, these were fragrant morsels of smoky-porky goodness. They needed nothing but a little grill heat to bring out their juices.
We ate on into the night with other food and drink: beer, a nice ZD 2000 Carneros Cabernet, some cheese, a crab/broccoli/greens salad, marinated tuna over rice and a whole host of other things, that led to a quick soak in the ofuro and some well-earned sleep.