Imahan Sukiyaki

We were looking for a place to eat lunch at JR Hakata City in Fukuoka, when the sister spotted Ningyocho Imahan on the 9th floor of AMU Plaza, the shopping centre right above the JR Hakata station. She had been several times to the Imahan restaurants in Tokyo, and with her recommendations, we knew it would be an amazing meal. And we weren't disappointed. 

The name of the restaurant in Japanese script is on the napkins.

The lunch menu - we went for the lunch sukiyaki set at the bottom of the page

A little bit of beer helps the beef go down

Out came the beef slicest - check out the marbling

And the accompanying veggies

The entire visual feast on the table

First the waitress poured the sweet sauce on to the hot plate

Then added the beef slices one by one

A close-up...it smelt heavenly

Just bordering on well done, dipped in raw egg. Amazing texture and flavour.

Followed by negi

And the rest of the vegetables, following a certain sequence which we obviously had no idea about

There were pickles on the side which were obviously very unexciting compared to the beef

Another round of beef with leek

There was a piece of mochi that had an amazing texture - no idea how they got the rice cake so fine

After all the raw stuff was cooked and eaten, the waitress threw a few beaten eggs onto the pan

And made scrambled eggs with the leftover sauce absorbing all the juices

On top of plain rice. Awesome.

And finally, dessert - fruit and sorbet.

One of our best meals of the trip.

This website gives you the location of all the Imahan restaurants around Japan: http://www.imahan.com/index-e.html
 

Kani Doraku, Dotonbori, Osaka

All visitors to Osaka would have seen this super impressive moving crab mounted on the corner building facade along Dotonbori, the main pedestrian mall in Namba. Definitely designed to attract attention of greedy people like us.

The Kani Doraku restaurant at Dotonbori has 5 floors worth of seating, and yet queuing was still necessary on a Sunday at lunchtime. Fortunately it didn't take too long. 

The Dotonbori canal behind the shopping street, just next to the famous Glico running man sign which is nothing to look at during the day.

View down Dotonbori

Their autumn special which we managed to decipher was available from 12 noon until 4pm. My attitude towards a seasonal special is usually just to order it since it won't be around the next time we come back. 

 Super cute chopstick holder. Reminded me of the duck chopstick holders at Da Dong. 

However we had to check out the regular menu too, to see what the prices were like.

And to work out which was the best value for money menu. The autumn menu was our choice.

This arrived first - with hand signals from the waitress to say not to open the lid just yet. 

A crab sake which cost 735Yen for the heck of it. It came warm, with a piece of salted crab in it. It was okay, considering the novelty, but give me standard sake anytime. I probably wouldn't order it again.

The appetiser came, almost a visual feast for the eyes. 

There was chawanmushi with crab

A crab pincer with something around it - I can't quite recall - and a crab wonton

Crab sushi

And a few pieces of plain boiled crab

These came grilled, meant to be dipped in the kani miso (crab guts sauce)

The kani miso was so good we ordered another separate kani miso dish

Crab kamameshi that was cooking at the table - super sweet flavours. 

 Sides of pickles and soup and broth for the kamameshi

After the rice had cooked with a slightly crisp coating

With broth added. Yums.

Finally, crab tempura. By this time, I was so full but I pressed on because it was not right that the crab died in vain for this amazing meal. 

The kani miso dish (around 1000 Yen), which came to the table served in a crab shell (very eco friendly indeed)  to cook at the table

A close up

Ugly but very yummy

 Finally, fruit to end off the meal. Twas a brilliant meal.

The final cost per person was just over 5000Yen. Super reasonable since it included drinks and it was eat-until-impossible-to-move for us. And this is the view you get upon leaving the restaurant. It's nice feeling it wasn't just a greedy gastronomic indulgence but also an educational experience :) yeah right.

Website: http://douraku.co.jp.e.at.hp.transer.com/kansai/shop/honten/

Mikasa Kaikan at Ginza, Tokyo - A Great Teppanyaki Meal

I seem to be on a teppanyaki blogging spree. Well I only blog about good stuff, but seriously in Japan, it's hard to get bad teppanyaki. It's hard to get bad food, period. So we went to this rather old-school looking teppanyaki restaurant somewhere in Ginza near the Mitsukoshi department store, tucked away on the 7th floor of a building that looked like any other building with a shop at the ground floor. It's good value for money - I can't remember how much it cost, but for 2 people it was less than 10000 Yen for lunch. 

We started off with salad and soup. Nothing fancy about this.

There are window seats, and there are wall-facing seats. There was a screw up in our reservation so we had to face the wall, but the place is big enough to be able to walk in. Just that you don't get the view of the Ginza streets below, which is really quite nice. 

Our raw meats being presented - we had one less premium set and another more premium, with Japanese beef that was nicely marbled. Can't call it wagyu, but I really don't know where it came from.

First up  -the dipping sauces for the seafood

On they went

Scallops were beautifully done - seared on the outside and still semi raw on the inside. And very sweet. 

The fish was all right - just pan fried fish. Come to think of it, everything is just pan fried something anyways. 

Our chef at work

Seasoning the beef

Look at it sizzle

The beef and everything to dip it in

This was the less fatty cut - already looking very good

And this was the marbled one - looking absolutely divine

And as they all do, the chef chopped up the fatty bits for frying the veggies in

 

On they went

And out they came.

Websites: http://www.ginza.jp/archives/5261?lang=en, with the English add, or the main restaurant chain website is at
http://www.mikasakaikan.co.jp/restaurant/japanese/yamato/index