Miso Katsu Don – 味処 叶

Greetings!! How was your week? Must be hectic as usual I guess? Well, before August ends, I decided to write 1 post about the must-eat food post when you’re in Nagoya.

Miso Katsu Don – Pork loin cutlet dipped in Haccho-miso sauce (topped off with half-boiled egg)

Besides Nagoya Cochin, Haccho-miso (八丁味噌) is also one of the local produce in Nagoya. It’s categorised under the red miso group and has a deeper taste as compared to the normally used yellow miso. (You may read about the different miso groups here.)

I chanced upon this restaurant while searching through a food report website – 食べログ (similar to our hungrygowhere). We wanted to visit this restaurant on our first night in Nagoya but to find out that they were closed on every Monday. So we re-visited them the following night (after our Ise Jingu bus trip) and managed to get the last 2 seats before full house. 😀

The inside of the restaurant looks like this. It’s quite compact and we doesn’t have much leg space while seated. I think this restaurant is quite popular because I spotted some famous people on the wall. 😀

板東英二さん (The guy on the far left was former baseball player and now an entertainer)

Y-chan playing games while waiting for the food to be served.

It took around 20 minutes before it’s served on our table.

Look at the glaze of the miso sauce on the pork cutlet. The sauce may looks thick and heavy after a few bites but it’s not! It has a light after taste and together with the half-boiled egg, you get another new taste.

The clam miso soup which came with the set was so good that I wanted to order another bowl to satisfy my stomach. 😀

When we were halfway through our meal, the customers (on the 2nd floor) were descending from the stairs and they were from Hong Kong. How come I know? Because of their English and Cantonese accent. It seems like this restaurant is not only popular with locals, they’re also popular with tourists! 😛

味処 叶 (Aji-dokoro Kanou)

〒460-0008 愛知県名古屋市中区栄3丁目4-110

Tel: 052-241-3471

Tebasaki – 風来坊

One of the MUST-EAT when you’re in Nagoya would be the 手羽先 (Tebasaki). If you think it’s just normal deep-fried chicken wings, you’re super wrong!

What’s so special about this tebasaki? 

It’s seasoned, deep-fried without any batter and then lightly coated with special sauce, salt & pepper and garnished with white sesame seeds. The taste is a little spicy and the skin was so crispy that goes very well with beer. 1 serving has 5 pieces of the mid-joint wings and usually they were ordered according to the number of people present.

The restaurant which we visited in Nagoya was 風来坊 (Fuuraibou). It is a chained Izakaya restaurant similar to 世界の山ちゃん (Sekai No Yamachan). They are famous for serving this magical tebasaki. I think the reason for its popularity was the price. It’s priced less than 500 yen for 1 serving yet everyone can share the taste. 😀 *food always taste better when shared*

At the same time, we ordered a few other dishes to complete our dinner.

名古屋コーチン卵焼き – Tamagoyaki (which uses Nagoya Cochin eggs – Nagoya Cochin is a premium brand in the chicken world)

手羽ギョーザ – Teba-gyoza (gyoza fillings stuffed in chicken wings)

 

名古屋コーチン団子 – Nagoya Cochin Dango (minced chicken coated with light batter and deep-fried)

   

焼き鳥食べ比べ (名古屋コーチン、赤鶏、ブロイラー) – Yakitori (3 different types of breeds – Nagoya Cochin, Akadori, Broiler)

エビフライ – Ebi Fry (jumbo-sized prawn fritter)

イカげそ – Ika geso (squid tentacles fritters)

For this dinner, we had to wait around 40 minutes to get in because a portion of the restaurant’s air-conditioners broke down. However, we’re very satisfied with it (and also our stomachs). 😀

If you’re planning a trip to Nagoya, do try this restaurant out!

Official website: http://www.furaibou.com/

There’s even a page in the homepage teaching you ‘How-to’ eat their tebasaki.

Go to Nagoya!

Last week, Y-chan and I went for a short trip to Nagoya (名古屋). It’s the Obon (お盆) season (something like our Qing Ming festival) so everywhere was so crowded. Our plan for this trip was to eat all the famous local food because there’s not much sightseeing to do in Nagoya.

Our other motive was to go to Ise city (伊勢市) which has one of the famous shrine in Japan. [FYI: Nagoya is located in Aichi prefecture (愛知県). Ise city is located in Mie prefecture (三重県).] So we dedicated 1 full day of our 3 days 2 nights trip to visit Ise city. 😀

Now changing topic back to Nagoya. There’s really nothing much to see in Nagoya except for the famous Nagoya castle (名古屋城). There are a few other attractions but those just doesn’t interest us because we’re more interested in the local food. 😀 So today I’m going to share what’s inside Nagoya castle.

So to begin with, Nagoya castle was built by Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康). He is one of the many historic figure in Japan’s history because he was given the title of shogun (将軍). [You may read more about him in Wiki.] It stood tall and strong until WWII, the main castle and Honmaru Palace were destroyed and restoration was done to it. There’s still restoration works going on right now until 2018. We managed to view the newly restored ‘Entrance hall and Main hall’ which was completed in May 2013.

At the entrance, we had to remove our shoes (slippers were available at request) to keep it in the shoe box and also our bags in the locker. The wood used were so beautiful! The moment I stepped in, the smell of tatami was lingering all over the place. To some people, it might just smells like raw grass. 🙂 As this place is the entrance hall and main hall, the walls were hand painted with gold background and animals. We were delighted that the main castle was air-conditioned and we could view the exhibits slowly.

Okay, enough of ‘talking’ and some photos here.

this bored Y-chan kept taking random photo of me while I was changing the style of my bag

The temperature that day was crazily hot.

even the kitty here is thirsty

Newly restored Entrance hall and Main hall

beautifully hand painted art

very very GOLD inside

restoration in progress

Y-chan modelling for me

Nagoya castle

Tokugawa clan crest

On the bridge linking to the main castle

Kinshachi (金鯱)

Oda Nobunaga (also 1 of the historic figure in Japan)

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (also 1 of the historic figure) – he has a nickname called ‘Saru’ which means monkey.

Tokugawa Ieyasu

at the viewing floor

Hello fellow Singaporean, please don’t waste $2 on foreign land.

Stairways are so pretty

1-seater carriage

the biggest piece of rock used

KAKIGORI!

Okay! That’s the end of our tour! Actually, I have some interest with the above 3 historic figures after watching this TV Asahi drama – 信長のシェフ. Do watch if you have the time! 😀

Admission fee is 500 yen and the nearest subway station is Shiyakusho (Meijio Line).

One advice from me: Don’t go during summer because it’s super hot under the sun.

Now, I’m wondering which should I write first? Shrine visit or Nagoya food post? 😀

Short update!

Hello!! I’m back from summer vacation last week and was about to write about it when I caught the sick bug. (T__T)

Y-chan and I were at the movie theater when I realised something’s wrong with my body. We went to have dinner at this Korean restaurant after the movie and I couldn’t even finished half of my bibimbap! (Actually, the food was super normal, SG’s food court might taste even better than this shop.) At the same time I had super bad headache while on the way home. That was Sunday night. Then I felt my body was on ‘fire’ during the wee hours so I took my temperature. It seems that I’ve broke my previous record of 39.2°C to 39.7°C. Thank goodness Y-chan took a bag of ice and rest it on my head. If not for this, the fever might shoot over to 40°C and above!

That morning, we took a taxi to get to the clinic because I can’t stand still. It’s my first time to visit a clinic in Japan. Unlike Singapore, we use our IC to register everything right? In Japan, they have so many different systems to go with. (=_=) I passed them my health insurance card (which was given to me by Y-chan’s company) to get myself registered. Within 10 minutes I got to see the doctor. He conducted some checks and then started blabbering Japanese which I don’t remember what he had said. Went out of the room and paid the fee. We have to go to the store beside the clinic to collect my medicines. (YAH, SO TROUBLESOME RIGHT?) Total expense was less than 2,000yen (about SGD26) with the health insurance card. I think without it, it’ll be double the price.

I was somehow bedridden for 2 days (Sunday night to Tuesday late afternoon). What I did during this period?

SLEEP. (- -)zzZ

Okay, woke up to have medicines and then went back to sleep.

That’s the reason why I can’t do my post about my summer vacation. 😦 Will do it soon after I’ve arrange my photos! I think I will split into 2 posts for my Nagoya trip (one for ‘sight seeing’ and the other on food). 😀

Summer Vacation!

Hello!!!! Did you enjoy your super long holidays? I hope you did and are fully-charged for the coming week. 😀

I managed to meet up with my Singaporean friends and had a mini Singaporeans gathering at Omiya (“my area”). I called it the Post-National Day celebration. 😀 Although it’s a short meet-up but it was super crazy. Both weather and our talks. The temperature hit 37°C  in mid afternoon and our body was dripping with sweat. (I seldom experience this when I was in Singapore!) It’s such a pity we didn’t managed to take a group photo! 😦 

Shall meet up with them again most probably next month or the following month. 😀

Anyways! My title spells Summer Vacation! 

…. ….

…

YES!

Tomorrow Y-chan and I will be going to Nagoya (名古屋) for a short trip. We’ve also planned a day trip within this short trip to Mie Prefecture (三重県) for sight-seeing because there’s really nothing to do in Nagoya except EATING!

We’ve also reserved a slot with Suntory (a beverage brand in Japan) on a beer brewery tour. Perks of it? Free glass of cold beer at the end of the tour and it’s FREE! However, getting there can be quite troublesome because it’s located off the city area and requires many transfer of trains. 

Meanwhile, I’ll definitely be updating my instagram so do check it out here! 😀