What to eat in Tohoku

[prasantrin]

I just returned from a 5-day trip to the Tohoku area of a Japan. It seems not a lot of people travel up that way, especially tourists who usually concentrate on the Kanto and Kansai areas (and some areas in between), so I wanted to share a little of what I experienced in that part of Japan.

A little background...I went to Tohoku as one of the chaperones of the roughly 150 11th grade students at my school, so perhaps my experience won't be quite the same as what the average international visitor will experience, though it's pretty close to what most domestic tourists experience (packed itineraries timed to the minute). We really only visited two of the six prefectures--Aomori and Iwate, and we also had brief stops in Miyagi and Yamagata...maybe...definitely Miyagi, and maybe Yamagata.

Day 1

We took the Shinkansen up to Morioka City in Iwate via Tokyo. It was a looooooong ride up. We met at Shin Osaka Station at 7:15am (I left my house at 5:20), and didn't arrive in Morioka until about 2:20pm. We got the coolest lunches, though! When I got mine, my co-worker told me I had to pull the string at the front of the box.

I did, and then opened the box and took a bunch of pictures of my sukiyakidon.

I was about to dig in when my co-worker said, "No! Rona, you have to pull the string!" I replied that I had, and she said, "No! You have to pull the string out!" These were very special donburi, and when you pulled the string out and closed the lid for several minutes, some sort of heating device was activated so you could have a warm lunch! The only problem was that I was starving by this point, and having to wait another 6 minutes for my lunch was torture!

Here are the instructions on the box, and a picture of the heating device.

Lunch wasn't bad. It was quite sweet, but that it was hot made it a pretty good lunch for an ekiben-type lunch.

After leaving Morioka, we got on our tour buses to go to Towada City in Aomori. We made a brief stop to take pictures of Lake Towada. Thankfully, it was a very brief stop because it was frickin' cold up there! Beautiful, though, as the sun was setting and the leaves in the area were changing already.

It took us about 3 hours to get to our hotel from Morioka, and we had dinner almost immediately. It was a typical ryokan-type dinner. The students all sat in their classes (not quite 50 students in each of three classes), and the teachers and tour guides sat at the front of the room. My school is very sensitive about maintaining the privacy of students, so this was the best picture I could find where you couldn't see students' faces too clearly.

In the top left corner, there was some sort of nabe with a special kind of mochi in the area. Unfortunately, my picture of the contents was too foggy to post, but it sort of looks like chikuwan, but made of rice. It was rather flavourless, I thought. Then there's kushikatsu (chicken in front, onion in the back), a bit of salmon sashimi (I think there was ika, too), cold udon that looks like fettucine the the red covered bowl, chawanmushi in the ceramic bowl in the bottom right corner, sauce for the udon, tsukemono, melon, and braised chicken in the middle.

The melon had a cute little wafer cookie-looking thing in it, but it turned out to be part of the melon rind.

After dinner, we were treated to a show. The students were taught the traditional dance done during the Nebuta Festival. It was quite fun to watch them, even if they did look a bit goofy. There were also shamisen and taiko performances.

After bed checks at 10:30, we were finally allowed to go to bed. I think only the teachers slept, though, and most of the students stayed up till the wee hours of the morning. Oh, to be young again!

[torakris]

In the top left corner, there was some sort of nabe with a special kind of mochi in the area.  Unfortunately, my picture of the contents was too foggy to post, but it sort of looks like chikuwan, but made of rice.  It was rather flavourless, I thought. 

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This sounds like kiritampo, it is a specialty of Akita.

That bento is so cool! I really need to find one.

I hope we are going to see more pictures...

[prasantrin]

This sounds like kiritampo, it is a specialty of Akita.

That bento is so cool! I really need to find one.

I hope we are going to see more pictures...

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Yes, kiritampo!! And when I woke up this morning, kiritampo was being featured on one of those travel for food shows! I prefer the chewiness of mochi to kiritampo, though. Neither really has flavour, but I like the texture of mochi.

I loved that bento, too. I told my mother about it, and she wants me to find her one when she's here in December. I have no idea where to get them, though. We special ordered the bentos from a catalogue the travel agency brought us a couple of weeks before the trip. The students and most of the teachers had sukiyakidon, but a couple of the other teachers ordered anagodon (wagamama, yo!). There were a few other types, as well, but I can't remember what they were.

I do have a lot of pictures, but unfortunately, many of them include students, so they can't be used. On Day 1, for example, we stopped at a highway service area, and they had miso/soy grilled kiritampo. About 30 or 40 (maybe even more) of the girls bought it (creating quite a rush for the vendors!), and I have pictures, but they're all of the girls eating. It was quite a sight! (And those girls sure can eat a lot!)

Day 2:

Ummm...I don't seem to have any pictures of Day 2 food! Perhaps I was preoccupied--my school is a Christian school, and we have chapel before every breakfast and dinner. I had the unforunate task of giving the chapel talk that evening, and I wasn't informed of that until a few days before we departed. I hate public speaking, but I hate giving chapel talks even more! Especially to 150 students who are not only too exhausted but also too hungry to listen!

I do remember that breakfast was quite good. It was a traditional Japanese breakfast, and I love traditional Japanese breakfasts! It would have been perfect if there had been onsen tamago, but instead we had some kind of nabe-like thing with egg.

We were off to Hakkoda for the morning, some onsen hotel place for lunch (fish again), and then we had to hike back for an hour or so, past several famous teeny tiny waterfalls (the point of the hike was to see the teeny tiny waterfalls), to Lake Towada to catch a ferry back across the lake to our hotel. I wasn't expecting the hike, so I complained a lot, but it was pretty when we got near the end!

And the ride across the lake was quite nice, as well. I love boats!

Back in time for dinner, and my chapel talk was a success! The students actually listened, and several of them even commented on how good it was for several days after! I love those girls.

Dinner was a little less successful. It wasn't bad, but I didn't eat much of it, as I recall. I usually eat very simply, and all those multi-course meals were starting to wear on me, even though Japanese "courses" are quite small. And it was only Day 2! After dinner the girls could buy boxes of apples and have them sent back to their homes. Aomori is famous for its apples. These were kind of expensive--more than Y4000 for 5kg, and almost Y8000 for 10kg. A lot of the girls bought boxes, though, but I did not. If I could have used the apples for baking, I would have, but these were more for eating out of hand.

On to Day 3!

Edited October 19, 2008 by prasantrin (log)

[prasantrin]

Day 3:

Woke up to this beautiful sight.

Didn't have much time to appreciate it, though, because we had to eat breakfast quickly so we could check out, hop on our buses, and head out to Tezukuri Village. I don't seem to have pictures of this place, either, but we broke up into groups to make our own whatevers! I painted a kokeshi (traditional Japanese doll). I have no artistic talent, so I copied the face of a sample doll. The girls, however, painted beautiful, beautiful dolls. Other groups made horses out of straw, painted tea bowls, etc. etc. One group actually made reimen (Korean noodles), and they ate them! This would prove to be a huge mistake, but I'll get to that later.

Our next stop was the best (in my opinion) stop of the whole trip!

Koiwai Farm! It's the largest private farm in Japan, but it doesn't really seem that big. To Japanese people, however, it's huge.

And they celebrate Halloween, too!

The have several buildings onsite where you can watch the making of different products. This was the milk/yoghurt building.

We must have missed the show, because there was nothing to see there. There was, however, some of the best soft ice cream I've ever had! It was so rich and creamy! The milk was good, too. It was the kind with the cream on top. They tell you to shake it, but I like to drink the cream first. Too bad the sales clerk shook up my milk while I was getting my money out! I was mad! And I couldn't exchange it for another one because they had already opened it, too!

We had lunch here. Gengis Khan--grilled lamb and vegetables. I asked if the lamb was produced on the farm, but no one could tell me.

I had the whole grill to myself for about 15 minutes, because all the other female teachers went off to care for a couple of sick students. A couple of the girls who made reimen ate much too much of it. That combined with being tired, taking a long bus ride, and wearing too tight jeans (skinny jeans are in, doncha know!) made them feel very very ill.

Of course, 30 minutes or so later, they recovered enough to eat their lunches. All of them!

We had some time after lunch to wander around. Many of the girls stood in line to try milking a cow. They've got big Holstein cows on the farm, and every afternoon one cow is brought in to be milked by the public.

Here's the poor victim being brought in.

Doesn't she look sad?

It was time to leave, but not before many of the girls made one last stop to pick up some cheesecake or soft ice cream to go. Luckily, a take out stand is strategically placed near the exit...

Here's some of the omiyage I bought: clockwise from top right--5 kinds of cookies from Koiwai (the one with the red sticker is only available from the farm), chestnut kamome tamago, plain kamome tamago, and my poor sad kokeshi doll!

And Kitkat!!! From top to bottom--Kinako and Soy Sauce (Tokyo limited editions), and Zunda (Tohoku limited edition).

I haven't tried any of them, yet.

[torakris]

Zunda kit kat?? Can you break off a piece and send it to me?

Those are some great pictures! Was there any sauce with the Ghengis Kahn? I always thought the lamb was seasoned before grilling but the one you have looks plain.

Also, was there an entrance fee to enter Koiwai Farm?

[prasantrin]

Zunda kit kat?? Can you break off a piece and send it to me?

Those are some great pictures! Was there any sauce with the Ghengis Kahn? I always thought the lamb was seasoned before grilling but the one you have looks plain.

Also, was there an entrance fee to enter Koiwai Farm?

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I can send you a whole pack! Or at least a little two-piece pack! There are 8 little two-packs in each of the boxes, so I was going to try each and offer up the rest to others. Unless I really like them, that is. Then they're all mine! Seriously, I'll send you some if you pm me your address.

Our Ghengis Khan was cooked unseasoned, but there was sauce for dipping. In the first picture, in the far far left, there's a tray of stuff (you can see the salt). On the far left of that tray is something with writing on it. That was the sauce, I think, or maybe the sauce was just behind that. It was in a jar, and you poured it in a little dish. From what I remember, it was housemade (the jars were like old-fashioned preserving jars) and had sesame and A LOT of garlic!

The entrance fee for Koiwai Farm was a bit expensive, I thought. I think the regular price is Y500 for adults and junior high and above aged children and Y250 for elementary school children (under 5 years old were free). If you go in a large group (more than 30 people), it's Y350 each for adults. You also have to pay extra (maybe Y600 or more) if you want to take their bus around the farm to the farther areas, but I think all the shows are free (other than the cow milking show, there's some kind of sheep and horse(?) show). I really enjoyed it, though. It was very relaxing, and if you like dairy products, it's the place to be!

Day 3 Dinner:

That night we stayed at a place called Puutalo in Hachimantai City in Iwate. Puutalo, I was told, means "log house" in Finnish. Each group of 4-8 students stayed in their own cabins, and cooked their own dinners and breakfasts, while the male chaperones shared one cabin, and the female chaperones shared the adjoining cabin. They were nice digs! Our cabin was like a very very nice summer home at the lake (3 bedrooms, sauna, etc.). You can kind of see the female chaperone cabin through the trees in the following picture:

For dinner, each cabin chose between nabe, sukiyaki, and shabu shabu. Most chose either nabe or shabu shabu, but a few chose sukiyaki. The teachers had dinner in Puutalo's restaurant, though. Yet another set meal...

The covered dish at the top holds tofu. The little teapot has some soup/broth with bits in it. I was tired of eating, and a bit full from lunch and Koiwai snacks, so I gave most of my food away. I did eat the matsutake mushrooms that were in the little teapot, though, and all my sukiyaki.

I also ate all of these mushrooms. They were good! What kind of mushrooms are they?

The food was OK, but I'd rather have had something simple.

[prasantrin]

Day 4

Day 4's breakfast was rather sad. We didn't even get any eggs! But I got two cartons of milk because one of the tour guides didn't want hers. It was good milk!

This day was a "free day". The girls could choose from different options. Most girls chose to go around Morioka City on their own, but some girls went to Lake Tazawa in Akita-ken, some went to Tono Valley in Iwate, some to Ryusen-do Caves, and others actually wanted to go back to Koiwai!! I was assigned to accompany the Koiwai groups. That kind of sucked, because I wanted to see something else, but it wasn't so bad, because I got more milk! I only had to stay for an hour or so, and then I took the next bus (a 30-minute ride) back to Morioka City to meet up with some of the other teachers.

Lunch! For some reason, Korean food is very popular in Morioka. There are reimen shops everywhere, so we tried Pyon Pyon. It was at one time the Number 1 reimen restaurant in the area, but I heard it has dropped in the standings a bit.

I had a half-bowl of medium-spicy reimen. It was just what I needed! It was cool yet spicy, and a half-bowl was the perfect portion!

Then we went to a coffee shop called Kohikan.

I love coffee shops like this. It was tiny, but cute, and they grind the coffee when you order it! The Coffee Kan in Kurashiki had better coffee, but this place was still good.

And we went to a German bakery to buy some treats. This place has what I think of as "real" German breads, which are difficult to find in Japan. They just have rye, but it's very heavy and dense. I bought a loaf of the rye with raisins and seeds. It's the kind of bread you need to slice very thinly. The service was kind of crappy, though. The lady working there sure was cranky!

We went back to the meeting place to wait for the students and the buses, and as the students started to arrive, I talked to a lot of them about what they did that day. Most of them had wanko soba for lunch!

Wanko soba is sort of an all-you-can-eat soba thing. The staff just keep bringing you noodles until you tell them to stop. Now, these are 16 or 17-year-old high school girls, most of whom weigh no more than 100 pounds, 110 pounds at the most. A good number of them weigh in the 90-pound range. Most of the girls who ate wanko soba, however, polished off more than 75 bowls! They're pretty small bowls, but 15 small bowls is equivalent to 1 regular serving, which means 75 bowls is the equivalent to 5 servings of soba!!

One girl let me take a picture of her certificate. She's a "yokozuna" of wanko soba eating--111 bowls!! That's like 7 servings of soba!! I heard one girl topped her at 113 bowls, but I didn't get a picture of her certificate.

I'd have been out at 3 bowls, I'm sure. That's not even 1 serving. I'm pathetic!

[prasantrin]

Day 4 continued...

We spent the night in Morioka City. One of the nice things about being a teacher at a sort of posh school is that you get some perks.

This was my room.

Yup. All for me. The students stayed in similar rooms, but with 4-6 students per room. I even had two sinks all to myself!

And we had one of the ballrooms for our dinner.

It was a fairly large dinner with a lot of variety. In terms of taste, it was OK considering they had to serve more than 150 of us, not including the "special" meals.

I liked the little plate covers, and some of the students gave me theirs so I took about 10 of them home. Underneath was some salmon and other stuff.

We also had seafood salad (there was dressing to go with it), shabu shabu, and other stuff.

I loved how they cut the kabocha. I can't even imagine making one of these, much less 150. The rice was quite good, too.

And then students had what they call "Recreation." It's basically a variety show. They perform skits, dance, sing, etc. etc. It was fun, but it ran about 30 minutes too long, meaning our evening meetings were late and bedcheck was even later. We were all exhausted!

But that didn't stop some of the students from staying up all night. Some girls didn't go to sleep until 6am, and wake-up calls were at 7am!

[torakris]

That bread looks really good! I could really go for some great bread right now.

That breakfast did look a little sad....

[nakji]

Koiwai Farms!!! I didn't know it was a real place. My husband loves the juice that Kirin makes under that brand name.

I can't believe the leaves have turned up there - no sign of it where I am.

How are the apples in Tohoku? Most of the apples I've tried in Japan are rather bland and mealy textured. I can't say I really enjoy them, especially since I grew up eating MacIntosh, Northern Spy and Russets off the tree in October in Nova Scotia. Are different varieties available there, or is the same pale pink kind you get in the cities?

I can't believe that kabocha cut! I have to figure out how to do that.

[helenjp]

Apples...I get 'em delivered from Tsugaru Ringo Kenkyu Kai. There are a couple of similar services (one-off or regular deliveries of apples, apple products, or other regional goodies).

If you order by phone, you can sometimes organize something like a 4-month delivery rather than the standard period. I order the cheapest "cooking" apples, which doesn't refer to variety, but just to the fact that some have splits on top or unsightly bumps etc.

Apples seem to start improving around now - I suspect early ones are really last year's left-overs, as they seem suspiciously collapsed in texture to me.

The rule of thumb for good apples is apparently not to buy them once Doll's Festival is over!

Also check Japanese Apples.

[Hiroyuki]

I also ate all of these mushrooms.  They were good!  What kind of mushrooms are they?

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I bet they are mushrooms of the iguchi family, such as hana iguchi. I will ask my son what he thinks they are when he gets back from school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boletaceae

My son and I got some hana iguchi when we went mushroom gathering last September. Photos can be found here in my blog.

Edited October 20, 2008 by Hiroyuki (log)

[prasantrin]

I'm almost done!

Day 5

Finally! We get to go home. But not before having breakfast at 7:30am. I was OK, but the students who went to bed at 6am didn't arrive till close to 8am (their homeroom teacher had to go to their rooms to haul them out of their futons). It was a pretty good breakfast.

And under the lid, this cute little combination!

There was also this under the other lid:

I really liked this breakfast. So much, that I even asked for another half bowl of rice, and I never do that!

We left the hotel shortly after 9am, and we stopped at a couple of temples in the south part of Iwate. I can't remember which they were, though, and our itinerary is at my apartment (while I'm goofing off at work). We did get a final lunch, though.

Mochi! There's also tofu in the upper right corner, and konnyaku in the lower left corner. The daikon oroshi was a bit vinegary--it was meant to be a palate cleanser to be eaten between the salty mochi (upper right) and the sweet mochi (upper middle).

And that was our last meal! We wandered around the omiyage shops for another hour (and I ate some kurogoma soft ice cream) before heading to the airport in Sendai. We were all very happy to be going home, but it was a great trip in all! I would highly recommend visiting the Tohoku area if you happen to be in Japan. It doesn't get as much attention as other places, but it's quite a beautiful place.

[Hayley Casarotto]

Thanks for such a detailed report, prasantrin. You've made me very hungry! I hope to have the opportunity to visit Tohoku one day.

[torakris]

Now that is a breakfast! I could eat that everyday..

All that mochi was lunch? or was that just the dessert part?

[prasantrin]

Because I'm such a smarty pants, I just lost my entire reply! So I hope I remember everything I was going to say...

nakji--I love Koiwai Junsui Juice, too! I especially like the grapefruit juice (though I like Gokuri better). Interestingly, at the farm they sell apple and orange, but no grapefruit!

The apple sample we were given was quite good. It was definitely fresh--very crisp! It was sweet with a wee bit of tartness. I really liked it, and I don't really like apples. I think it was Kougyoku. They were also selling toki, which is mostly greenish yellow with a bit of pinkish red. We didn't get to try that one.

I hate mealy apples, too. I think part of the reason for mealy apples in Japan is improper storage. At almost all my grocery stores, they refrigerate the tomatoes, but not the apples, both resulting in mealy products! I hate mealiness!

Looking at all those websites about apples, I was thinking my students must have gotten ripped off! Most of the websites I've seen charge about half the price my students paid! Then again, knowing the parents, they probably expected (and got) the best available.

Hiroyuki--I was hoping you'd chime in on the mushrooms! I think you must be right. The website you linked to mentioned they were often used in Scandinavian cooking, and Puutalo is supposed to be Finnish-influenced, so it makes sense they'd use them. I don't usually care for mushrooms too much (don't like but don't dislike them), but I really liked these ones.

Hayley--Thanks for reading! I hope you can go one day, too. Actually, I hope everyone can go one day! By the way, my school's sister school (MLC) is in Perth! Perhaps you've unknowingly crossed paths with some of my students. They visit every other year, and were just there in July.

Finally, I should correct some of my errors!

Koiwai Farm is really quite large! It's more than 3000 hectares, but I guess we only saw a small portion of it. Admission is free during winter, by the way! And it was a dog and sheep show (sheepdogs rounding up the sheep).

The first temple we went to was Motsuji, and the second was Chusonji.

That's all I can remember...

[prasantrin]

Now that is a breakfast! I could eat that everyday..

All that mochi was lunch? or was that just the dessert part?

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It was aaaaalllllllll lunch! In the bottom right corner there's soup with mochi, the top right is some kind of soy sauce/dashi/thickener combo with moch, and then there is the anko with mochi (the anko was really thick, not like zenzai). I really liked my lunch, but then I really like mochi--even chewy gooey mochi (especially chewy gooey mochi!). The only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been some toasted mochi with miso sauce instead of the konnyaku with miso sauce.

Let me know about the Kitkat! I still haven't opened them, yet. I'm a little worried they'll go the way of my forgotten and never eaten Hokkaido Blueberry KitKat...

[prasantrin]

I found some information about my heated bento. It's made by Awajiya which is a Kobe-based company (from what I can tell...). They have a lot of other cool bentos which you can see here. I want to try the beef salted tongue and yakiniku combo! We'll, I'd want to try it if it weren't Y1000 plus tax!

Wowzers!

[Hiroyuki]

I showed my son that mushroom photo, and he said he also thought that they were those of the iguchi family because of their shape and the pores on the underside of the caps.

As for that bento... I've always thought that those bento with a heating device are such a stupid idea... No intention to offend you in any way, just my thought.

[prasantrin]

As for that bento... I've always thought that those bento with a heating device are such a stupid idea...  No intention to offend you in any way, just my thought.

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I think those bento have two big negative points: high cost and high waste. The part of the bento holding the food was maybe only 1/3 of the total package. As a good Canadian, I cannot stand waste (and as far as I know, not even the box was recycled).

But, I hate hate hate cold bento. If I didn't have a microwave in my office, I'd eat sandwiches every day, or go to the cafeteria, because I wouldn't be able to stand eating cold food that really should be eaten hot. That's the main reason (plus the "neat" factor) I really liked those bentos. It's nice to be able to eat a purchased ekiben while it's warm.

In terms of the actual food, it was just a regular bento (i.e. not great, though this one wasn't horrible, either). I'd never pay Y1000 for it, though!