We had dinner at a place last night that was seasonal almost to the point of absurdity. Small place, about 20 seats, 8 at the counter and the rest split between two private tatami mat rooms. The restaurant itself is linked with a small, fancypants hotel about two hours outside of Tokyo. The hotel is like an Italian agriturismo — the vegetables and meats they serve in the restaurant come, by and large, from the farm that the hotel shares the grounds with.
So, this farm ships vegetables to the restaurant in Tokyo. Before they begin service, they bring you a wooden tray full of what you’re going to be eating that evening. More than a little precious, but the product looked great.
We had some grilled mushrooms that were a standout. They were charcoal grilled halfway, then put inside a “houba” leaf (cannot find a translation, some very long, but fairly narrow, tree leaf) on top of red miso paste. This whole packet was then grilled again for a bit. Packet is actually a bit misleading. It wasn’t really cooked “en papillote”, because the leaf was just pinned together at the top. The sides of the leaf were open.
When it was done cooking, they took a bamboo bowl, put some water in the bottom of it, then filled it with hundreds of tiny hot stones. The leaf packets were put on top of this and served. The smell of the grilled mushrooms, miso and leaf together just screamed Fall. An interesting twist that reminded us of some of the “hot stone” preparations at Trio.
We got one other small treat with the sashimi course (madai (red sea bream), hamo (no idea) and aji (horse mackerel)). They had taken the top of a rice plant from the harvest that is just beginning and held it in an open flame briefly. This popped a few of the rice kernels. It was like the best puffed rice I’ve ever had — toasty and nutty. Cute trick.
Posted by pmk at September 11, 2004 9:27 PM | TrackBack