Girls Night Out... with Blowfish!

Back in September, I had the opportunity to hang out with Kim and Shawna at one of Shawna's favorite restaurants in downtown Iwakuni. Thankfully, Shawna can speak Japanese and she was familiar with the menu, otherwise I would have been completely lost! The lady who owned the restaurant and the chef were obviously very fond of Shawna and gave us a very warm reception. The place was so tiny, as are many restaurants in Japan. It's basically one bar with no additional seating, and I would say you could fit 12 people max in there. I honestly don't know how some of these hole in the wall, mom and pop places stay in business, but this restaurant is apparently very popular because they serve really fresh food and have lots of options!

Now, on to the blowfish! In Japan, you have to possess a special chef license to be able to serve blowfish, or "fugu" as it's pronounced in Japanese. This place struck me as a bit dodgy so I'm not sure how legit their license is, LOL. The licenses to serve this fish are very difficult to get which makes this dish pretty expensive thus finding blow fish at a restaurant is really rare! So, I guess I'm lucky I didn't get poisoned, because if the fish is not prepared properly, the blowfish toxin can be lethal when consumed.

Here's the blowfish!

Seaweed, scallions, and a squeeze of lemon added a good flavor to the fish itself. In the background are what we assumed to be livers.

The platter also included fish roe and fish skin.

As you can see, it was served sashimi style - raw and thinly sliced. I honestly didn't think the fish itself had much flavor but when you added all the other components, it was pretty darn good! The livers were actually my favorite part! It's funny though - I feel like I'm getting braver about trying new foods, but I realize I have to eat them when they're brought out super fast before I have time to really look at or think about what I'm about to consume otherwise I may lose my nerve, LOL!

Here's the spread of what Shawna ordered for us, minus the tempura plate and the appetizer of the day that we received as soon as we sat down and the final dish we automatically got at the end (yeah, we ate A LOT). Also notice the plethora of sauces - it was really difficult to remember which sauce went with which dish.

This was the special fish dish of the evening. Tuna, octopus, mackerel (I think) and another white fish that I can't remember. The big leaves on the plate are actually an herb that taste like a cross between mint, basil and cilantro. You're supposed to use them like a burrito and roll up a piece of fish, the other toppings and sauce inside and eat it like a wrap. YUM!

We were sitting at the end of the bar, so this is the extent of the entire place!! That's the chef in white in the back and the owner, the Mama-san, sitting down behind the bar. Apparently some of the regulars down at the other end kept asking if we were married and thought we were all beautiful, LOL. It's interesting to know what the folks are saying - thank you Shawna for your understanding of the language!

At the end of the meal, we all split one beer and toasted to Mama-san and the amazing meal!!!

Some Local Hiking

Joel and I were able to hike up to the Kintai Castle. It was awesome - it was paved most of the way which made it a little easier, but we were still huffing and puffing. We were encouraged though because a lot of older Japanese women were trucking it up the side of the mountain, so if they can do it, we can do it. That thinking got us up to the top. :) There were some beautiful sights and neat shrines that we didn't see when we took the lift up to the castle last fall. Anyone who comes to visit is getting this tour:

This is for Debbie

Apparently rats will burn you if you do something stupid... that's what we took away from this sign LOL

Jazzin' it up Japan Style

So, we are finally moving along with our blog - we are now into August - getting closer to real time.

Back in August we got invited to attend a Jazz performance at a local Iwakuni piano bar. We went along with our good friends Kim & Keith, as one of their co-workers' wives was featured as the lead vocal. It turns out that she studied voice in the States and now performs once a year with a famous Japanese drummer when he visits Japan. The rest of the ensemble was made up by a bass player and pianist. We were told that they only practiced for about 30 minutes before the show, so it was incredible the way they were able to ad lib and go with the flow all together. All but one of the songs were sung in English, but the one Japanese song was actually our favorite - overall a very fun night expanding our cultural horizons.

Getting ready for the night!

We had dinner at our favorite restaurant, Butajiro, before the show. It's a tapas style restaurant where everything is 290 yen. They don't really speak any English at the restaurant and the menu is all Japanese with a couple of pictures. So we like to order from the pictures and then randomly pick other things off the menu. Normally we can tell if we're getting pasta, fish, beef, or chicken, but beyond that, sometimes we don't have a clue what we're ordering! It adds to the awesomeness of the experience. They restaurant always starts us off with their special of the day and since there were 4 of us, we got 4 different specials. This time it was potato salad, brie cheese, prosciutto, and octopus salad.

We ordered 3 servings of risotto. Cheese on Japanese menus is rare, which is why the Brie in the appetizer was unusual and the risotto is so good! They actually stir the hot rice in a big clock of cheese tableside to pick up extra cheese flavor before they serve it to you.

Sardines.

I was the first brave one to eat the whole sardine.

I think this was pork belly. Really fatty, but REALLY good. Kirk would tell you it was worth the calories.

Baked chicken.

After dinner we headed over to the piano bar, which was on the 4th floor of this tiny, narrow building in downtown Iwakuni. We were some of the last folks to get there, but our tickets were numbered because there was assigned seating. Kim and Keith's co-worker, Daigo, really hooked us up ticket-wise because we had seats at one of the front row tables. The place was really crowded as there were probably around 100 people at this show in the tiny upstairs venue.

 We got an appetizer plate and one beer a piece as part of our ticket price. But, we were pretty full from dinner so we made our way through this food slowly - meatballs, chicken bits, potato salad, edamame, and sweet egg omelet.

This is the view from our seats - we got a good view of the pianist and the famous drummer! Kirk really liked sitting so close to the pianist as she was able to watch him the whole time.

Kim and Keith, why'd you have to go back to the States?!

Risa, the singer, was FANTASTIC. Kirk described her as sounding "sultry and perfectly Jazzy". We were really impressed.

Thanks to Daigo and Risa for inviting us - we had a great time!