Buying our new knives

We went to Koppabashidori and bought our new knives from Kama-asa. Marina speaks excellent english and helped us enormously in choosing the knife.  Apparently you don't chose the knife, the knife chooses you - much like Olivanders wand shop in Harry Potter.

You don't choose the knife, the knife chooses you.  

Marina was wonderful in helping us choose the knives - knowing exactly what we were looking for. 

After you choose your knife, they will engrave it for free (in English or Japanese)

We ended up buying two knives each - a chefs knife and a smaller utility knife.  They were very reasonably priced, with the largest costing around $125.  I also bought a bonito shaver.  Each of the knives were engraved with our name on the blade and our initials on the handle, and came in a cloth lined box with their own maintenance instructions, and provenience of where each knife was made, and by whom.  We were in foodie heaven.

How to get to Kappabashi
Take the Ginza line to Tawaramachi Station.Take Exit #3 out of the station. Once you emerge, you will be facing north on the corner of Asakusa-dori and Kokusai-dori. Turn around (180 degrees) and walk west along the Asukusa-dori away from Asakusa toward Ueno. At the second light look up and you will see a huge plastic chef guy wearing a hat and also a police box. Turn right and you're on the street Kappabashi-dori!

Udon and Teriyaki Chicken Cooking Class

We did another cooking class with Ayuko at Buddha Bellies Cooking School - this time making Udon from scratch and Teriyaki Chicken. The amazing thing about this class is that you make the udon with your feet!!!!

J & our lovely friend E getting into the swing of things making the Udon with their feet.

Mix 100g of Udon flour (or 50g plain flour and 50g bread flour) with 45-55mls of water (with 1/2 a teaspoon of salt mixed in ahead of time).  Form the dough into a ball and place in a plastic bag (two layers), and knead the dough with your feet for 5 mins.  Then form back into a ball and knead for another 5 mins, and then repeat the process once more.  Form the dough into a ball and rest for 30 mins in the plastic bag.

Run the dough through the kneader (or pasta machine) on level 4 twice, then once on level, 3, 2, 1 & then through the udon cutter & you have made your udon!!!

 Cook in boiling water for 2 mins, then refresh in cold water.  Place in a bowl with cooked meat, fish cake, wasabi or watercress sprouts, carrot and a broth.  The broth we used is 5 parts water to 1part noodle sauce (Tsuyu).  For cold noodles you use 3 or 4 parts water to noodle sauce.  There is a recipe for tsuyu here and for zaru soba here (soba is made from buckwheat flour).

The finished product - enjoy!!

We also make Chicken Teriyaki

Even out the chicken fillet so that it is an even thickness.  Coat in flour and cook on a medium-low heat for 3 mins each side (skin side first).  The teacher told us "tender heat for tender chicken" to remind us to cook the chicken slowly on a lower heat than normal (it made the chicken incredibly tender).

Add the Teriyaki sauce - 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 3tablespoons Mirin, 2 tablespoons sake.  Cook for a minute or two on a medium-high heat so that the chicken becomes shiny and the sauce thickens.

Serve & Enjoy!!

 

The building we are staying in with our friends is uber nice - this is the front entrance way...

 and the building has a concierge (to help you park your Maserati or Bentley)

 The emergency ladder (to use in case of a fire or earthquake).  We had a 5.3 earthquake here - you can see about it here - http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/magnitude-5-3-earthquake/929898.html 

 our view out the window of the apartment we are staying in with friends.....

 An AMAZING ramen shop - the t-shirt says it all. 

Their "standard" Ramen with Gyoza (the soup was unbelievably good).  Ippodo also has a restaurant in Sydney. 

Sukiyaki with Chiso (Fusako) in Matsudo

 Following the grand tradition of Colemans picnicing around the world - here we are having a picnic on the station on our way to visit the Yamazakis :-)


Fusako (Chiso) and her friend Mise (the assistant priest at her temple) took us to a Sukiyaki restaurant for dinner at Matsudo.

 The first course at the Sukiyaki restaurant was a bowl of Fugu Salad. Fugu is the very dangerous puffer fish that can kill you if it isn't prepared correctly.  It was tasty, but I wouldn't travel across the world to eat it again.

The second course was some delicious tempura....

Getting ready to cook dinner at our table - complete with our own bibs each..... (yes, we made a mess, but it was delicious).

 Raw egg to dip the cooked food in, pickles and dipping sauce.  The meat tasted AMAZING.  Actually, all of it was delicious.

Cooking together brings out great conversation (Fusako speaks great english, but we still needed the dictionary from time to time).

Visiting the Yamazakis at the Zen Koji Temple

Chiso (Fusako) meeting us at the gates of the temple (Zen Koji Temple, Goko)

Fusako (Chiso) meeting us at the gates of the temple (looking extremely happy, as always).  Chiso was promoted to chief priest on the 28th of November, 2013.

 The courtyard of the temple

 The Yamazakis

 Chiso (Fusako) & her puppet that she uses to explain the temple to school children)

Temple sweets for afternoon tea :-)

The Yamazakis and the Colemans

Fusako's mother's shrine

 Stephen leaving an offering at Fusako's mother's shrine (origami) to go with her favourite drink (tomato juice) & mandarins (maki).

Fish cutting, sushi and sashimi class

J & I did a fish cutting/knife skills and sushi course in Tokyo - I feel a lot more confident cutting up and gutting a fish now, and learnt some great ways to make sushi and sashimi.....  It was a lot of fun.

 a selection of Japanese knives - we hope to go to Kappabashi-dori in a few days to buy our own knives.

Pin boning a horse mackerel.

The horse mackerel filleted into three.  Scaled, head off, gutted, filleted (not sure how often I will do this back in Australia, but it was fun to learn).

Cutting the Horse Mackerel into sashimi.

Making the decorative sushi (we learnt the secret to getting sushi to close shut is to put a few grains of rice a the very end to use as "glue").

A highly recommended book on decorative sushi.

our sashimi efforts (from whole fish to sashimi)

 our efforts at decorative sushi - we'll definitely be doing this again.  It wasn't as hard as we thought it would be, and looks amazing.  You can learn more about how to make Kazari Maki Sushi (decorative sushi) here - Kazari Maki cooking with Cathy

Our final efforts - 7 different types of nigiri sushi, the decorative maki roll sushi, and two different types of sashimi (Horse Mackerel and Yellowtail).

We did the cooking class with Ayuko at Buddha Bellies Cooking Class - you can see more information here on their website - http://buddhabelliestokyo.jimdo.com/  The lessons were excellent for people who are more advanced, but Ayuko was really great at helping beginners as well.  Her "classroom" is a library of english language cookbooks which are very inspiring as well. If you are in Tokyo, I would highly recommend her classes (we are doing another class with her soon, so we'll post more photos). 

For dinner we went to Genki Sushi (you can never have too much sushi!!!).  You order on the ipad in front of you and the sushi is delivered on a little train system. It was delicious, and really cheap (sushi for the three of us was a bit over $30).

Breakfast at Yama-no-chaya

At Yama-no-chaya there was sooo much food for breakfast we had to have a second table brought into put it all on.

The small details at yama-no-chaya were amazing - handmade ceramic sinks, with pieces of charcoal in them to keep any smell away.

We weren't able to take photo's in the onsen, so here are some photo's from the yama-no-chaya website so you can see what it was like......

They kindly drove us back to the train station (in a mercedes 4WD) - the bridge was only just wide enough to cope with the car....