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Exclusive Japan Travel – 2012 Sake Brewery Tours

Flip through the photo book of Sake Brewery Tours destinations. In 2012, the 5-day excursions take you to experience the best of the snow country in Akita, and to really immerse yourself in sake and culinary traditions in the Land of Myth, the San-in region. Enjoy & visit http://saketours.com!

2 min 7 sec

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I have always wondered what makes the simplest staples such as buckwheat soba noodles taste so good. What is the secret that sets some restaurants apart from others?

Last February, Sake Brewery Tours group learned how to roll out soba from Sato-san, a master, who joined us in a historic building at Kariho sake brewery in Akita. For many guests, it was their first time making soba. Under Sato-san’s very good instructions–and with some hands-on help–we kneaded, rolled, and cut our own fresh soba. While we were waiting for the noodles to boil, Kariho’s toji, or brew master, told us some amazing tales. He took us back 30 plus years to when he had started working at the brewery. When the noodles were ready, we enjoyed them with some just-brewed Kariho. Nothing could have tasted better. Everything was just so magical and that whole experience at the brewery was definitely one of the highlights of our five day in the snow country!

The soba master, Sato-san and his family own a restaurant in Kakunodate where the group spent the night. So, the next day, some of us visited him at his shop called simply, Kakunodate Soba. Again, we watched him roll out soba. This time he was in his own soba station with a huge wooden board on the counter next to the giant green soba grinding mill. He does this behind a glass wall so the diners can see his work as well as taste it. Just like the previous day, the soba I had was great-simple, but perfect.

Last week, I went back to Kakunodate to finalize arrangements for the 2012 Akita tour in February. I stopped in at Kakunodate Soba before they gets busy for lunch. As I was waiting for Sato-san to pack some of his soba for me to bring back to Tokyo, I noticed his father was carefully picking through a tray full of something. “Is that what soba looks like?” I asked. He said this batch was just hulled in the back of the restaurant, but there were a few black pieces left in the layers of yellow seed. He picked out any unhusked soba one by one because they change the color of the noodles. “It’s a lot of work, but we do this everyday. Otherwise, flavor and aroma of soba noodles are not so good.”

I know many soba shops grind the seeds to make their own flour, but I had not heard of a place where they husk the soba in-house. When Sato-san came back, I expressed how taken aback I was to learn how much work goes into preparation. “Do you have some time?” He invited me to the back of the restaurant to see his workshop where his seeds are prepared before milling. After learning the whole process, I was even more surprised to see how much care and time go into a simple bowl of noodles. Sato-san’s approach reminded me of sake brewing.

First, he showed me the giant refrigerated room dedicated to keeping the bags of buckwheat after it comes from a grower. Then, in the back room, he had two big green machines, one was tall and another one was low. One looked like a small rice milling machine like you might see at a sake brewery, so I assumed it is for husking. But, I could not figure out what the other short machine was for. Sato-san scooped black seeds from a blue bucket and said, “These are pretty clean when the growers ship them to us, but first we have to polish them. We clean off any trace of dust or unwanted bits by running a batch through this machine.” Then, he picks up metal plate with many holes all the same size. He explained the next step to sort the polished seeds by running them through the screen. There is a series of ten screens with ever smaller holes. Thus, everything is sorted by size before the soba goes into the tall husking machine. This kind of attention improves the husking process. Even after all of this, there are going to be a few unhusked ones in the mix. So, he uses a metal sorting plate again to separate husked and unhusked ones. Unhusked ones go back to go through the machine again.

Before getting to the point where I watched Sato-san’s father working on in the kitchen, an unimaginable amount of care goes in. “Do people know that you put in this much time and attention everyday before serving them a bowl?” I asked. In February, we had no idea how much went into making the flour we had in front of us. “I don’t think so. The prep work is time consuming but it makes all the difference in taste and aroma. Also, it is not as hard as finding the right growers and doing business with them. That’s the hardest thing and I sometimes have to ask my shisho, or master, to help me out.”

We did not even get into his dashi broth at all. Nut, his soba sauce has just the right balance of dashi and soy sauce. I imagine the same philosophy he has about noodles goes into his sauce. I never knew how complex it was to make this simple meal. I finally found the answer to my question. Now I know the secret.

If you are visiting the beautiful, yet very relaxing historic town, Kakunodate in Akita, you can try their soba yourself! They are open for lunch only and close once they have served all soba they prepared for the day.
Kakunodate Soba
Address: 17 Iwase, Kakunodate, Senboku, Akita
秋田県仙北市角館町岩瀬町１７
Tel: 0187-53-2054
Access: Kakunodate Soba is located between Nishinomiya-ke and Ando Jozo. It is a few houses up the street from Nishinomiya-ke.
Web site in Japanese:http://www.hana.or.jp/hana/kigata/kakusoba/sobatop.htm

Please join the Sake Brewery Tours to Akita in 2012 to taste and see the sake and soba master craftsmanship yourself!

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Enter to win a guinomi!

We are giving away this beautiful guinomi sake glass from Yumachi Gama pottery kiln to a lucky winner from 6th Annual Sake Day guests. Stop at the Sake Brewery Tours table to get a secret code to enter to win!

While you are there, find out about the two regions, Akita and San-in, we visit in 2012. In addtion, you will have a chance to contribute to the recovery of Tohoku by purchasing Sake Brewery Tours o-choko. 100% of the sale price is donated for Tohoku. Don’t forget to try some yummy treats from San-in region!

Please visit Sake Brewery Tours for more information.
6th Annual Sake Day informtion: http://sakeday.com/

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Tokyo

9/25 (Sun)The Annual Nihonshu-no-hi walk in Tokyo starts at 1:00 pm from Ginza. After this strenuous sake support activity, head to Takara at Tokyo International Forum for a sake party!

Info in Japanese.

10/3 (Mon) Free Sake at Sake Plaza. Sake Brewers Association will have Kagami-biraki to celebrate Nihonshu-no-hi at 12 and 5pm.
See japansake.or.jp in Japanese

North America

NYC

Sake Party at SAKAYA NYC: 10/1 (Sat) 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Hiroko and Rick will be presenting Joto’s boutique sake selection. Don’t miss a chance to sip Yuki-no-bosha!
http://www.sakayanyc.com/events.php

The National Sake Day? at Sakagura: 10/1 -10/3 http://sakaguranyc.blog64.fc2.com/blog-entry-91.html

San Francisco

6th Annual Sake Day “A Toast to Recovery” by True Sake: 10/1 (Sat) 4-8 pm
Great party with sake, food, and music. While you are at the event, stop by the Sake Brewery Tours table for goodies!
http://sakeday.com/

Sake Day Weekend (9/30 – 10/2) Pairing at Nombe Restaurant:
http://www.nombesf.com/sake-day-weekend-930-102-pairing/

Portland

International Sake Day at SakeOne: 10/1 (Sat) 11am-5pm
Brewery tour, cooking demonstration, daiginjo flight info on SakeOne site

Vancouver

Premium 酒 Tasting Night at Tonarigumi: 10/1 (Sat) 7:30 – 9:30 pm
http://tonarigumi.ca/calendar/premium-tasting-night/

Austin

Grand Opening of Texas Sake Kura: 10/1 (Sat)
http://www.txsake.com/

Dallas

Sake at Tei-An Soba House: 10/2 (Sun) 7:00 pm
Tohoku sake pairing dinner by Chef Hung and Teiichi Sakuraiat Tei-An Soba House
info on Side Dish

Minneapolis

National Sake Day at Moto-i: 10/1 (Sat) all day
Celebrating being the only sake brewpub in North America (and 3 years old) with $3 sakes!
http://www.moto-i.com/

Honolulu

SAKE DAY 2011 CELEBRATION at The Sake Shop: 10/1 (Sat) all day
Sake tasting and drawings to win hard to get sake items!
Info

Boston

SAKE DAY at Umami Asian Bistro: 10/1 (Sat) 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Sake flight and an opportunity to try your hand at mixing a Sake cocktail
Info

South America
São Paulo

Sake Day Special Pairing at Itigo Sake House: 9/27 to 10/01
Special paring of three sake with three small plates.
http://www.itigo.com.br

Did we miss your sake event? Is anything happening in Australia, Asia, Europe, or South America? Please let us know via twitter @tokyofoodcast.

Enjoy your sake on October 1st!

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As I mentioned in my last post, I am going back to Ishinomaki today for one week. For the group going there to volunteer with Peace Boat leaving today, we still have to bring all the food that will last us for one week. That will change after us, but there are a couple of challenges to this “bring your own food” arrangement. There’s no cooking facility or food service until July 9th at the Peace Boat volunteer base. To make things difficult, there’s no store near by to buy any food and there is no refrigerator. We load all the food, cooking tools, and gear along with our clothes onto a bus, so we are asked to pack light. Plus, we will be working all day removing mud, which is very dirty, tiring work by itself. When it comes to lunch or dinner, we need something quick and nutritious.

The basics

This is my seven day package for me and to cook for my group a couple of nights in Ishinomaki
My meal plans are:
Breakfast – cereal, skim milk, instant coffee
Lunch – tuna sandwich. Once I run out of bread, I will survive on bags of beans.
Snacks – dried fruits and nuts
Dinner – for my turn to cook, I plan to cook, couscous and bean salad, tomato soup with beans and pasta, and dal.

Oh, and I packed instant miso soup cubes. Last time I volunteered in Ishinomaki in May, I found out I had a craving for miso soup. That’s what I grew up with and something I enjoy with dinner, but I never imagined such a craving for miso soup other than mornings with hangovers.

As far as the cooking tools, we are bringing portable gas stoves, pots and pans, and other basic kitchen items.

Starting with the July 9th group, Peace Boat will provide lunch and dinner for volunteers, which will be a tremendous help for volunteers to focus on what they are up there for.

Please follow me on Twitter to see how the week is going in Ishinomaki.

Kitchen away from home

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Ishinomaki

In my previous post from May, I reported Tokyo is back to normal. You may find the streets of Tokyo a bit dimmer than before, but the city is as busy and lively as ever. Ads for cars, laundry soap, and medicine have come back to primetime TV and sake events bring in big, enthusiastic crowds. It’s as if the time of self-restrain imposed by one city official never happened. I am so happy to see Tokyo in a state of what makes this vibrant city so attractive and truly hope it stays that way for a long time.

At the same time, I still tear up thinking how the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami changed so many people’s life in wide coastal areas of northern Japan. After one week of volunteer work with Peace Boat in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, and meeting locals, I think of how much more needs to be done. For me, the tsunami is no longer a remote devastating disaster we watched on TV. It has became real to me. Two months after the disaster, the impacted area of the huge fishing town were not anywhere close to normal. We cleared debris and mud from heavily damaged houses and unclogged seemingly bottomless gutters filled with stinky sludge. Recovery seemed impossible, or seemed so far away as to be unreachable in any foreseeable future. But, it has to happen.

Working with Peace Boat
I was one of 130 volunteers with Peace Boat that left Tokyo on Friday, May 13th, two months after the disaster. We arrived at Ishinomaki by overnight bus on Saturday morning. I had read reports of the recovery effort, such as a fruit shop reopening on a shotengai street filled with old fashioned mom-and-pop shops. I hoped to see this happening. As we got closer to an old textile factory a few kilometers from the coast where we would stay for 8 nights, the view from the bus drastically changed. The totally normal looking suburban neighborhoods with car dealers, conbini, and houses standing intact were gone. We entered a war zone scene I had only ever seen on TV. We were transported from an everyday neighborhood of Japan to another planet.

We arrived at the base and walked to the first job site and the eeriness of the area hit me. We saw a few cars pass by and one person was out working, but dusty wreckage surrounded us in total silence. Smashed cars with shattered windows piled up face down against a big pile of debris. Very few homes had been restored or rebuilt. But, the first floor had been totally ripped from most houses. And, everything from furniture to muddy stuffed animals was piled around these homes. Everywhere we looked, we saw the aftermath of the tsunami. In many places, nothing has been done; we could see no trace of recovery. My first thought was how could the area get back to life without any people around?

The work week
As Monday came, I realized it had been the weekend. During weekdays, the major roads are quite busy with cars, trucks, heavy equipment, or construction people. Local residents walked along wearing masks against the dust. As the week progressed and I saw different areas, I felt Ishinomaki was even further away from the recovery. The unimaginable scale of the destruction and the sight of total demolition by nature blew me away. It felt like it was impossible to put things back to how it had been before that day.

1000 bags a day

During the seven days in Ishinomaki, I worked with five other dedicated and amazing and committed people as one team. Two of our team members traveled to Japan for one purpose–just to volunteer in Tohoku. Our daily routines were all dedicated to repairing damage caused by the tsunami. We cleared mud from rooms and from under the floors of houses. We removed the sludge from gutters and from gardens around homes. Then, we stuffed it all into bags one by one.

One day, we were given a break. We distributed donated relief goods and food services. But most of the time, we were back breaking mud busters, which in a odd way was a very rewarding experience. I really liked working at the houses better. At the end of each day, we saw the difference we had made. The piles and piles of white bags stacked outside and and just regular dirt left on the floor was fulfilling. Of course, the most rewarding moments were seeing such genuine happiness in the owners of a house once the chocolate fudge like layers of sludge had been completely removed. One source of their distress was gone, and they could see a future.

Thank you from Ishinomaki

The people of Ishinomaki
We worked at six houses and all of the owners were in their late 60s to mid 80s. Most of them were very open to talk about their experience and their situation. Everyone we talked to preferred coming home rather than living at a shelter, even if the entire first floor was gone and they only had part of the second floor to live in. They all lived in total uncertainty-they were not sure what the local or national governments were going to do to the area or how insurance companies would settle their claims. “This is our home of more than 35 years. Where can we go?” one elderly couple said. People we met were barely surviving in houses that could not function as homes at all. All of them were trying to restore their houses by themselves, but simply couldn’t. Most of them had hurt their backs after trying so hard for two months and were forced to ask for help.

Deep feelings
During the week, I was really frustrated and very angry. Why do these people have to go through this? They do not deserve this. There must be a better and faster way to give normal life back to these people. One day, in our morning meeting, the Peace Boat site director talked about the progress we are making. “It’s slow, but we are making the difference one bag at a time.” This stuck in my mind. We may not be able to do a lot overnight, but we can help Ishinomaki one bag at a time.

Through very small areas in Ishinomaki, I saw how much work needed to be done. It is nowhere near rebuilt yet. I believe other impacted areas are suffering, too. I do not have a simple answer how to save Tohoku, but I know these areas needs more manpower, resources, and time. They made a good start, but they have a long way more to go. I just received email from Peace Boat explaining that the number of volunteers is dropping drastically and so is their funding for relief efforts. They estimate it will take another two years for impacted areas in Ishinomaki to recover.

I am going back to volunteer with Peace Boat in July and I sincerely hope to see a difference from May. And, I want make that difference, even one bag at a time.

Ways you can support Tohoku

1. Volunteer in the affected coastal areas in Tohoku. Peace Boat is very organized and offers excellent English support, but there are other relief efforts out there.
Peace Boat Web
Foreign Volunteers Japan – they seem to have good volunteer info.

2. Travel to Tohoku, the northern region of Japan. Outside the Pacific Coastal areas, the natural beauty of the area is untouched. Tourism tremendously helps the local economy. Even Matsushima Bay on the Pafific Coast of Miyagi is recovered and ready to welcome tourists.

3. Donate. Peace Boat needs money for tools, bags and lot more. They support people in need by coordinating volunteers, distributing donated goods, and providing meals.

4. Drink sake. You may think sake has nothing to do with the recovery, but sake breweries are always tightly connected to the local economy.

5. Spread the word. The areas directly hit by tsunami is far from recovery. Major roads are restored, but people need home and need to live life!

6. Finally, hire me as your guide in Japan. I donate 100% of all of my service fees as a tour guide to Peace Boat. Instead of getting paid for my work as a guide, I ask clients to donate my usual fee directly on the Peace Boat site, or I will arrange the donation on behalf of the client.

Ishinomaki Facts:
Population (as of Feb 2011): 162,822
Number of household (as of Feb 2011): 60,928

Loss from the 311 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
Reported deaths: 3,025
Missing: 2,770
Number of totally destroyed houses and buildings: 28,000
Number of evacuees at peak: 111,295
Number of people living at shelters (as of June 10): 7,580
(source:　Ishinomaki City web site: Miyagi Prefecture Web Site (PDF document))

Please visit
Video of Ishinomaki by fellow volunteer, Katie
Photo blog by Alex, our team member
About 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on Wikipedia

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As life in Tokyo gets back to normal, so does our life. During the Golden Week holiday, many people made last minutes plans to get in or out of the city. We traveled one and half hours on local trains to Chigasaki, Kanagawa to spend the afternoon at Kumazawa Brewery, makers of Tensei label sake and Shonan Beer. Just like their fermentation, at Kumazawa Brewery, they have perfected blending old and new ways to create their own local art and food community.

One toughest choice that day was between Mokichi Trattoria or Tensei for our late, low-key lunch. Both eateries are part of the Kumazawa Shuzo compound and are run by the same people. They just differ in styles and atmosphere. Mokichi Trattoria is a kid-friendly pizza centric place with more of the beer theme. Tensei serves fusion dishes from right next to their sake brewery. You can see the roomful of fermentation tanks through the big glass walls.

Having been to Tensei a few times, but not to Mokichi, I thought we’d try their wood oven pizza with sake this time. Te-chan was excited about sausage from a local farm and micro-brewed beer.

So, here we are, at Mokichi Trattoria. Everything at Mokichi was impeccable but at the same time so comfortable and relaxed. We loved it here, especially the last glass we had- Tensei Junmai aged for five years in sherry casks. And, it is not available anywhere but in these two restaurants.

About Mokichi Trattoria
Information in English: http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g246300/lang/en/
Address: 7-10-7, Kagawa, Chigasaki-shi, Kanagawa
Phone: 0467-52-6111

About Tensei
Information in English: http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g246301/lang/en/
Phone: 0467-52-6115

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We will continue to share our sake, food, and travel experiences with some updates from our life in Japan.

To kickstart the return of our long lost Tokyofoodcast site, I thought to share this short video about miracle sake we tasted at John Gauntner and Robert Yellin’s seminar at the end of April. This sake brewed by Hitakami in Ishinomaki was left in the tank untouched for two weeks after the disaster. Visit John’s site for the whole story (Scroll down to entries for April 7 and 13).

Kanpai!

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