SHOT Magazine

Matsuri

2010.08.17

カテゴリー: Entertaining, Food, Restaurant

I love Matsuri (festivals) in Japan especially at this time of year. It’s hot, it’s humid and everybody is in the streets dressed in their yukata, drinking beer, eating yakitori and generally having a great time. At night there are fireworks and street parties. All in all great fun for everyone. Even my old friend Colonel Sanders gets into the action, as you can see from the photo of him presiding outside the Hiroo Plaza Kentucky Fried Chicken Store.

But honestly what Terry and I love to do most on these hot early evenings is to wander down the hill to the back of Hiroo and into our favourite little sushi shop, MIYA. Introduced to us only this year by dear friends, we were immediately smitten with the quality of the sushi and sashimi and by the friendliness of the lovely three generations of  family that runs the place. And the air conditioning. My apologies to the planet, but sometimes I really need the AC.

Back to the food. The Dad of the family makes the sushi and the sashimi  whilst the son cooks up whatever seasonal fish and sea food is on hand.  We begin usually with the kanpachi (amber jack) and otoro (the lovely belly meat of the tuna marbled with fat) sliced thickly and served raw with a ponzu style dipping sauce. Other sauces are available but I love the citrus tang of ponzu with sashimi. A mixed plate of tekkamaki sushi  follows before the son takes over and starts grilling fish. Recently we had grilled  ginbuna, a Japanese freshwater fish, and deep fried octopus tentacles. Much better than any calamari, these little curly florets are very morish and I sometimes over indulge (I know! How surprising!) and then have to give then next course a miss. But not when they serve oysters. And at the moment the oysters are fantastic!

On our last visit we had a dish of two different kinds of oysters. One, the Kumamoto oyster from Kyushu is small and quite creamy with a milky residue that occurs naturally when the oyster is prepared. I’m not overly fond of this type of oyster but when eaten fresh, as it is at Miya, it offers  an interesting comparison to the Fukui oyster with which it is served. Now these, I love. Medium sized and quite compact they are the perfect mouthful and have a clean finish. They taste of the sea but are not overly salty. The idea of the dish is to compare the two, the warm water Kumamoto and the cold water craggy shelled Fukui oysters. It is an interesting idea, but give me the Fukui oysters any day.

Enjoy your sweet life,

cheers

Cheryl