October, 2016 | Howdy Japan

Restaurant serving a set of sushi and pasta

In Nippori Tokyo, where we live, it’s not a single case that we find a strange restaurant. This time we found a restaurant which serves a set of a typical Japanese menu and a typical Italian menu, sushi and pasta. Do you think this collaboration would create a synergy?

East to Nippori station, there is an area called Nippori fabric town where there are many shops of cloth and dress material for those who want to make clothes by themselves.

In this area compared to the number of cloth shops there are only a few restaurants to supply energy during shopping. But today we found a strange signboard. It said in Japanese “sushi and pasta” with bigger characters than a name of the restaurant.

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We went upstairs to the entrance of the restaurant. In the first glance it looked like a small sushi restaurant with a sushi counter.

But when we saw the menu, in fact it said a variety of sets of sushi and pasta. Even though we couldn’t imagine yet how they collaborate, we ordered a set of chef’s sushi selection and spaghetti Neapolitan.

In a few minutes they served spaghetti Neapolitan at first with green tea.

Spaghetti Neapolitan is a menu of spaghetti which has been popular in Japan in a long time. Many Japanese people believe spaghetti Neapolitan is a kind of spaghetti made in Napoli, Italy. However, this spaghetti with ketchup source, sausage, onion and pimento is made in Japan only as one of typical images of the western food.

Then in another few minutes they indeed served chef’s sushi selection.

Kinds of sushi the chef selected were normal, not special to collaborate with pasta. So we wonder how two menus influence each other.

In conclusion, there were no synergy, nor marriage between two menus. Each taste of two menus were quite normal. I guess that this restaurant was originally a sushi restaurant, but they started serving pasta with sushi in order to attract women who come the area to buy cloths and want to eat the western food for lunch than Japanese food like sushi.

We believe there are many other strange restaurants here in the northern part of Tokyo…

Karasawa, colored leaves in Japanese mountains

Japanese people like colored leaves in autumn (Ko-yo in Japanese) and we visit many places such as temples, shrines and mountains to see scarlet maple leaves and yellow ginkgo leaves.

But with the variety of kinds of trees and spacious views I like colored leaves in mountains the most. And Karasawa, in Hodaka mountains, Japan Alps in Nagano prefecture is one of the best spot of autumn colored leaves in Japanese mountains. Let’s see its beauty!

The entrance to Hodaka mountains is Kamikochi with the altitude of 1,500m. The visitors to Kamikochi are welcomed by a magnificent view of Hodaka mountains from Kappa bridge. This view has been popular as a picture of postcard in a long time.

Once we depart from Kamikochi, we need to walk a flat trail along Azusa river in 3 hours. The walk in trees and along the river is a fun but 3 hours are too much for many people. It’s one of only a few bad points on trekking in Hodaka mountains and we come to wonder if we could drive since the trail is so flat. But don’t worry, the view after the trail rewards you.

Also in every one hour there are mountain lodges. We can rest and enjoy good food and drink.

After Yokoo, the third lodge, the trail gradually goes up. While we enjoy colored Erman’s birches (dake-kamba in Japanese), a gigantic rock shows up. The rock called Byobu-Iwa, and many alpine climbers dream to climb up this face.

In other 3 hours from Yokoo, we reach Karasawa. Karasawa is a valley made by glacial erosion surrounded by Hodaka mountains. Now it’s a base for climbing of Hodaka mountains with 2 lodges and numerous tents. And from the bottom of the valley, we can view colored Erman’s birches and mountain ashes (nana-kamado in Japanese) with steep rocky mountains on the backside. I believe this is one of the best beauty in Japanese mountains.

You might feel that the view from Karasawa lacks red color such as scarlet maples. Don’t worry. What you should do is to set a tent and sleep in your sleeping bag. In the early morning, the rising sun paints the mountains red. We call it “Morgen Rot” (morning red in German, since the Japanese imported technique of mountain climbing from Germany, there are still many German words related mountain).

Normally the leaves in Karasawa color in early to middle October. However this year they were at the peak at the end of September. It happens in some years when cold days continue in September. When you go there, please check information on the website of Kamikochi. (Japan Alps Kamikochi Website)

Mos Burger, gourmet burger in Japan

In Japan hamburger is a symbol of fast food with low price and short delivery time. McDonald is its typical example. On the other hand, recently the concept of gourmet burger with high quality and high price is getting recognition by ordinary Japanese. Shake Shack from New York which opened in Japan in 2015 is a typical example of such burger.

However, there was also a Japanese burger chain restaurant which has been focusing on the premium quality since 1972 and also focusing what the burger fitting to Japanese is. It’s Mos Burger.

Mos Burger was opened in 1972 by Mr. Satoshi Sakurada who learned the way to make burgers from Tommy’s, an American burger restaurant. However, he didn’t just imitate its way. In order to make the burger fitting to the taste of Japanese, he developed his original recipe and conceived an idea to put Bolognese source on patty. In Japan Bolognese source is often called “meat source” and very popular as a typical foreign taste.

Mos Burger is not a so “fast food” as they cook it after order. And their basic Mos Burger is 370 Japanese Yen (approx. 3.7 USD), while their rival burger chain restaurant McDonald Japan sometimes make a campaign to serve their basic hamburger with the price of 100 JPY (approx. 1 USD).

But Mos Burger stack to their way. As for the vegetable of their burger they bought only from contracted farmers in Japan to get safe food. Also in order to attract Japanese customers they created “teriyaki” burger, which is now popular in the US as well, and even created “rice burger”, a burger on which they put a patty between rice cakes instead of buns.

With such many unique efforts, now Mos Burger is the 2nd biggest burger chain restaurant in Japan next to McDonald Japan. Reflecting their strategy to focus good and safe food, there is modest atmosphere inside the restaurant.

They also focus on healthy food. In addition to regular meat patty, they serve “soy patty”, patty made from soy beans instead of meat. Furthermore they also serve “Natsumi”, a burger on which they put a patty between lettuce instead of buns. (I’m not sure if I can call it “burger” though.)

I want to see how Mos Burger will keep developing new burgers by answering the changing demand of customers.

Below is their website (English available).

http://www.mos.co.jp/global/