Having snarked at Japanese cuisine, I should redress the balance with a bit of well-deserved praise. I think I mentioned previously (oh yes, here) that the 2011 Michelin guide was supposed to expand from its previous focus on Tokyo to cover not only Yokohama but also Kamakura. I was a bit surprised as Kamakura mostly caters to day-trippers looking for a quick snack, though it is also quite a prosperous area - one of the nicest places you can live within commuting range of Tokyo.
Anyway, the guide is now out - or at least, being promoted in press releases - and there are indeed 10 restaurants in Kamakura that have been awarded one star each. And I was a little surprised, though perhaps I shouldn't have been to find that one of them is a place we frequent quite regularly, Hachinoki in Kita-Kamakura, which is an excellent shojin-ryori (Zen buddhist vegan) restaurant just outside the major Zen temple of Kencho-ji. It's an obvious place to take visitors (hi Andy) and there's also a pleasant walk directly though the hills from our house to the back of the temple which makes a relaxing morning trip. So I hope everyone is thoroughly impressed that we took them to a Michelin-starred restaurant during their visits! Actually according to Hachinoki's website the star seems to have been awarded to one other branches of the restaurant, there are 3 all quite close together, but I'm sure they are much the same (though one isn't actually vegan). For any reader(s) who went to the PMIP meeting in Kyoto, we think Hachinoki is better than the similar style shojin-ryori meal we had in Daitoku-ji temple, but it doesn't have an onsen so close by :-)
Incidentally, the PMIP meeting itself was also a bit of a tour de force of Japanese cuisine - one night we had boiled tofu at Nanzen-ji temple (at which various people were heard to mutter "when's the meat course coming", though it was not actually wholly vegetarian due to the sashimi starter), then next night the vegan shojin-ryori, and finally a shabu-shabu meal where we actually had some thin slices of meat to cook. Some people who had better remain nameless resorted to regular McDonalds visits, "but two of them were only for ice cream so that doesn't really count". That still leaves 3 Big Macs and fries, Dan, and you were only there for 5 days. I must admit even we searched out the local St Arbucks one morning for breakfast, but only because we went out for a morning run and couldn't face precisely the same hotel breakfast for the nth day in a row, honest...
I don't know any of the other Michelin-starred restaurants in Kamakura, and most of them don't look very exciting - almost all standard Japanese fare of the type that I try to avoid at weekends, with one obligatory overpriced French restaurant thrown into the mix. Our favourite remains T-Side, whose head chef was coincidentally featured in an article in the Japan Times recently (oops wrong link fixed). But currently we've got a pound of duck fat in the fridge to work though, the remains of a lovely Iwate-bred Japanese duck that I ordered from the local supermarket for our Christmas lunch.
Anyway, the guide is now out - or at least, being promoted in press releases - and there are indeed 10 restaurants in Kamakura that have been awarded one star each. And I was a little surprised, though perhaps I shouldn't have been to find that one of them is a place we frequent quite regularly, Hachinoki in Kita-Kamakura, which is an excellent shojin-ryori (Zen buddhist vegan) restaurant just outside the major Zen temple of Kencho-ji. It's an obvious place to take visitors (hi Andy) and there's also a pleasant walk directly though the hills from our house to the back of the temple which makes a relaxing morning trip. So I hope everyone is thoroughly impressed that we took them to a Michelin-starred restaurant during their visits! Actually according to Hachinoki's website the star seems to have been awarded to one other branches of the restaurant, there are 3 all quite close together, but I'm sure they are much the same (though one isn't actually vegan). For any reader(s) who went to the PMIP meeting in Kyoto, we think Hachinoki is better than the similar style shojin-ryori meal we had in Daitoku-ji temple, but it doesn't have an onsen so close by :-)
Incidentally, the PMIP meeting itself was also a bit of a tour de force of Japanese cuisine - one night we had boiled tofu at Nanzen-ji temple (at which various people were heard to mutter "when's the meat course coming", though it was not actually wholly vegetarian due to the sashimi starter), then next night the vegan shojin-ryori, and finally a shabu-shabu meal where we actually had some thin slices of meat to cook. Some people who had better remain nameless resorted to regular McDonalds visits, "but two of them were only for ice cream so that doesn't really count". That still leaves 3 Big Macs and fries, Dan, and you were only there for 5 days. I must admit even we searched out the local St Arbucks one morning for breakfast, but only because we went out for a morning run and couldn't face precisely the same hotel breakfast for the nth day in a row, honest...
I don't know any of the other Michelin-starred restaurants in Kamakura, and most of them don't look very exciting - almost all standard Japanese fare of the type that I try to avoid at weekends, with one obligatory overpriced French restaurant thrown into the mix. Our favourite remains T-Side, whose head chef was coincidentally featured in an article in the Japan Times recently (oops wrong link fixed). But currently we've got a pound of duck fat in the fridge to work though, the remains of a lovely Iwate-bred Japanese duck that I ordered from the local supermarket for our Christmas lunch.
4 comments:
Tokyo Culinary Capital of the World
Tokyo’s rise to the top of the fine dining world may be due to the city’s sheer size as much as the quality of its chefs.
As the BBC points out “Tokyo is much bigger than Paris and has 160,000 restaurants compared with about 40,000 in Paris. ;)
Well, the Aburi no tsubo (I think) place just below the railway bridge was somewhat above the ordinary, as was the omakase lunch at Morisaki.
But you could get free Wifi if you stood outside KFC....
have you ate at Sasa-no-ha ? vegetarian restraunt near Kita-kama station . http://www.jin.ne.jp/sasanoha/e.htm
Thanks for the suggestions.
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