foodie monday

Today I met my host-mom in Kobe for lunch, it is about a 45-minute train ride from our place. Last year, when I had lunch with her, she had mentioned about going to lunch at the Kobe Kitano Hotel. But with all the busyness throughout the year, we were only able to get together today.

The hotel has two restaurants, one fine dining restaurant and a cafe, igrek--where we had lunch. The hotel also advertises the "best breakfast in the world", I've heard that they serve fine quality breakfast items here. We ordered the weekly lunch.

It started off with an appetizer of proscuitto that is aged for 22 months, a small caprese salad and watercress.

Next was the daily soup--a pumpkin potage. This was really sweet and creamy.

Our main dish was fried tai (sea bream) with a kabu (turnip) puree (the white sauce) and the kabu leaves puree (the green sauce)--the fish was tender and the sauce, creamy.

For dessert, I chose an orange layered mousse with chocolate bottom. They also served it with a raspberry puree and grapefruit sorbet.

Everything was delicious and we enjoyed chatting while we ate.

My host brother's wife, who is also quite a foodie, gave us these delicious butter caramels made by Henri Le Roux. They will be having a Salon du Chocolat in Tokyo soon and this is one of the chocolatiers that will be there. This caramel is very good, a nice mix of sea salt, butter, and walnuts--addicting!

My host mom gave us these fluffy cakes called "squared egg" made by Fouquet's, a Kobe patisserie. A fluffy sponge cake sandwiches creamy vanilla custard--yum!

The year has only begun but we've had a lot of foodie adventures so far...

Kobe Kitano Hotel
3-3-20 Yamamoto Avenue, Chuo area, Kobe city
Phone: 078-271-3711