happy lunar new year

Happy Lunar New Year!

We went to Yokohama's Chinatown on Saturday to celebrate.

It is only a 30 minute ride by train from where we live.

We started off with some happo tea and snacks at Gokuchaso (which apparently translates to Monkey Magic Tea House).

Happo tea has eight different dried items like goji berries, chrysanthemum as well as some tea too.

It was pretty nice to sit and leisurely drink tea without too much chattering going on in the cafe.

I ordered an amanikuman which was a bun filled with housemade char siu.

Not too sweet and the steamed bun was really soft!

I would definitely get this again.

Satoshi ordered the char siu with white scallion bowl.

I've notice this combination is popular in the Kanto (East Japan) area.

Top the bowl with a raw egg and add more seasoning if you wish with soy sauce or chili sauce.

Satoshi said he enjoyed this.

After several pots of tea, we went kitty corner to the Masobyo Temple which in Chinese is the Ma Zhu Miao Temple.

Apparently this is the temple for the Sea Goddess Mazu.

We didn't realize we need to pay to visit this temple, so after looking around a bit, we left.

Lunch was at Ryuhoshuka.

Satoshi ordered these shrimp gyoza which turned out to be har gow.

They were delicious.

We also ordered this zuwaigani (snow crab) fried rice.

This was rich and delicious!

Lots of douchi (black bean) sauce.

I wanted to order the paiko fried rice...paiko is written páigǔ in Chinese and is a kind of spare rib, but they had run out of it, so instead I ordered the short rib donabe gohan which was a garlicky rice dish cooked with short ribs in a clay pot.

This was delicious, especially the parts that were stuck to the pot.

We ate a lot of rice that day but everything had different flavors and were delicious.

There are other places we want to check out so we'll be back to Yokohama's Chinatown.

Gokuchaso
130 Yamashitacho
Naka-ku, Yokohama
Phone: 045.681.7776
Hours: Mondays-Fridays 11:30-20:00, Saturdays 11:00-21:00, Sundays 11:00-20:00

Ryuhoshuka
152 Yamashitacho
Naka-ku, Yokohama
Phone: 045.662.9201
Closed Tuesdays
Hours: 11:30-14:30 (lunch), 17:30-21:00 (dinner)