grande maison graciani

On Friday the 13th, I met my host-mom for lunch in Kobe. She took me to a fancy restaurant inside of a historical home. She said that she found the restaurant through my foodie host-dad. Apparently, he went on his own and had lunch here, then told my host-mom about it.

Graciani is a French restaurant located in the Ijinkan area of Kobe. The Ijinkan area has homes of foreign consulate generals and commerce traders from the Meiji period which are located on the hillside of Kobe. Most are not used as homes anymore but have been transformed into museums or cafes. This particular restaurant was the home of the Gracianis, a french trader and his wife and is over 100 years old.
Our lunch started with some kanburi (winter yellowtail) carpaccio. And a sausage of gibier (I think this was a type of sausage made with wild game), all I know was that there was a LOT of black truffle shaved onto it...yum.

Next came a creamy cauliflower soup with crab in it. We though the bowl was deep but it was actually very shallow.
We chose two different main dishes, so we could taste everything--a grilled sawara (spanish mackerel) and a yuzu (citron) sauce and roasted pheasant with a shoyu sauce (soy sauce). We both agreed that the sawara was moist, tender and delicious.

Next came the palate cleanser, but this seemed more of a mini-dessert. Vanilla ice cream, mandarin oranges and gelatin at the bottom. Dessert was a slice of warm plum cake (more like a plum pudding), raspberry cake & gateau chocolat. My favorite was the plum cake.
We ordered some herb tea, I think it was either lemongrass or verbena. And at the end of our meal, they brought out mignardise (russian tea cookie, truffle & a piece of caramel cake).

Despite it being Friday the 13th, it was a great lunch, nice sized portions, and we had a nice time chatting.

Grande Maison Graciani UPDATE: this restaurant burned down in 2012, as of 2015 back in business
4-8-1 Kitano-cho
Chuo-ku, Kobe
Phone: 078.200.6031
Closed: Mondays

foodie friday in kobe

Met Tamakikat in Kobe today. She had planned to roam about before our lunch together, but it turned out she just took the morning easy.

We had lunch at a Vietnamese place, Chao Sai Gon, and we both had different types of pho. I was kind of disappointed that there weren't more choices on their menu, but the food was delicious.

After lunch, we walked up the hill to the area called Ijinkan where there are many preserved homes of foreigners built in the 1900's which were used as consulates and offices.

The weather started off nice but then turned cloudy. After roaming around a bit, we headed back down the hill for dessert.



Le Ba-ta-clan is a very nice cafe near the Sannomiya station. I've tried their macarons before and loved them.

I ordered the macaron set. This is 3 macarons of your choice and a drink...1050 yen (about US$10.50).

I got the bellione (fig), cherry cheesecake & creme brulee macaron with a cafe latte.

My bunny started off as only the head but when I took a sip, I added a neck to it.

Tamakikat ordered the creme brulee and a cafe latte. Her latte had a cute bear, she also added a neck to it when she took a sip. It was her first time to try a cafe latte with latte art on it.

It was a great lunch, walk and chatting...thanks for a great time, Tamakikat!

(UPDATE: 1/11/2010, the chef that makes the macaron has opened his own shop so they no longer sell his macaron here)

kobe

Today I went to Kobe to visit a friend's exhibit. I've written about this previously when we went 2 years ago. Since then, the cafe that Satoshi and I went to closed down along with some other cafes. Since I didn't get to see my friend, I took a look around at the exhibit and then I went gallivanting.

Kobe is a port city that is about 30 minutes from Osaka by train. Because Kobe is a port city, there are many foreigners that live there today and there are many houses called Ijinkan (foreigners homes) that were built in the early 1900's. Some were used as consulates and many are still standing today even after the big earthquake of 1995.

Kobe is also known for their sweets. A famous one is from France, Henri Charpentier. I picked up their selection of macarons.

From left to right: fraise (strawberry), passion (passion fruit), cafe (coffee), caramel (caramel with fleur de sel), pistache (pistachio), framboise (raspberry), citron (lemon), chocolat (chocolate). These were delicious with a cup of tea.

Factory Shin is a local confectionery. I picked up their chocolate macarons for tomorrow's tea time.