shimabara-isahaya-hakata-osaka

The next morning, there was a haze, which seemed liked fog.

The breakfast buffet had slim pickings...mostly pre-packed stuff that was re-heated...

After walking the town a little, we caught the train to Minami-Shimabara.

This is apparently where Ryoma Sakamoto landed in 1864 to travel to Nagasaki City.

And then we walked to the port area because we wanted to check out the fish market, Funabito Tottoto.

We had intended on eating an early lunch, but they weren't serving anything until 11:00.

So, we just bought some frozen sardines roasted in olive oil & garlic.

These are good. We've had them with our New Years' foods and also in a pasta.

From Fujita Cherry Mame, we bought these seasoned fava beans, which they call "cherry mame".

I'm not too sure why they call them by this name.

There were sweet ones and savory ones in the sampler packet we bought...we liked the savory ones best because they were crunchy. The sweet ones were coated with sugar and were a bit stale.

Tatsumiya Sohonten makes a tora-maki.

A light sponge cake wraps smooth sweet bean paste. We agreed that they didn't need to coat the outside with granulated sugar.

and a mikan-zuke.

A whole mikan (tangerine) that is dried and covered with granulated sugar. This was similar to orange peel. They also make a zabon-zuke (pomelo), we should've bought some of that to try too.

From Shimabara it took us about an hour to get to Isahaya.

Most of our guide books had nothing written up about Isahaya, so we grabbed a couple of pamphlets at the train station and went in search of lunch.

We found a huge unagi restaurant up a steep hill called Uoso.

Satoshi had their sashimi.

I ordered their Isahaya sushi, which was seasoned shiitake and kanpyo (gourd) mixed into the rice. Shiso placed in the center and topped with Uoso's kabayaki unagi.

The sushi is a pressed type of sushi rather than a rolled or hand-molded sushi.

I really liked this, the flavors were balanced, not overpowering.

Satoshi also ordered their una-zen. (ooh-nah-zen)

This was served in a Kyoto raku style dish, the dish holds hot water in the base to keep the unagi hot all the way through the meal.

I also ordered the u-maki. (ooh-mah-key).

The unagi they use is prepared lightly (edo-mae style) and is put into their omelette. The photo in the menu looked small, but when this arrived at the table it was HUGE!

Since we had some time before our train, we walked along the river until we reached the Spectacle bridge.

This one was larger than the one we saw in Nagasaki City. We also realized that we didn't go across the one in Nagasaki city.

On the way back to the train station, we stopped in at Tsukasa to pick up some of their okoshi (puffed rice). Peanut (on the left) and Isahaya (black sugar) on the right.

Not as light as some I've tried before, these kinda stick to your teeth.

And then it was time to go back. From Isahaya, it took about and hour and 40 minutes to Hakata and then 3 hours back to Osaka.

We were happy that the weather turned out to be nice the whole time. We did lots of walking, lots of eating! I hope you enjoyed this adventure as much as we did.

Have a nice weekend!

Funabito Tottoto
451 Minato-shinchi-machi
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.63.9911
Lunch: 11:00-15:00, Dinner: 17:30-20:00

Fujita Cherry Mame
1850-8 Imagawa-machi
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.63.1100
Hours: 10:00-17:00

Tatsumiya Sohonten
275 Nakagumi-machi
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.62.3127
Hours: 8:30-17:30

Uoso
3-41 Uzu-machi
Isahaya, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.22.0039
Hours: 11:00-21:00

Tsukasa Honten
5-5 Eisho-higashi-machi
Isahaya, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.22.2380
Hours: 8:30-18:30
Closed 1st and 3rd Thursdays

sardine brandade

I saw this recipe in "Whole Living" and wrote it down because I'd never had brandade and thought it was interesting and easy enough to try.

As with anytime I scribble something down, I usually forget to write steps/ingredients down. So, here is the recipe online.

As a result of my scribbling, I whizzed everything in my food processor instead of mashing or "whisking" as the recipe directs and the consistency came out smoother than the photo in the magazine.

Still, this was delicious with some baguette.

The following is what I scribbled down and how I did it:

Sardine brandade serves 4 from "Whole Living April 2012"

200 grams potato, peeled and cooked
2 cloves roasted garlic
1 can sardines in olive oil, net weight 105 grams
2 tablespoons olive oil
zest of 1 lemon and 1 tablespoon lemon juice
some cayenne pepper
crusty bread

Cook potato for about 8 to 10 minutes or until soft and reserve 1 cup liquid
Add sardines & oil
use reserved water to adjust consistency
Add zest, juice, garlic and pepper

NOTES: I couldn't find smoked sardines, so I just used sardines that were packed in olive oil. The recipe says to use the sardines and the oil they are packed in, but because I hadn't scribbled this part down, I didn't add the packing oil.

Also, the recipe suggests boiling the garlic with the potato, but I instead roasted my garlic (oven 220C (425F) for 30 minutes).

Aesthetically, it doesn't look good, but it was, I ate it right after making it, so it was still warm and it was delicious on toasted baguette. I liked the creaminess that came from the potatoes. The recipe calls for salt, but I didn't add any.

I think this would be nice served warm in winter and served chilled for summer.

I'm making this again.

iwashi pasta

The weather was awful today. Raining hard at times and the wind picked up....brrr...what happened to the nice weather?

Anyway, after coming home from beads class I didn't feel like cooking. So, I threw this together for dinner....canned iwashi (sardines) in olive oil, sliced onions, pasta, capers, nori (seaweed) and several grinds of pepper. Heat the onions with the sardines, add the pepper and cooked pasta and top with capers and nori. If it is a bit dry, you can add some of the pasta water. It was super fast, easy and delish!