shimabara tea

Recently there was a Nagasaki Fair in Umeda.

We love these fairs because it brings different food items to us without the extra online shipping fees.

Shimabara tea is a relatively new company, and we were able to sample (and purchase) some of their teas.

The large red package is their organic green tea.

The smaller red package is their black tea and the yellow package is their black tea with ginger.

(The ginger tea and black tea are delicious and the ginger one has a nice kick!)

The man selling these teas was very knowledgeable.

He suggested we put some of the organic tea with ice for two hours and let the ice extract the tea...

So I tried doing it his way...

except I didn't have a tiny pot to do this in, so I made my own...

After an hour it looked like this.

After two hours the tea was a really light green but it wasn't bitter.

He then suggested that we add some cold water (drink it), then some warm water (drink it), then some hot water (drink it).

By the time we tried it with some hot water, the tea was a little darker green and a little cloudy.

There was a slight bitterness to it too.

His last suggestion was that we "eat" the used tea leaves because this green tea is organic.

So we tried it with a little ponzu (citrus soy sauce) like he also suggested...delicious! kind of like spinach, only a little bitter.

We're glad we tried this and will continue to keep an eye for them in the future since they do not sell online.

zabon-zuke

After coming back from Shimabara, I mentioned that besides the mikan-zuke there was also zabon-zuke made from pomelo.

During January and part of February, the train line that we ride, Hankyu, is having a Nagasaki fair inside of the Umeda station.

Last week was Shimabara and it gave us a chance to pick up the zabon-zuke.

This one was made by a different confectioner called Buntando.

The texture of the zabon-zuke reminded me of tong guo, the candied fruits and veggies for Chinese New Year, but boy was this bitter!

I'm glad we got to try this but will stick to buying mikan-zuke.

Buntando
13 Shimokawajiri-machi
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.62.2088 (toll free number: 0120.62.2085)

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

nagasaki-isahaya-shimabara

We woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Breakfast was at the hotel buffet. I wasn't sure what time we would be able to have lunch, so I ate kinda hardy foods...curry, dim sum...

After breakfast, we had some time before check-out so Satoshi suggested we check out the former Chinese settlement area.

Since our hotel was right next to Chinatown, getting to the former Chinese settlement area was just a couple minutes walking distance (uphill, of course!).

This area was home to many of the Chinese sailors and traders during the 15th to 19th centuries. Many Chinese came to Nagasaki because this was the only open port in Japan at the time.

Strict rules were placed on the Chinese. They were not allowed outside the settlement area at night, nor were they allowed to live outside the settlement area.

There are 4 temples that have been preserved.

Throughout our stay, we noticed many stray cats around Nagasaki City.

I was also amazed at how narrow the walkways between houses were.

As we walked back to the hotel to pick up our things, I spotted this cake shop. They had a huge poster advertising this...The Holland Slope Stone. Eight layers of cake and cream created to resemble the cobblestones of the Holland Slope.

They sell this in large elongated cakes as well as pieces. We asked the girl working there if we could have a plastic spoon and shared a piece...super rich but oh so good!

Here are some souvenirs that we picked up in Nagasaki...Izumiya's castella rusk covered with dark chocolate and honey castella...the rusks are castella baked crunchy while the regular style castella was very moist.

Soshurin's Ma-fa-ru. Sweet dough that is deep fried. These were quite hard and not too sweet but we enjoyed the simplicity of this snack.

Izumiya's chocolate castella, honey castella and Soshurin's kinsenpin. Kinsenpin is a sweet dough covered with sesame seeds then deep fried. Another crunchy snack!

And then we were off...

From Nagasaki City to Isahaya it is about 50 minutes by express train. Then from Isahaya to Shimabara it is an hour and 17 minutes by local train.

The train route from Isahaya to Shimabara takes you along the coast, and the city of Shimabara faces Ariake Bay.

After dropping our things off at the hotel we would be staying at, we went to look for lunch.

The guy at the tourist information desk told us that the area was known for a dish called gu-zoni. If you know about Japanese cuisine, you'll know that we eat o-zoni for New Years.

Well, gu-zoni is similar but it is eaten all year around. "Gu" means ingredients. "zoni" is the soup.

Gu-zoni dates back to 1637 when the leader Amakusa Shiro Tokisada and some 37,000 followers were trapped in their castle. All they had were rice cakes (mochi). Amakusa made the farmers provide him with all sorts of ingredients from the mountain and the ocean.

They added these ingredients to their rice cake soup and were apparently able to fight for three months, sustained by all this goodness.

We tried gu-zoni at Himematsu-ya, one of the many places that serves this dish in the area.

There are lots of goodies in this dish. Besides mochi, there is also anago (salt water eel), gobo (burdock root), egg, shiitake, chicken, carrots renkon (lotus root), koyadofu (freeze dried tofu), hakusai (chinese cabbage), shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves), 3 kinds of kamaboko(fishcake) & mitsuba (wild Japanese parsley)

We both ordered the nami (regular size)...980 yen. This was perfect.

I loved all the different goodies in there!

After lunch, we walked up to see the castle, but it was closed for the year.

We checked out the street where many samurai houses used to be.

I loved the stone walls in this area, reminded me of the kinds we've seen in Okinawa.

There are also actual samurai homes which you can view, some of the samurai's relatives still live in them too!

I love how this truck was a moving grocer. Very helpful for elderly in the area.

A barber shop on the verge of being demolished was turned into a cafe.

We stopped to rest our feet and also to try a popular dessert in the area called Kanzarashi. Kanzarashi are tiny rice dumplings that are cooked then cooled in the spring waters of Shimabara.

The syrup they are served in are made from honey, sugar or brown sugar.

The kanzarashi we tried was served with brown sugar syrup. I like how we got two hearts in our cup too! This dessert is served cold, so I can see why it is popular in the summertime.

I loved the stained glass lamp that was in the cafe.

As we walked around the town there were many natural springs that you could stop to take a drink at if you wanted to.

One of the nicest people we met during our visit was Mr Nagahama. He refurbishes old houses. After Satoshi chatted with him, he insisted that we must see Mount Heisei Shinzan...so we got into his jeep and up the mountain he took us.

He also showed us a lot of the other sightseeing spots in Shimabara.

He dropped us off here, at the Japanese tea house, Yusei-teien-shimei-so. We thanked him and said our goodbyes. Here we rested our feet and chatted with the caretaker over a cup of tea made with the spring water.

Right outside of the tea house is an area called Carp Street, where there are carp swimming alongside the roadway.

We went back to the hotel and then went in search of dinner.

After getting a bit lost (we blame the maps!), we had dinner at Tsune. We started off with their mimiga salad. Mimiga is the cartilage part of the pig's ear.

I know, different, but we enjoyed the "crunchiness" of this salad. Lots of mimiga, cabbage and some green onions.

Sashimi...nothing out of the ordinary.

Nagasaki sirloin steak...tender!

And an order of yakionigiri (grilled rice balls) coated with shoyu and butter.

Our hotel was old and scary looking. But, the rooms were quite large, there was free wifi and our room had this thingy...a foot massage machine!

Another great day with great weather.

Tomorrow: Shimabara-Isahaya-Hakata-Osaka

Soshurin
13-17 Shinchi-machi
Nagasaki City, Nagasaki
Phone: 095.825.6781

Izumiya
Hamamachi Arcade
10-6 Hamamachi
Nagasaki City, Nagasaki
Phone: 095.825.5501
Hours: 10:30-20:00

Neoclassic Clover
5-11 Kagomachi
Nagasaki City, Nagasaki
Phone: 095.822.3323

Himematsuya
1-1028-3 Jyo-nai
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.63.7272
Hours: 10:00-20:00, Closed every 2nd Tuesday

Rihatsuten (barber shop cafe)
888-2 Ueno-machi
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.64.6057
Hours: 10:30-18:00, Closed Thursdays and every 1st and 3rd Wednesday

Tsune
522 Yorozu-machi
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone: 0957.64.1888
Hours: 18:00-24:00

Shimabara Station Hotel
930 Imagawa-machi
Shimabara, Nagasaki
Phone:0120.711.163