Hakone 2; food and ryokan

Okay, finally getting around to writing up about the ryokan we stayed at and the food we ate in both Tokyo and Hakone before I forget about it all.

Before we got to Hakone James and I enjoyed chosing the weirdest looking thing from the many vending machines around. One notable (unsuccessful) venture was:

Jelly in a can. You had to give it a shake before drinking. The texture was just gross.

Whilst at Asakusa, at Senso-ji Temple, we tried macha green tea mochi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daifuku)

Quite tasty! But I'm still not a fan of red bean paste, even when it's green.

 So when we got to the hotel in Hakone we were greeted with this spacious room:

 Tatami mats, paper walls, no chairs or beds, toilet with loads of buttons, private onsen on the balcony and no shower apart from the one next to the bath outside. The works.

James in his yukata with the warmer coat for winter over the top.

And me in my yukata without coat.

The bath:

The onsen was such a lovely, relaxing experience. It was pretty chilly in November and the shower next to the bath was the only way to clean ourselves. So you'd sit outside, quickly wash your hair, then jump into the bath. The temperature of the bath was hotter than expected, I couldn't really take it for more than 15 mins. The view was lovely and it was very private (thank God).

Once we'd settled in, had our first baths and got into the yukata, we then went to eat. And it was quite an experience. The way they do it in ryokan is to serve loads of little dishes and then maybe one larger one to share. Our first evening went like this:

Left: maybe mustardy chicken, Middle: some sort of fish on salad, Right: tofu

Then we were left to work out shabu shabu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu) for ourselves. Neither of us had done it before (though we had gone to Korean BBQ earlier in the week, similar cook-it-yourself philosophy, different method of cooking). Although it's not rocket science it was a bit daunting for us both to be given a bowl full of hot water and a plate of raw meat and be told to cook it ourselves... We did our best.

We googled it later and it turned out we'd cooked it for too long. Live and learn.

Another dish from the evening:

No idea what it was.

Then the next morning we were greeted with this:

Rather large for a breakfast! The pot on the left is a soup which was cooked at the table, the plastic lidded pot on the right was full of rice. The little dishes in front of me were some kind of fish (gutted), two little white puffs (don't know what they were), a raw egg, a square thing with a very strange texture (don't know what it is). In the dish with three parts I could only identify the chopped lotus root (on the right). The circular blue dish has little gherkins and ginger. The packet right at the front contained seaweed (didn't know what it was for, left it alone). And, finally, in the little white pot near the coffee was the infamous nattou.

Nattou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natto) is fermented soy beans which is a popular Japanese breakfast item. The taste is okay but, whilst the smell is unpleasant, it's the texture that upsets me, it's just disgusting. When you pick it up on the chopsticks it goes all stringy and makes it tricky to eat.

James gave it a go:

I left mine alone - I'd tried it before and I have no intentions of trying it again any time soon.

Then we headed off for our long day's sightseeing around lake Ashi. When we returned home a huge dinner was waiting for us. It began small:

Left: tofu, Middle: fish, Right: chopped tentacles(?)

Fish with pink lemongrass

Delicious prawn tempura with wasabi salt.

Another delicious soup cooked at the table. Here it is just after they lit the flames.

Then they brought out this large steamer full of veg, pork and two types of dumplings. It was absolutely delicious.

Of course the dinner was far too big and we couldn't finish everything, but it was a seriously tasty meal and well deserved after a day of walking.

Then the next morning was our time to leave. Our last breakfast was also large.

At the back: salmon and omelette, back right: squid, and in the front left: little fishes (they had been fascinating me in the supermarket for a while, I was glad to try them. They were chewier than I'd expected), middle: bamboo (?), and right: unknown but tasty.

 There was also another (rather rich) soup, some mini gherkins, nattou, I'm not sure what (in the blue circular dish) and another large pot of rice.

Before leaving Hakone we took a trip to a museum with the moss garden I took loads of photos of. After wandering around there we stopped for a coffee. I fancied something sweet but they only had Japanese style food so I took a gamble and got this:

I love the presentation! In the bowl were little sweet dumplings that (we were instructed) you pick up and dunk in the sweet caramelly sauce at the back, then in the powder at the front. James reckoned the powdery stuff might have peanut so I avoided that, but the rest of it was a really tasty, dainty little snack.

Phew. So that's all the food. I love Japanese food but, whilst it's fun to try all the new stuff, it's always a bit of a gamble...