Basashi (raw horse meat) at Yokobachi - More Amazing Food in Kumamoto!

Kon'nichiwa and, big surprise, once again I'm blogging about food. Eating out and trying new things is just about one of the best things about living abroad. I take great joy in eating well, and of course, in sharing my explorations with others. To illustrate this crucial part of my daily life: my colleagues at the new school I work at all laughed when I insisted on having my lunch break written on the timetable as a scheduled daily event (rather than, as is so often the case, just having to squeeze in a break whenever there is time because the person in charge of scheduling has forgotten that people tend to like to eat meals during the day and stuff.) When asked why it was necessary to have it written down, I pulled my gravest face and pointed at the lunch slot, saying “This... is the most important part of the day. If my meal break is forgotten, all hell will break loose. Food is very important.” So yes – once again let me share another fabulous meal that I had here in Kumamoto.

Recommended by our friend Phillip and cemented in our minds as a definite night-out choice as we walked past the restaurant every day (only 2 minutes from our house – restaurant address: 860-0845 Kumamoto-ken, Kumamoto-shi, 中央区上通町11−40 ), Yokobachi had been on the hit-list for several weeks before we got the chance to visit – giving us plenty of time to work up an appetite and also save up some pennies for our splash-out meal. More expensive than our usual haunts but worth it for a special occasion, we opted for the middle range set menu – 3,500 Yen per person for a 10 course meal (roughly £21 each.) We'd anticipated trouble in placing our order as the menu at the door was in Japanese only, but luckily for us, once inside we discovered that they had recently created an English menu, so we could order without qualms.

Our 10 course meal started with a salad. Yokobachi uses seasonal ingredients so what arrived wasn't exactly what was included on the set menu, but actually, I preferred what we got to what was supposed to come! The salad was a medley of crisp green leaves with mushy avocado, hiding fat prawns and chunks of chicken under a sprinkle of flaked almonds. With a juicy slice of lemon to dress, it made a perfect palate cleanser to start the meal. Being not much of a salad-person, I was thoroughly impressed.

Next up, sashimi. Sashimi, sashimi, sashimi. Oh my word. Five types of fish served in thick, generous slabs, presented on a rustic platter of woven twigs – I felt very decadent indeed. The mark of any good restaurant in Japan is the size of their sashimi slices, and Yokobachi did not disappoint. Crowning glory, as always, was the salmon – marbled with layers of fat that leaves a creamy taste on your tongue – we always save the salmon to last.

To follow – the next course was the whole reason we chose Yokobachi. A plate of basashi (馬刺し) – horse meat sashimi. Kumamoto is famous for its horse meat, and having it raw is naturally the way we chose to try it. The dish came with two types of basashi – one type a dark red colour and the other a light pink which was rippled with seams of fat. Served with lemon, raw red onion, garlic, ginger and spring onion, the flavours complemented each other completely. Basashi was very nice indeed, if a little chewy – but not something I'll be eating frequently. Naturally it is quite expensive, and for the price, not entirely worth it. I was more than happy to try it and would recommend other visitors to do the same, but as a general rule I think I'd rather spend the money on a nice piece of beef or some salmon sashimi.

Forth course was described as 'Fried Red Snapper'. I'm not entirely sure what we got, but it was delicious – a sort of squishy fishcake in a light batter, fried to perfection and crisping just the right amount. After that, skewered beef – mocha brown at the edges and rosy pink in the middle. A sort of barbecued, smoky taste – exquisitely mouth-watering. A strong, punchy flavour which greatly contrasts the subtle deliciousness of salmon sashimi. What a varied meal!

Next up, another highlight – Japanese hot pot. There are many types of Japanese hot pot, and the one we had was a shabu-shabu type (which translates as swish-swish, an onomatopoeic word relating to the sound of meat being swished back and forth in the broth as it cooks.) The meat was horse meat – a generous amount of generous slices, served with onion, greens, tofu and kelp. I preferred eating horse meat in this style to the raw pieces – it soaked up the broth well and the hot pot was so plentiful it could have been a meal in itself!

From there, a switch back to seafood – raw oysters, nestled on plinths of salt, served with lemon. For our last savoury dish – a bowl of plain rice which was mixed in the leftover shabu-shabu broth and raw egg swirled into it as it finished warming through. For our final dish, a pudding consisting of a dark, chewy jelly (coffee flavoured perhaps? It was hard to tell), creamy almond pudding that was like sweet white custard, and a handful of goji berries on top. A nice, light dessert to follow a massive meal. We certainly got our money's worth!

So all in all, Yokobachi impressed us hugely. A very atmospheric little restaurant that will be lovely to dine at during summer months due to the picturesque garden area. The waiters were quite friendly and the food, as you can tell, was plentiful! Not a place to eat at every week but certainly on the to-do list when we have guests to visit or special events to celebrate. Worth the wait and now I'm looking forward to our next excuse for a slap-up meal!

Suizenji Koen (Suizenji Park)

こんにちわ (Kon’nichiwa – good afternoon) from me, the studious hiragana learner. There are four written forms to the Japanese language if you include Romaji (the form based on Roman script which spells out Japanese words using letters, such as Kon’nichiwa) and right now I’m learning Hiragana, the most basic writing form. After that, it’ll be onto Katakana (developed for pronouncing foreign sounding words) and the dreaded Kanji (based on Chinese characters and super complicated.) Anyway, to celebrate that I can now recognise a bunch of the Hiragana characters… こんにちわ to you.
The past few days have been cold, wet and windy, with much of the same for the days to come. However, yesterday was our day off (Sasha’s only day off in the week) and luck dealt us a favourable hand with warm weather and sunny blue skies. Our back-up plan of having a Museum-Monday was redundant – Plan A, here we come. High up on our to-do list, Suizenji Koen (Suizenji Park) is a well-known and much-visited park, and we had high expectations.

In 1636, Lord Hosokawa Tadatoshi began construction of the garden and tea house. The location was chosen for its spring-fed pond, the water of which was known to be excellent for making tea. The land was named after a temple which no longer exists, but the park now homes the Izumi Shrine, where members of the Hosokawa family are enshrined. Within the garden is a representation of Mt. Fuji – a pointed hill that is meant to look like the famous mountain. It’s also said that the garden represents the fifty-three sensations of the Tokaido Road. Seasonal plays are performed on the theatre stage, which was built at the same time as the family shrine.

At the entrance we bought some ikinari dango – a traditional Kumamoto sweet made from sweet potato and red bean paste, covered in a layer of salty mochi skin. I’ve been told that the name means ‘Suddenly… mochi’ as well as ‘easy-make dumplings’. Basically, the idea is that these steamed buns are quick and easy to prepare. They didn’t sound like my kind of thing, but I actually quite liked it – the saltiness of the dough against the sweetness of the potato. Yeah, pretty yummy.

The pond was the crowning glory of the park, with a plethora of birds above the water and leisurely-drifting carp. A rock shaped like a turtle glistened in the clear waters, shaded by mesmerizing trees with leaves growing like bubbles at the ends of branches, looking like something straight out of Avatar. The cherry blossom season is getting under way, and the trees were thick with it. A light breeze shook the glossy petals from the trees, which drifted like confetti into the tranquil waters. At the far end of the garden, a caretaker stood knee-deep in the water, sweeping the bottom of the pond with a besom (the reason for which, we presumed, was to stir up any gunk at the bottom of the pond and to make it easier for the portly coy-carp to nibble up nutrients.) A tunnel of blood-red tori’s led to a place of worship, where a toddler fresh on her feet was delighting in running up and down the aisle of dappled light.

A very picturesque scene indeed – but honestly, we were a little disappointed. The park was tiny – we were expecting to spend the whole afternoon there but you could have walked around the entire thing in less than 15 minutes. It was beautiful, but like I said – a little disappointing. However, at 400 yen entrance it wasn’t a waste of money. Nor was it a waste of time – with the lovely weather, we sat by the pond and had some reading time, with me very much enchanted at the idyllic setting to start reading my latest Kindle download (Etta and Otto and Russell and James – Emma Hooper).
In the evening we went back to a favourite sushi restaurant of ours for a delicious meal – 4 pieces of sushi each (2x scallops, salmon, horse mackerel), a sashimi don (a bowl of rice with various sashimi on top), fried shrimps, whole fried smelt fish, baby clam soup for me and fish soup for Sasha. At 2,000 Yen each (£12) it was another bargain meal. A great way to end a great weekend! Sayonara さようなら