Kimono Gallery in Wabasha, MN

My mother-in-law introduced this interesting gallery that displays Japanese vintage kimono (kee-mo-no). The Wind Whisper West gallery is in a little town of Wabasha, 2-hour drive away from the Twin Cities along Mississippi river. Who would imagine you could find over 3,000 antique kimono from Japan. Richard, the owner, was stationed in Japan during WWII. He then became an art dealer, and in the last five years he's been collecting old kimono from Japan. Why in Washaba? Because his wife (who by the way is not from Japan) and her family are from this town. He was very interesting and told me lots of stories to the unusual Japanese visitor.

I was unable to take many photos due to the gallery's policy. But Richard let me take a few of my favorite piece. Most of the pieces displayed here are wedding kimono. Some with a very rare design and print, some are the work of famous Japanese designers like Hanae Mori and Yoji Yamamoto.



This kimono uses the color palette inspired by Shintoism. Bright yet subtle color scheme is marvelously placed in such charming details.

On the way home, we had a lunch at the Harbor View Cafe in the town of Pepin, WI. They were very nice and welcoming even though it was just the time they were closing.

A charming interior.

I ordered the catfish with hot salsa. It was really good. But a bit too much flavor in sauce—against my expectation for a light fish meal.

Braised Pork Shank was excellent.

Wind Whipser West - Kimono Gallery
http://www.windwhisperwest.com/Home.html

Summer Food

During the summer, I leave for work a bit early and walk through the farmers market in Union Square. My favorite in this market is one of the Korean farmers. They got Japanese vegetables, some of which are hard to find. For the summer, they have Japanese eggplant, seedless cucumber, okra, Japanese sweet pepper and mizuna leaf.

Using these summer vegetables:

Okra and Chicken
Cut chicken breast, onion and okra into about 1/2" cubes. If you have, fine chop some fresh ginger and garlic. Stir-fry chicken and ginger/garlic first and add the vegetables. Season with salt, pepper and some chili sauce or soy sauce if you like.

Fried Eggplant and Shishito Pepper in Bonito Broth
Cut Japanese eggplant into 2 inches. Deep-fry the veggies quickly in vegetable oil (salad oil, corn, canola oil)
Put them in bonito broth with a bit of mirin and soy sauce with grated ginger. (I personally love the ginger. Really good combination with eggplant.) Put a piece or flakes of dried hot chili if you like.
Leave it for a while and chill in the refrigerator till it cools down. (no need to make it super cold)

Natto Noodle

I was craving for Filet-O-Fish, hesitated to have junk food, went to Japanese grocery store and ended up buying an instant noodle (Nakisoba, stir-fried noodle in worcestershore-like sauce). I also picked up some Natto (firmented, slimy, stringy, stinky soy beans) to help myself with nutrition. The noodle's sauce was a bit too intense and I came up with a solution. Add Natto. I love tomato sauce pasta like Amatricciana with natto. I love natto. The result was above expectation. Natto make the sauce mild and balance up the saltiness. How about slimy yakisoba?!

Japanese Fish Stew

This is probably a very typical and authentic Japanese dinner menu. Take any white fish (cod, seabass, snapper, founder work), and simmer in soy sauce, sake (rice wine) and some mirin (or sugar). I added a pinch of chilli and topped the fish with some fresh ginger. It only takes 10 minutes to cook and requires no skill. If you don't mind, cook it a bit sweeter because that's Japanese style. With some rice and hearty miso soup, I proudly this was a really good dinner.

Humorous Song Agitates Feminists

This song humorously represents how Japanese men treat women. It was a really popular song but also famous for the politically arguable content. It got criticized by a feminist group back then.

Kanpaku Sengen - by Masashi Sada

Before I take your hands into marriage
Let me tell you a few things.
Some may sound harsh
But I want to tell you honestly.
Don’t wake up after me.
Don’t go to bed before me.
Cook well.
Keep yourself looking nice
Just as much as you can.
Remember that a man who’s not a good worker
cannot keep a family.
Certain things are better done by you.
Don’t mind other things
Just follow me.

Your parents, my parents
Take a good care of both.
Deal with my mom and sisters smartly.
It should be easy. Just love them.
Don’t say or listen to rumors.
Don’t get too jealous.
I won’t cheat on you.
I probably won’t.
I don’t think I will
But be prepared just in case.
We form the happiness together.
Shouldn’t be mended by one’s effort.
You leave your house and family for me.
Think you have no place to go back.
I am your home from now on.

When our kids grow and we get old.
Don’t die before me.
Even just for a day
Don’t go before I do.
I only need you hold my hand.
Drop 2 drops of tears.
Then I say my life was wonderful
Thanks to you.
I promise. I will say so.
Don’t forget. You are the only woman I love.

Setagaya Ramen - Booooooo..

Why no picture for ramen story? Cuz it doesn't even deserve one. Setagaya almost completely disappointed me, hurt my Japanese food-patriotic loyalty.

A long line is a good sign. But if 90% of the people in the line are not Japanese, then it's a not-that-good sign, especially if you are looking for authenticity. Call me racist. Fine. After such a huge expectation and hunger for good, Japanese ramen, we had to try. After 20 minutes wait, we got our seats. Ready to order right away, of course. 95 degree out tonight. First comes a bottle of beer. "We don't have a license yet." What? "Can we bring in our own beer then?" "No. Sorry." What the F!~ I clearly saw BEER on the menu outside. It wasn't covered with a piece of paper or crossed-out like on the menu inside. Right there, an faithful business. Bad feeling.

We gobbled up a cup of water. The salted egg and menma could have been far better with beer but let's compromise. Now the main dish. We all had Shio Cha-shu men (salt flavored soup with slices of pork). Setagaya is known for its salt-flavored bloth. Noodle is way too hard. My friend picked up 10 noodles stuck together as a chunk. It could be for foreign customers who take forever till the noodles melts down to finish a bowl of ramen. To Japanese customer like myself, this was a ridiculous hospitality.

This wrongly cooked noodle totally lower the score. Soup is intricate and complex. If you don't like some scalloppy, fishy flavor, you'd better stick to Menkui-tei. Wait. Everyone should stick to Menkui-tei anyways. But I give them credit for the orinal flavor of their soup.

All I wonder is how the authentic Setagaya in Japan serve its signature dish. I gotta ask my family in Tokyo to go and try this place. At least in NY, they don't get any high score from Japanese. Obviously, there was a few Japanese tonight.

Soto Sushi

Another sushi restaurant that has no spicy-mayo on the menu just opened in the West Village. Sushi restaurant Soto is named after the chef Sotohiro Kosughi who had a business in Atlanta for years and recently moved to Apple City.

They still don't have the liquor license (as of June 1, 2007) so we brought our own selection of sake. The interior is clearn, with furniture and linens uniformed in white and natural wood color. A girl from Eater.com commented that it had "absolutely no ambiance." But I really appreciate this clean, brightness because Japanese do enjoy the food with taste, smell and visual aesthetic. For sushi restaurants especially, a bright interior is the proof that their seafood is fresh. You don't want to drop a dim-light over fresh seafood and fine treatment and decoration of dishes. It makes the freshness invisible to customers.

Being my boyfriend's birthday, we wanted to have the best Soto-san could offer. They were not ready with their omakase course, so we asked the waitress if Soto-san can pick up some omakase dishes from the menu. Behind the counter, he happily agreed.

Dish 1 : Super-thin sliced fluke carpacccio (Garnish and flavor of yuzu citrus and kabosu lime matched really well with this fresh, sweet fish). Dish 2: Dobin-mushi (Traditional soup. Bonito stock flavored in a dobin (little tera cotta pot,) with seafood and mitsuba-green. Absolutely comforting). Dish 3: Chu-toro tartar (I personally thought they should use less ponze vinegrette and avocado. It was a bit over-powering the chutoro itself). Dish 4: Steamed bream/snapper with scallion sauce (This was probably one of my favorite that night. Jullianed scallion adds peppery aroma and cruncy texture to the sweet glaze with a hint of sesame oil.) Dish 5: Amadai Kabura Mushi (This is very authentic Japanese dish. Steamed fish ball with graded turnip soup). Dish 6: Langoustine with mushroom cream sauce (The mushroom sauce was really yummy, a touch of marsara or something.)

After all these appetizers, we're almost hitting the wall. But, in Sushi restaurant, gotta have sushi. So I asked the chef to make 8pcs omakase nigiri with less shari (rice). This restaurant doesn't serve extra soy sauce unless you ask. But please try as it's served if you seriously love sushi. They put the right seasoning, whether it's soy sauce or salt, for each piece of sushi.

At the end of the night, we're more than happy but I was worried to open the bill. It was little over $100 per person which isn't too expensive for all what we had. The chef seemed to care every customer is happy with his dish.

Sakura Matsuri

One of the most beautiful things Japan has is its cherry blossom in spring. Huge trees gorgeously bloom only for a week and quickly lose the light pink petals. Not only in Japan and Washington D.C., you can enjoy this beauty in Brooklyn, NY. Annually held, Brooklyn Botanic Garden offers a weekend event in late April called Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom fesitval). I went with my home-made Japanese lunch box of kara-age (friend chicken), tamago-yaki (egg omlet) and onigiri (rice ball), with of course a bottle of sake. There is a designated area where people can eat and drink. In Japan, we call this hana-mi (seeing flower, translated directly). In the spring, most of the companies send a freshman to one of the public parks early in the mornign to reserve a spot. At night, other workers gather around on the field and drink under the cherry blossom tree. It's nice in the sun, but it's undescribably beautiful at night. Japanese cherry trees are much much bigger and the scale of the blooming trees are rather powerful, yet with such sutle pale pink.


The park is a good spot for families, especially with kids. I was surprised to see so many non-Japanese people that day. People were enjoying taking pictures of not only cherry blossoms but other flowers like iris, tulip and lylac. It's probably one of the biggest park events in NY. I arrived around 2pm on the second day and it was still really crowded. You probably want to avoid going by your car cuz it's a mess around the park with the traffic. Admission $8 ($4 for students). Although I unluckily missed the big parade of Hanagasa-ondo (flower dance), I had a wonderful time.

Zenkichi

Until recently, W'burgers only had mediocre places to have Japanese cuisine. Bozu serves good food and fun drinks. But their service is unbelievably slow, always under-staffed. Samurai, Miyako and Wasabi are all alike; typical Japanese restaurant in America. Snacky is more like a bar and the waitress is weird. Zenkichi, unlike any of these places, may become a new heaven for Japanese food lovers in the hood.



Right next to the Tops super market, the building sits on the corner of Wythe and N 6th. Dark-stained wood panels cover the entire extrior walls. With my friends, I walked in to this restaurant on the first weekend since its opening. They were booked out for the eveing. All seats are on the second floor so we failed to peek in this new izakaya. They didn't have a menu for us to get the idea of $ range.

Although we found it pretentiuos and secrative on our first visit, I gave it another chance on one Sunday night. The staff is almost all Japanese. Each seat is a tiny booth and has a wood screen to half-cover for more privacy. The menu is surprisingly simple. They specialize on authentic Japanese tapas and you cannot expect sushi or sashimi (except on a daily special), which I very much appreciate. The best dish we had that day was the stewed pork belly—their signature dish. Meat and fat all melt down and very comforting. It maybe less sweet to my taste. I highly recommend this place, especially on Sunday night when you can easily get a seat without reserveation and it's quiet than other weekend evenings. Is this worth traveling from the city or south Brooklyn? On a quiet Sunday night, I'd think so.

Little Miko's Japanese Dinner

Just wanted to share my dinner I cooked for myself the other day. Usually, my Japanese meal is stir fries or something my American boyfriend can easily eat. But once in a while, I need a real Japanese food. When my boyfriend doesn't need dinner, I normally cook super authentic Japanese meal. The recent menu was mixed vegitable pickles and yam potato soba noodle.

Japanese yam potato called Yama-imo is really slimy and it itches around your mouth. It's realatively reasonable and is a great energy food for stronger stamina. We usually eat it graded over tuna sashimi or float in a soup noodle. The other evening, I jullianed the yam and served with hot Soba noodle with lots of fresh Japanese scallion, Naga-negi.

This is probably one of the healthiest foods since soba noodle itself also has low calorie. Slimy but crunchy yam was so satisfying in taste and volume. I screamed, "Umai!" (Damn Good!), alone in my apartment.

Turmeric Tea

It's probable that everyone knows what Turmeric is. The yellow spice is often used in Indian dishes. I knew that Turmeric is somehow good for your health. And the other day, I found Turmeric Tea at a Japanese grocery store.

According to my online research, Turmeric (ginger root family) has a very effective component called Curcumin. This element has a proven effect in promoting the liver fuction. Turmeric is also known for anti-oxidant and cancer prevention. Some caution the chance of strong side-effect for those who have hepatitis and other liver problems. But it sounds like it's a very healthy thing if you dont' have major health problems.

I started drinking lots of Turmeric tea ($5 is a bit pricey but you can probaly make with Turmeric powder economically), and I feel like I get much less hangover. There's also extract tablets at health stores.