2008年4月14日月曜日

If there is a well, there is an eel.

"Where have you been?", one friend asked me. "And what happened to your space food taste result?", asked another. Sorry, guys, was away to Kanazawa to visit my mentor Alice. Oh, BTW, she always buys me good stuff that you can't get in Tokyo. So, my dear friends, before I talk about our space food report, I have to share with you the goodies Alice fed me.

The debate was between sushi or unagi (eel). Although in the spring, the weather was pretty freezing, so eel easily won the decision. (Urgh, for some unknown reason, in the real cold and real hot days, people feel like eating unagi. Among many reasons, unagi is supposed to fill you with energy to fight extreme weather. ;-) In the middle of no where, Sumidagawa, a hundred year old unagi restaurant passing thru generations of the same family, stood silently by the quiet neighbourhood. It was so quiet outside that I thought it was not open, and only to find out we would have to wait after slipping thru the sliding door.

There were two things very special about this restaurant: 1) The people were eating. I mean, for a Sunday brunch, the customers all looked pretty serious eaters. Everyone ordered lots of food, and quietly working on them. Unagi, of course, among sashimi, tempura - smells good and looks great. 2) There was a small aquarium at the corner, with some big, brilliant and colorful koi (carp) swimming inside. In fact, they were not really swimming. They sort of stared at the customers with a funny look. You would feel the company if you were there, guaranteed.

I asked the kami-san (the head lady who was looking after us the lost people) about the koi, how could they look so good?! "A decent unagi place must have a good well", she told me. Indeed, the unagi tasted wonderful, but, I was asking myself: what does that have to do with the well? And the koi? She smiled, obviously noticed I was not going anywhere. Yes, I was ready for the Sunday morning education. So she let other customers wait and explained to me how things worked.

The unagi must be kept alive, so they were staying in a pond of fresh water inside the restaurant. However, they can not get used to the city water. The faucet water would have killed the eel; not to mention the chlorine would wipe out the flavor. For hundreds of years, the wise unagi chefs decided to dig their own wells. And they were in search of the best wells they could find. The fresh unagi brought from the rivers would be kept in the well water for a day or two to rid off the muddy odor. The fresh well water would enhance the meat flavor further. It is also important to assure the water' s purity and safety, so the traditional unagi-ya (a unagi restaurant) keeps koi in the pond for sanity check. In a simple math: if the koi is happy, the unagi is happy, and the customers are happy!!

As you can see, Sumidagawa makes their koi happier than any others on earth!! These big happy gold fishes have been there for over 20 years!! The restaurant even displays their well water in front of the store for your quality check - and now you and I all know what that was for!!

Oh, I forgot to mention their unagi. They were among the best unagi I have ever tasted. By all means, if you happen to visit the beautiful Kanazawa Bunko (to the south of Yokohama City) by the Sagami Bay, you should pay this rear unagi restaurant a visit. Be prepared to wait for several minutes. Bring a book, that might help to kill time. But you will find it is worth the wait.

P.S. Forgot to tell you one thing. You have to order this "kama-kushi" which is a whole skewer of unagi cheek meat - the most delicious of an eel. (See the picture to the right, this was yaaamiii...) Unagi cheek meat can only be found on fresh live eels, and it takes 15 eels to make one skewer!! You don't get to see this just in any other regular unagi-ya. Avaialbe as supply lasts, you'd better order it early.

3 件のコメント:

匿名 さんのコメント...

yami!
have you try baby ell (star ell)?

TokyoTracker さんのコメント...

Dear Joshua,

Yes it was wonderfully delicious.

No I have not tried baby eel or star eel. Can you share with us what that is?

TokyoTracker

匿名 さんのコメント...

it should be あなご

http://city.udn.com/v1/blog/article/article.jsp?uid=scubagolfer&f_ART_ID=340649

http://blog.yam.com/cherryling/article/14542762