KUMAR - Indian restaurant with tasty chai

In Japan, vegetarians or vegans may sometimes feel themselves unwelcome in restaurants, because it is very difficult to find substantial dishes that don’t contain meat or fish. For me, Indian restaurants are best places to eat satisfactorily. Unlike other kinds of restaurants, they usually provide at least one vegetarian option for even lunch sets, and the price is reasonable.

KUMAR is one of such Indian restaurants. It is well known and conveniently situated in the basement of Act Tower, which is a landmark building of Hamamatsu with a height of 212m. When I went there today, there were already many office workers having their lunch. I chose lunch set B out of three options. First, I had salad.

Then, chana masala and naan bread were served. Chana masala is chickpea curry and vegan. It was moderately hot, and I enjoyed the texture of well-cooked chickpeas. I have an image of chickpeas being rich in protein. Maybe I like them partially because of this image, in addition to the texture.

Naan bread is my favorite kind of bread. In most Indian restaurants, you can choose between naan bread and rice in lunch sets and dinner courses. I choose naan bread in most cases, because freshly baked bread is always appealing, especially when I can see how it is made in the kitchen. The rice in KUMAR is saffron rice. Obviously, it is vegan, however, I have never tried it.

Finally, I had chai. I have had chai not only in KUMAR but also in several Indian restaurants including those in big cities like Nagoya and Osaka. But chai in KUMAR is the best one I know. It has a robust flavor that I can’t explain well. Compared with it, chai in other restaurants felt tasteless or watery. Maybe they used much more milk because the color was paler. Personally, I prefer stronger taste. The drink options also include coffee, iced tea, orange juice, and oolong tea.

In KUMAR, you can enjoy the atmosphere of India just by looking around. There are many objects from India used for decoration or sold. One of them is a very fine sculpture on the wall.

There were also Buddhist images. Seeing their expressions, I remembered the series of comic books “Buddha” by Osamu Tezuka, which depicts hardships the hero Siddhartha had to undergo before he became Buddha.

This display was colorful mixture of different religions. Beside Indian gods and Buddha, there was a little Christmas tree, which was amusing to see and created a festive atmosphere. Today is the last day of November, and Christmas is coming soon.

KUMAR
Address: Act Plaza B1, 111-2 Itaya-machi, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-451-0154
Open hours: Mon.-Fri.    Lunch: 11:00-15:00 (LO 14:30)
                                      Dinner: 17:00-23:00 (LO 22:00)
                    Sat., Sun., national holidays
                                       11:00-23:00 (LO 22:00)
Access: 5-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station

Unusual weather from summer through autumn

Though it is almost the end of November, the temperature was 18 degrees in the daytime today. We have had a warm autumn after an extraordinarily hot summer. Obviously, global warming is progressing.

As I wrote in my blog, I visited the art museum at the end of October. Then I thought of taking pictures in the park behind the museum at the beginning of December. I expected to see beautiful autumn leaves there, but it turned out impossible.

The park is called Hamamatsu Castle Park. It has a large Japanese garden and is sometimes called Central Park in Hamamatsu. Usually, leaves of maple trees there turn red at this time of year, so I went there today to see how they looked like. To my disappointment, they looked dull, not glowing red.

First, I thought it was because the temperature had been too high. But according to the website of the park, it was salt damage caused by the typhoon. At the beginning of October, a strong typhoon hit this area. It caused a power outage for more than 780,000 households in Shizuoka Prefecture, which took seven days to recover completely. I didn’t experience it myself because I was traveling and not at home.

There were, however, other plants that had beautiful leaves or flowers as usual. The bamboo trees are always green.

There were also Camellia sasanqua.

And Japanese silverleaves.

In addition, I found something unexpected.

They were some sort of citrus fruits and looked beautiful (and delicious) against the blue sky. It was the most refreshing view in the park.

Nambu Sembei - Natural wheat crackers from Tohoku District

When I want to buy a vegan snack that is healthier than potato chips at a supermarket, I sometimes choose Nambu Sembei. Although the word “sembei” usually means rice cracker, the main ingredient of them is wheat. They were originally made in the territory of Nambu clan, which was across present Aomori and Iwate Prefectures. Nambu Sembei have a history of more than 600 years.

Nowadays, Nambu Sembei are sold in supermarkets all over Japan. Usually, two types are available: sesame and peanut types. When I went to a supermarket today, there was only one package of peanut type. Maybe they are selling well. I heard that there are many more types in their original birthplace. 

Nambu Sembei are baked in molds and have an outer rim around them. The rim is crispy, and I often cut it off and eat before the main part of the cracker (I know it is a bad manner). This one is the sesame type. As it is seasoned just with salt and doesn’t contain sugar, it has a simple, a little salty taste. 

Maybe this non-sugar sesame type is healthier, but I prefer the peanut type. It contains sugar (not much I guess) and is slightly sweet. 

In addition to these two, I have also eaten other type of Nambu Sembei that contained both sesame and peanuts! I thought it was a good idea to mix them together. After eating it, however, I found it better to taste sesame and peanuts separately.

Nambu Sembei are good to have when you feel hungry between meals or after dinner. They may be suitable also for breakfast if you don’t have much appetite in the morning. You can dip the peanut type into coffee or tea, for example. I heard that people in Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture have a type that is exclusively eaten in soup.

Oyaki - My favorite buns from Nagano Prefecture

When it is autumn or winter, I often feel like eating hot Chinese buns stuffed with vegetables. I have eaten such buns in Taiwan, a paradise for vegans and vegetarians. But here in Japan, I have never seen them sold in shops or department stores. Convenience stores are now selling Chinese buns but most of them contain meat. The only plant-based bun is the one stuffed with adzuki bean paste.

So, I was very glad to see Japanese vegetable buns sold in a supermarket yesterday. They are called “oyaki”, a specialty in Nagano Prefecture. Oyaki are wheat flour buns stuffed with vegetables seasoned with miso paste or soy sauce. Usually they are white, but what I saw there were green buns. I got curious and bought two kinds of them. One was “mushroom”, and the other was “kiriboshi”.
Both were vegan.

I steamed them at home tonight. As they looked the same, I forgot which was which. I divided one of them in two. It was oyaki with kiriboshi (abbreviation for kiriboshi-daikon) or dried radish strips.

Kiroboshi-daikon originally looks like this. These strips are often cooked or used for soup. Like dried fruits, radishes become sweeter when dried. Besides, kiriboshi-daikon has much dietary fiber and much more calcium, iron, vitamin B1 and B2 compared with fresh radishes. It also keeps a long time and is convenient to use.

Kiriboshi oyaki contained also mushrooms, carrots, and deep-fried tofu and was seasoned with soy sauce and sugar. The radish strips had firmness that I had expected and tasted good.

The other oyaki was stuffed with mainly mushrooms. It reminded me of autumn in mountainous Nagano Prefecture.

While eating these two buns, I felt a taste of fresh green leaves all the time. It surely was the taste of nozawana or turnip greens, which was mixed in the wheat flour and made the buns green. Nozawana is also a specialty in Nagano Prefecture. In fact, its taste was more impressive than that of the filling. It was unique, and I liked it very much.

Simple lunch with pseudo-goose

Recently, I have been busy with work. So, I went to a supermarket yesterday evening to stock up on ready-made food. In the section of refrigerated soy-based products, I found ganmodoki (also called hirousu as written on the package) or fried tofu balls sold at a 20% discount. They usually contains root vegetables such as carrots and burdock roots, and sometimes eggs. The ones I bought were vegan as they had just carrots, shiitake mushrooms, kelp, and yam powder in them.

Ganmodoki are often cooked with vegetables, however, I usually grill them and eat with soy sauce and garlic or ginger as I did in today’s lunch. As you see, the sections of ganmodoki looked like sponge and had an elastic texture.

In addition to ganmodoki, I had sprouted brown rice and instant vegan soup. The soup was the last one I bought the other day and contained green onions and wakame seaweed. I found it best of the three kinds of vegan soup.

Ganmodoki literally means pseudo-goose. They were originally made in Buddhist temples as a substitute for meat. Though they don't resemble meat very much, I think they may also taste good with ketchup as with chicken nuggets. I’ll try next time.

Delightful vegan instant soup

When you go to department stores in Japan, you may sometimes encounter gourmet fairs held in their event floor. They may be national ones or region-specific ones in which specialties from a certain district or city are sold. The other day, Entetsu Department Store had a national gourmet fair.

There were many long-established shops from all over Japan. Like other countries, each region has its unique food culture. Products in the fair were rare and difficult to get in Hamamatsu if online shops were not available. The floor was full of people who were curious about such foods.

At first, I expected to find some tofu products from Kyoto. But there were other things that attracted my attention. Can you guess what they are?

They are not candies but “hu” or dried wheat gluten. They are made by Fumuroya from Kanazawa in Hokuriku District. Kanazawa is a castle town famous for its rich cultural legacy such as traditional crafts and a beautiful garden Kenrokuen. Fumuroya is an old hu shop with more than 150 years of history. In addition to these, they make also more ordinary types like this. You can see similar ones in supermarkets.

Hu is often cooked with vegetables or put in soup. By using their colorful products, Fumuroya provides many kinds of instant soup. I found that three of them were vegan, flavored with kelp broth instead of bonito flake broth.

I bought all the three kinds. One of them was soup for autumn, and I prepared it according to the instruction by the shop. First, I put an autumn leaf-shaped box and kelp broth powder in the bowl and made a hole on the box.

Then I poured hot water of 150 cc into the bowl. The contents in the box were supposed to be come out of the hole, but they didn’t. So, I cut the box with chopsticks. The soup finally looked like this.

The ingredients in the palm-sized box got this big! They were garland chrysanthemum leaves, chrysanthemum flowers, maitake mushroom, soy milk skin, and autumn leaf-shaped and matsutake mushroom-shaped hu. The soup had a mild taste, but I felt something unknown in it. Maybe it was the taste of chrysanthemum flowers. They are edible and sold in also the vegetable section of supermarkets, but I’m not sure if they are commonly used in home cuisine in Hamamatsu. The little box itself was also made of hu. It was very good after it became soft and elastic in the soup.

The series of this delightful soup may be suitable for a present or special occasions such as birthday and New Year’s Day. Fumuroya has shops not only in Kanazawa but also in Toyama, Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, and Nagoya. I’ll go to Nagoya next month, so I’m thinking of visiting their shop in Takashimaya Department Store. It may be easy to find it, because they surely have this shop curtain with a big letter ふ (hu).

Torinoichi - Praying for prosperity

Today Daianji Temple in downtown had Torinoichi. It is an annual festival held in shrines and temples on the days of Tori (rooster) in November according to the Chinese calendar. Then visitors pray for prosperity in their business. As my grandmother was a shopkeeper, she often went to this festival. It has a long tradition from the Edo period. It was originally a harvest festival in the Kanto area where Tokyo is situated.

There were stalls selling bamboo rakes. They were decorated with various lucky charms such as oval gold coins of former days, rice bags, sea breams, turtles, plum blossoms, bamboo, and pine. Good fortune is supposed to be raked in with these.

Every year, people buy a new rake that is bigger than the old one so that they should have bigger fortune. The old rake from the previous year is returned to the temple or shine or stall where it was bought so that it should be disposed of carefully.

 
The rakes were quite expensive, so I just went into the building of the temple. There I threw a coin into the offertory box, swung the rope to ring the bell hung above, and prayed. Near the offertory box, I found small simple rakes with rice stalks. I liked them much more than the gorgeous ones sold outside. There were also wooden little daruma dolls modeled after the founder of Zen Buddhism.

Before leaving the temple, I drew a fortune slip. It showed “good fortune” and said that my wish would come true though it would take time. What a relief!

Subway - Vegetarian-friendly global sandwich chain

When I travel in Japan, I often check in advance if there is a Subway store in the destination. Apart from vegan/vegetarian restaurants, it is one of the most convenient eating places in Japan where vegetarians can order food at ease. In addition, a Subway store is easy to find when you are in the center of the city. At present, there are 308 stores in Japan, including four stores in Hamamatsu. One of them is in the basement of Entetsu Department Store, only 2-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station. If you take the escalator outside the north exit of the station down to this fountain and go behind it, you can see the Subway store on your left.

In Subway stores in Japan, vegetarians have three options: Veggie Delite, Avocado & Veggie, and Veggie & Cheese. Today, I had Veggie Delite, fried potatoes seasoned with herb salt, and 100% orange juice. I asked the staff member to put all kinds of vegetables including olives, pickles, and hot peppers. For the seasoning, I asked for salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil. As bread, I chose flat bread, which reminded me of thin bread in Sweden and naan bread in India I like.

I had thought for a long time that this Veggie Delite and Avocado & Veggie were completely vegan sandwiches, but I was wrong. According to Subway Japan’s website, all their bread types contain milk. Subway Japan may be vegetarian-friendly, but not vegan-friendly yet.

In September, I traveled to Finland and Sweden. At a Subway store in Rovaniemi, a town near the polar circle where Santa Claus lives, I found Vegan Delite. In addition to vegetables, it had a thin big vegan steak in it. Though it was called steak, it looked like a slice of vegan loaf and somehow reminded me of agehampen, a Japanese deep-fried flat fish cake with cut vegetables in. Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly how it tasted. Maybe I was so excited to eat this special sandwich that I didn’t taste it carefully. According to their website, four of their bread types are also vegan. I think I had a completely vegan sandwich in Finland.

I like Subway’s flexible way to make their sandwiches. Customers can choose everything from the bread type to the seasoning. I hope Subway Japan will provide options for vegans in the near future, and I believe they can.

*Unfortunately, this store was closed in May 2019. But there are still three Subway stores in Hamamatsu: Aeon Mall Hamamatsu Ichino, Aeon Mall Hamamatsu Shitoro, and Pleha Walk Hamakita.

Sun Sun Farm - Tourist farmers' market in Kakegawa

Yesterday afternoon, my mother and I went driving to Kakegawa, a town about 30 km from Hamamatsu. My mother is a pensioner. She got her driver’s license more than 50 years ago and still loves driving. She often goes to countryside to buy fresh vegetables and fruits of reasonable prices. The destination of yesterday’s drive was Sun Sun Farm, which is one of her favorite farmers’ markets.

Sun Sun Farm had two buildings, and we entered this building first. As you see, they still had Halloween pumpkins outside. Even in Japan, Halloween has become more and more popular in recent years.

There were a lot of local fresh products such as mandarin oranges, sweet potatoes, and persimmons. Like mandarin oranges, persimmons are also a specialty in western Shizuoka Prefecture. These big sweet persimmons were from Mori, a mountainous town near Kakegawa. When you are in farmers’ market, you can sometimes have a little bit of fruits to taste.

In another building, I found many processed products that were completely vegan-friendly. Especially, I was amazed to see a variety of unique vegan candies.

They are blueberry candies and acer maximowiczianum candies, agar candies flavored with root tangles, melons, mandarin oranges, and persimmons, and black sesame & soybean flour candies. The first two are said to be good for eyes. Maybe similar candies are sold in some drugstores as well.

There were also tea leaves and buckwheat noodles with yam (unfortunately, bonito flake broth was used for the attached soup),

locally brewed liquor, including sake, beer, and even distilled spirit flavored with tea leaves,

and wakame seaweed, which you can put in soup or salad.

Near the ceiling of the building, they displayed traditional kites in Kakegawa (Yokosuka kites). They have a history of 500 years and were originally used for land survey of the enemy territory or as communication tools in a provincial war.

As Shizuoka Prefecture has both mountains and sea, it has a great variety of local products. But what I like most about farmers’ markets is that they have simple food or sweets made of only natural ingredients.

The upper left sweets are made of rice flour and sugar and colored by gardenia, mugwort, etc. The right ones are mainly made of sweet potato paste mixed with white bean paste, sugar, and agar and wrapped in a thin skin of wheat flour. They are called suhama and imokin (imokintsuba) respectively. I’d like to taste them next time because yesterday, my mother bought us another kind of sweet to eat in the car. They were daifuku or rice cakes stuffed with adzuki bean paste. Daifuku is very popular and good to eat especially when you are hungry.

Sun Sun Farm
Address: 1456-312 Obuchi, Kakegawa-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 0120-55-3386
Open hours: 9:00-17:00
Closed: Thursdays (if a national holiday falls on Thursday, it is closed the previous day instead)
Access: 20-minute drive from Kakegawa IC of Tomei Expressway
             25-minute drive from Fukuroi IC of Tomei Expressway

Vegan sweets in November

When I have time on weekends, I often stroll around the basement of Entetsu Department Store near JR Hamamatsu Station. Like other department stores in Japan, it has a large food section in the basement. The basement of the new building, which is the northern part of the department store, consists mainly of confectionary stores. Even if you are a vegan, you can try many Japanese sweets made in traditional ways without dairy products and eggs. They are also suitable for those who have allergies to these ingredients.

Japanese-style confectionary stores make different sweets according to the seasons. In addition to basic ingredients such as rice flour, wheat flour, adzuki beans, sugar, etc., they often use season’s fruits or some other plant-based ingredients. Now they have many kinds of chestnut sweets. One of the most popular sweets looks like this.

It is called kurikinton and made of mashed chestnuts and sugar originally. It isn’t too sweet, and you can enjoy the original taste of the chestnuts. In Central Japan, Gifu Prefecture is famous for its kurikinton. It is a mountainous prefecture, and they cultivate chestnuts of high quality.

In addition to such simple but tasty sweets, there are also sweets like this that please the eye.

You see something orange among the beans? It isn't a starfish but an autumn leaf. Last summer, I saw a similar kind of sweets with an orange goldfish instead of a leaf. In such a way, they change the motif with the seasons. I like to explore in the confectionary section partly because I enjoy seeing new design of sweets. I’ll report what I have found at the beginning of each month.

In Japanese traditional jelly-like sweets like above, agar is used usually instead of gelatin. They are vegan-friendly also in this respect. In the confectionary section, I also found boxes filled with agar autumn leaves. They are from Kyoto, the home of traditional elegant sweets.