Misoman - Traditional sweet from north of Lake Hamana

Last Saturday, I visited Create Hamamatsu, a community center near Enshu Byoin Station of Enshu Railway Line. They had Winter Festival with stalls selling local products, concerts, etc. Among the food products, the most attractive one was a set of ten miso-manju (abbreviated as misoman), which is sold at only special events. Misoman is a well-known sweet in the area north of Lake Hamana. According to some websites, it was originally sold to travelers going to Hokoji Temple there. It was also served in Buddhist memorial services and eaten as a snack during the break in farm work. As its color is brown and reminds you of miso or fermented soybean paste, it is called misoman. The set sold last Saturday consisted of ten buns from ten different confectionary stores respectively. According to the man selling misoman, they were gathered by visiting each store early in the morning. As it was such a special set and selling well, there were only several packs left. I bought one without hesitating. In fact, ten buns were too many for me, so I took the pack to my relative’s house to ask them to help me eat them.

 At the bottom, there was a map of the area.

And another map even in the pack inside.

Look! Ten different misoman from different stores (surely with different taste).

The map in the pack showed the name of the stores and their locations. I didn’t know them at all, but my uncle and aunt knew some stores and recommended me their products. They were also surprised to see such a variety of misoman at a time.

I brought four misoman back home.

Generally, misoman are hand-made and last only for a few days. The main ingredients are wheat flour, adzuki bean paste, black sugar, etc. First, I had two of them. The left one is from Uchiyama Seika and the right one from Mikkabi Seika. Both of them, especially, the left one with dark brown color, looked delicious.

The inside looked like this.

As I expected, the left one had the rich taste of black sugar. In addition to relatively much black sugar, it also contained yam that made the texture of the skin soft. I liked this misoman very much. After drinking some hojicha or roasted green tea to remove the after taste, I ate the other one. I found immediately that the bean paste inside was much sweeter than the previous one. In addition to black sugar and white sugar, it contained also starch syrup. It was good but too sweet for me. So, I drank another cup of tea after eating it up.
   
On the next day, I had other two buns. The left one is from Irikawaya, and the right one from Okashi-no-Toyama. My uncle and aunt had eaten misoman from Irikawaya before, so they recommended me to take this.

The inside looked like this.

The one on the left contained Daifukuji (Temple) natto (fermented soybeans). I was worried how strange it would taste, however, it turned out to be moderately sweet and good. I could hardly feel the distinctive taste of natto, but its flavor was a little complicated to explain as it seemed to be a mixture of several ingredients. In addition to Daifukuji natto, it contained honey (so it was not vegan), agar, bamboo charcoal as unique ingredients that were not used in other misoman I ate.

The other one that I ate lastly had straight sweetness. Among the four misoman I had, this was the only one that contained miso and soy sauce. Though its color was dark, its taste was different from the first dark brown misoman with noticeable flavor of brown sugar.

Though the basic ingredients are the same, the four kinds of misoman from four different stores had their unique flavors and tastes respectively with addition of something extra. It was very interesting, and I wondered how the other six misoman I gave to my relatives tasted. I hope I’ll have a chance to get the set of ten misoman again to try the buns from other stores.

Misoman are also made by big confectionary stores in Hamamatsu, such as Shunkado that is famous for its eel pie. Their misoman are always available in the gift shop in JR Hamamatsu Station, and I highly recommend you to try them.

Vegan box lunches in Entetsu Department Store

On the basement of the main building of Entetsu Department Store, there is a delicatessen Kosei Iro Iro (個性色色). I wrote about it before to introduce their vegan sushi and rice balls, but if you want to have a more substantial meal, there are other options: two kinds of vegan box lunches from a vegetarian restaurant Bejita located a bit distant from the downtown. One of them is a box lunch with a veggie patty,

and the other is a colorful vegetable box lunch that changes from day to day. I bought this one home today.

According to the list, today’s lunch included a sausage of quinoa, cabbage stir-fried with curry powder, caponata, marinade of cauliflower, and fluffy boiled potatoes, which looked like this.

Below them, there was brown rice to which I added some ground sesame. I thought the amount of rice may be sufficient for average women but not for men.

As a whole, the tastes of vegetables were sweet and mild. The cabbage stir-fried with curry was spicy, but not as spicy as dishes in Indian restaurants. It had some sweetness because of cabbage. The boiled potatoes had some dried sea lettuce sprinkled on them, which I thought interesting. I didn’t know exactly what caponata was, but what I ate was vegetables cooked with tomato and was also sweet. The sausage was made of quinoa. I ate quinoa for the first time, and it was interesting to know how elastic it is.

Usually, I prefer eating hot fresh food like newly baked naan bread, but I think this box lunch is well made and very good if you want to have various vegetables at a time. It seemed to be selling very well because there was only one box left after I bought one around 12:30. Maybe it is popular among health-conscious people working in downtown.

New Year’s vegetarian cuisine at Kasuisai Temple

Last year, I introduced a special lunch set “Yurizen (lily tray)” served at Kasuisai Temple in Fukuroi. This temple offers different kinds of lunch sets according to the seasons, and now they have the New Year’s “Kicchozen (auspicious tray)” until the middle of January. I went there yesterday, which was the last day of the holiday season.

After taking a train to Fukuroi, I walked to the temple (you can also take a bus from the bus stop No.1 near the north exit of the station). It was still warm, and it was refreshing to walk about 40 minutes to get there. This is the General Gate of the temple, with the New Year’s decorative pine trees in front of it. At first, I thought it strange that the gate looked brand new though Kasuisai is an old temple with more than 600 years of history. In addition, I couldn’t remember seeing it before. Later, I learned that the gate was rebuilt in last autumn as it was destroyed by the strong typhoon in October 2018.

I went up the stairs as before,

and went to the reception building on the right to book Kicchozen.

It was a little over 11:00, and there weren’t many people yet. I got a ticket with number 4 and went inside. In this building, they have an annual exhibition of hina dolls (dolls displayed on the Doll Festival on March 3) on a large scale from January 1 to March 15, and I could see an extraordinary exhibit from the beginning. It consisted of life-sized dolls representing the emperor and the empress and three court ladies. They were amazing but a bit scaring.

Usually, hina dolls are much smaller so that even small children can hold them by themselves. In addition to exhibits, the temple has dolls and furniture for children to play with freely. The exhibition is gorgeous, and there will be more interesting items displayed during the period. I think I’ll come to Kasuisai again and write a separate article later.

As before, the lunch was served in a tatami room. This is the set Kicchozen with a festive tone for the New Year.

With Kicchozen, you can choose between rice gruel with adzuki beans and rice + miso soup. I chose the former because I had seldom eaten it before. It is traditionally eaten on January 15 to drive away evil spirits and pray for good health. I heard this custom is originated from China. Also in a Korean movie “Masquerade”, a similar kind of dish was served in the royal palace, which was very impressive.

The foods on this plate were beautifully arranged. Kurikinton or mashed chestnut is one of the most popular New Year’s foods, and the kumquat compote with slight bitterness is my favorite. There was something between them that resembled a slice of boiled fish paste. It turned out to be a slice of yam picked in ume vinegar! Unfortunately, I didn’t know what others were, but they were also good. I thought all the foods were elaborately prepared.

This is also a well-known dish for the New Year. It is called namasu and usually made of Japanese radish and carrot seasoned in vinegar. But this one served in Kasuisai had something extra: a slice of dried persimmon.

Cooked vegetables, ganmodoki (deep-fried tofu conatining vegetables), yam cake, etc.,

and their soft delicious sesame tofu! I was very glad to have it again this time.

Sweet black beans are also a typical food item for the New Year. They are intended to be able to  work in good health. Usually, I don’t like black beans very much because they are often too sweet and I can’t feel any other taste than sweetness. But these beans in Kasuisai were good, and I thought the original taste of the beans was preserved. They were a real dish. In addition, I had never seen black beans with gold foil on them though it is sometimes used for festive foods or in higher-class restaurants. This combination of black and gold was gorgeous.

I enjoyed this special set very much. It included common Japanese dishes for the New Year, but they tasted different and special. The price is 1500 yen, which is very reasonable considering the high quality of dishes and the admission fee of the hina-doll exhibition included in the price. I’ll surely come again to have dishes of other seasons as well.

Drive to enjoy lake & ocean view (2) - Michi-no-eki Shiomizaka

After we strolled around Hamanako Garden Park, my mother took us to Michi-no-eki Shiomizaka. It is a rest area along National Route 1 in Kosai.

Shiomizaka literally means a “tide viewing slope.” It is located near the Shirasuka Post Station on the Tokaido Highway in the Edo Period, and ancient travelers who walked from Kyoto to Edo could see the Pacific Ocean for the first time just in this place. Michi-no-eki Shiomizaka is quite close to the ocean.

And it had a foot bath outside! Unfortunately, all the sitting places were already occupied, but it would be very relaxing to take the footbath with a view of the vast ocean.

The inside of building was spacious. Like other michi-no-eki, there were a variety of local products.

My mother bought a bag of mandarin oranges, and I bought a bag of sweet potatoes. In addition to fresh vegetables and fruits, there were processed products as well, like dried strips of radish and kikurage mushroom.

They had also sweets made from natural ingredients such as mandarin orange yokan (jellied sweet bean paste) and chestnut yokan. According to the note, the amount of the chestnut contained in the chestnut yokan has been increased by 1.2 times because the product has been gaining popularity. These two kinds of yokan looked very delicious, and my sister bought chestnut one with some other food.

In a michi-no-eki, you often find fresh snacks that are appetizing.

My sister bought us a set of three skewers of dumplings. As they were still warm, we ate them immediately in the car. In ordinary confectionary stores and supermarkets, you can hardly find such warm dumplings. They were very good with a flavor of soy sauce.

In Michi-no-eki Shiomizaka, my sister got interested in local lemons because her husband likes to make lemonade and wants to avoid agricultural chemicals applied to imported lemons. When we came home, my mother gave her some lemons from the trees in her garden. Though they were a bit greenish and were not bright yellow like those sold in supermarkets, they were big enough and looked more natural. I hope he can make good lemonade with them.

Drive to enjoy lake & ocean view (1) - Observatory tower in Hamanako Garden Park

During the New Year’s holidays, we have had fine weather. It has been also warm. Today, my mother, sister, and I went for a drive around Lake Hamana. First, we went to Hamanako Garden Park, an admission-free huge park nearby the lake. It has an observatory tower with a height of 50m. In other seasons, we are satisfied just by seeing beautiful flowers such as tulips, roses, and sunflowers. Since it is January, they have much less flowers to see. So, we entered the observation tower (the admission free was 300 yen for an adult) this time and took an elevator to the top.

The elevator moved slowly, but when the door was opened, we were amazed by the view seen beyond the floor. On the south side, we could see Lake Hamana with seaweed farms on the surface.

On the east side, the bridge leading to a small island Bentenjima was seen. I have once walked from JR Bentanjima Station to Hamanako Garden Park in a walking event, and it took about 45 minutes. On the right side of the picture, there is a white building of a hotel THE HAMANAKO where my mother and I have had tea for several times before.

On the west side, we could see two rats, the animal of Chinese horoscope for this year. The mountains seen beyond the lake are Kosai Mountain Range, which is located on the border between Shizuoka Prefecture and Aichi Prefecture.

Unfortunately, I forgot taking a picture of the north side. On the top of the tower, there was a small deck protruding in the north-east direction. It was thrilling to stand there. From there, you can see not only the major areas of the park but also the mountains on the north side of Lake Hamana. According to some website, you can even see Mt. Fuji on a fine day, but I didn’t notice it. Maybe I was too absorbed in the vast lake view on the south side and didn’t look at the mountains carefully enough.

This was my first visit to the observatory tower. It was very impressive. Maybe you can enjoy varying views according to the seasons. In addition, I have also heard that the tower can feel a bit shaky with strong wind. Though we had a mild weather today, it can be sometimes very windy in Hamamatsu. It may become more thrilling and exciting to be the top of the tower, especially in the small observatory deck.

Happy New Year 2020

The year of the Tokyo Olympic Games has come! In the shop of BIC CAMERA, a consumer electronics retailer chain, near JR Hamamatsu Station, I found many T-shirts on sale with the logo of the Olympic Games. Though I’m not a big fan of sports, I’m a bit curious how they will turn out.

Yesterday, my sister came to our parents’ house from Tokyo with some sweets. After having traditional New Year’s dinner as last year, we had kohaku (紅白) manju or red and white buns stuffed with sweet adzuki bean paste. This kind of buns are often eaten or delivered at festive events such as New Year, wedding, entrance and graduation ceremonies of schools, etc. As 2020 is the year of the Rat according to the Chinese Horoscope, the white buns bore the image of a rat, and the pink bun the Chinese character that means the Rat.

Apart from the special design for the New Year, they seemed to be ordinary buns. However, the skin of the buns contained yam, adding moist in the texture. Such buns are regarded to be of higher quality compared with those made from only rice flour or wheat flour. I like them because they actually taste better.

My sister gave us hanabira-mochi or a flower petal rice cake as well. I wrote about it already at the beginning of last year as it is a traditional sweet for the New Year. The unique thing about it is that a stick of sweetened boiled burdock is wrapped in a thin rice cake (The product we ate had also a stick of sweetened boiled carrot), and the bean paste inside contains miso and tastes a bit salty.

The rice cake was very good. I can’t explain well how soft and delicious the rice cake was, so I just post another picture that shows the cross section of it. It looked colorful inside.

I wish all of you a happy new year!