Kanshirou - Restaurant run by tofu shop

Last Sunday, my mother took me for a drive. This time, we went to Kanshirou (勘四郎), a restaurant specialized in dishes with tofu and other soy products. It is run by a tofu shop Sube Shoten (須部商店) . They have produced tofu for 140 years by using natural ground water in Miyakoda in Kita-ku (North Ward) of Hamamatsu. The restaurant is situated in the rural area near mountains.

As Kanshirou is a popular restaurant, we made a reservation before we left. Until the restaurant was opened at 11:30, we looked around in the store in the same house. They were selling a variety of soy products in addition to this regular tofu seen in many supermarkets in Hamamatsu.

We got interested in these soymilk doughnuts. They are ovo-vegetarian as they contain egg powder. Each bag contained three doughnuts, so I bought one to share with my parents. It looked and tasted delicious.

Another interesting product was tofu croquettes. Croquettes (called “korokke” in Japanese) are sold any supermarket in Japan, but it is very difficult to find vegetarian/vegan ones. According to the description, these tofu croquettes don’t contain meat and egg. The main ingredients are tofu, plant oil, onion, carrot, dried mashed potato, breadcrumbs, granular soybean protein, sugar, salt, etc. They almost seemed to be vegan.

I bought a pack with two croquettes and ate them for dinners. The inside looked like this. They were fluffy with tofu, which may be a little different from croquettes sold in supermarkets.

The store also had tofu skins,

snacks such as soy pulp crackers,

black soybean tea, etc.

These are only a few examples. There were so many interesting foods that I felt like coming again on some other day. The store wasn’t very big and was crowded with people who waited for the restaurant to be opened. At 11:30, each group was told which table they should sit at. Luckily, we could go upstairs as my mother expected.

As soon as we came to the second floor, we noticed that the restaurant limited the number of customers to keep social distance. We saw only two other groups sitting distant from our table. And my mother and I could keep a distance from each other thanks to a big table between us.

Since there was no one by the window,

I could come closer and see rice fields outside.

This was my first time to eat out since the beginning of March, and I was glad that the staff was very careful to avoid a crowd inside the restaurant. It felt spacious and relaxing. As this building was a renovated old Japanese-style house, thick wood was used for the ceiling. Unfortunately, only moon-like lights can be seen in this picture.

Under this corona period, menu was limited to four items. My mother and I ordered “Fresh Yosedofu Set” and “Fresh Deep-fried Tofu Set” respectively. Yosedofu is a kind of tofu that is not formed in a mold to be pressed. I got some of it from my mother. It looked like, and I ate it with sauce, ground sesame, and green onion. Fresh yosedofu was warm and much softer than ordinary square tofu.

And this is my “Fresh Deep-fried Tofu Set.” As side dishes, there were chilled tofu, miso soup, and cooked vegetables.

The main dish was neatly arranged deep-fried tofu. I gave some pieces to my mother. This tofu was supposed to be eaten with sauce, soy sauce rice malt, ginger, and grated daikon radish. Though I often have similar dish at home, this fresh deep-fried tofu felt less oily outside and tasted much better.

Though chilled tofu was just a side dish, it was impressive. It seemed that the green onion sauce contained sesame oil, and I liked such a flavor. After eating soft warm yosedofu, this cold and harder tofu felt different from usual.

This is 16-grain rice, which has been winning popularity in recent years. We could choose between white rice and 16-grain rice, and both of us chose this.

In fact, I can’t remember how the rice tasted because the volume of the tofu dishes was over whelming. Even the miso soup and cooked vegetables contained deep-fried tofu. When I finished, I said to my mother that I wouldn’t need to eat any tofu products throughout the next week.

Finally, we had the dessert and tea that were also included in the set. The dessert was tofu mousse with green tea flavor, and the tea was soy pulp tea. I liked the smooth texture of the dessert and brown sugar syrup on it.

I think Kanshirou’s tofu products are recommendable to vegans and vegetarians. But I have to point out one thing. According to their website, they use broth made from “bonito and other fish” and “kelp” for everything. I suppose this “everything” includes every sauce. When I ate at Kanshirou, I thought fish broth might be used for miso soup and cooked vegetables as in other restaurants but thought somehow that sauces for tofu dishes were animal-free. It may be because I’m used to eating them with soy sauce at home. It’s embarrassing.

This time, the options were limited. But usually they have a menu item “Soy Pulp Pizza with Seasonal Vegetables” that seem to be vegan. It is said clearly on the website that egg, wheat flour, milk, and meat are not used. The ingredients are tofu, soy pulp, corn starch, olive oil, tomato miso, salt, and seasonal vegetables. I have never had such a pizza crust made from tofu, soy pulp, etc. When this corona period is over and normal menu is available, I’d like to try this pizza.

Kanshirou
Address: 5531 Miyakoda-cho, Kita-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-428-7667
Opening hours (as of June 30, 2020): 10:00 – 15:00
                                                Lunch: 11:30 - 13:30 (LO)
Closed: Thursdays

Vegetable soyburg of San-iku Foods

Recently, I have introduced some vegan instant foods. It’s wonderful that more and more companies have got interested in new business concerning vegan foods and have been trying to make delicious and convenient products. Such trend is relatively new in Japan, however, as for vegetarian instant foods, there is a company San-iku Foods (三育フーズ) with long years of experience. The other day, I happened to find their product sold at a discount price at BIO Atsumi. It is a retort pouch of “VEGETABLE-SOYBURG Teri Yaki Sauce Taste.”

On the top of the pouch, you can see the mark of the company that represents a church beyond green fields. San-iku Foods is an affiliated company of Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Christian denomination that promotes a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet.

The ingredients are onion, soy protein, cabbage, bread crumbs, plant oil, plant-based powdered bouillon, starch (corn), egg white powder, sweetened sake, soy sauce, spice, cocoa, sauce (onion, soy sauce, sugar, wheat flour, plant oil, plant protein enzyme decomposer, spice, cacao coloring). The soyburg looked delicious after boiled for three minutes and put on a dish. Additionally, I stir-fried onion and green pepper.

The inside looked like this.

It looked meaty. As I ate it, I found the texture was meaty indeed and dense. I didn’t notice the flavor of soybeans at all. Though it was a teriyaki soyburg, the sauce was mild without a strong flavor of soy sauce. I thought it is suitable for many people and felt something in common with vegetarian dishes served in Buddhist temples here.

Though I’m not very interested in religions and don’t know much about Seventh-day Adventist Church, I think San-iku Foods has greatly contributed to make vegetarian foods more accessible. They provide a variety of products such as soyburg, soyball, vegetable meat sauce, canned gluten meat, granola, peanut butter, etc. They are easily found in natural food stores but not in ordinary supermarkets, I guess. On Amazon Japan, you can find some of their products by searching with “Saniku vegetarian.”

Minazuki - Traditional sweet in June originated from Kyoto

We have the rainy season now. It is expected to last until around July 21. In old Japanese, June in the lunar calendar was called minazuki (水無月). According to these Chinese characters, it means “month without water”, however, I’ve heard minazuki actually means “month with water.” June in the lunar calendar is said to be the season when rice fields are filled with water.

At the end of June, people in Kyoto have a tradition to eat a sweet that is also called minazuki (written with the same Chinese characters). It is intended to pray for good health for the second half of the year. Now, this sweet is sold also in Hamamatsu, and probably in other towns as well. It is a triangle cake (to look like ice) with adzuki beans on top.

In fact, I wanted to introduce minazuki last year in the article “Vegan sweet in June”, but I couldn’t, because it was only sold in a pack with two pieces or more. As it doesn’t last long, and I didn’t want to eat more than one, I gave up buying it. But this year, I could find a small product suitable for one person. It was sold in Mataichian in the basement of Entetsu Department Store. I cooled it in a refrigerator to have it more delicious.

When I removed the cover, I found that this minazuki was not one square piece but was cut in two, in triangle!

Two pieces of mini minazuki for one portion. The confectionary store Mataichian is very smart.

I mistook the white layer as a rice cake. Actually, the ingredients of this minazuki were sugar, adzuki beans, wheat flour, wheat flour starch, plant protein, and starch syrup of reduced malt sugar. Though the white layer was elastic and resembled a rice cake, it was a little harder and wasn’t sticky. This cooled cake tasted very good with sweet adzuki beans.

Minazuki is widely known in the Kansai area but not in Hamamatsu. The ingredients seem to vary depending on stores. If there are any other stores that sell it loose, I’d like to try again by the end of this month.

Retort pouch vegan curry made by Kagome

When I bought Samurai Ramen through Amazon Japan the other day, they offered free shipping on orders of 2,000 yen and over. So, I ordered a box of retort pouch curry in addition to the ramen. It contained five pouches and was intended for wholesale. Maybe it isn’t available in ordinary supermarkets as I have never seen it before. It was manufactured by Kagome, a major Japanese food company known for its ketchup, sauce, juice, etc., with history of over 120 years. One pouch was smaller than I thought and looked like this.  

At the upper left corner, there is a vegan mark. This is certified by VegeProject Japan. In fact, I had never heard of it before until I saw this mark this time (it’s embarrassing!). According to their website (http://www.vegeproject.org/), they are an NPO working to increase vegan/vegetarian options. They provide some useful information also in English.

The name of curry is “Mix Beans Vegetable Curry.” The ingredients are onion, red kidney beans, white kidney beans, chickpeas, carrot puree, onion saute, soybean oil, tomtate paste, soymilk fermented food, fried onion, apple puree, Wooster sauce, mixed vegetable saute, white kidney bean puree, garlic puree, spice, granulated sugar, salt, starch, and vegetable broth.

This curry is supposed to be medium-spicy. But when I started eating, I thought it was rather mild. Maybe I have been too accustomed to spicy foods such as Samurai Ramen and couldn’t appreciate its spiciness or taste. The curry was well-made and was not bad at all, but I still felt something was lacking. I longed for Chana Masala and Dal Curry made at Indian restaurants. Maybe it is a matter of personal preference.

At the beginning of this year, Kagome released this “Mix Beans Vegetable Curry” and “Soy Meat Keema Curry.” In addition, they produce three kinds of vegan pasta sauce that were released earlier. I appreciate their efforts very much. When you search with words “Kagome Vegan” on Amazon Japan (the language can be switched to English or Simplified Chinese), you can see these two kinds of vegan curry and Mushroom Soy Milk Cream (pasta sauce) on sale. If you live in Japan and have difficulty finding vegan instant foods at local supermarkets, Amazon Japan may be convenient and helpful.

Samurai Ramen UMAMI without garlic and onion

Last Sunday, I ate spicy Samurai Ramen UMAMI. It was so good that I bought another type of this vegan ramen on Amazon Japan. On its red pack, you can see big letters “NO GARLIC, NO ONION”, and Chinese characters “全素不含五辛“ under the word “Vegan.” It is intended for vegans who don’t eat five spicy foods.

Like spicy Samurai Ramen UMAMI, this is suitable for Muslim as well, and the ingredients are written also in English on the backside of the pack. The main ingredients of the soup are almost the same as those of spicy ramen soup. The difference is that it contains shiitake mushroom extract powder instead of chopped garlic. The ingredients of the noodles are wheat flour (domestically manufactured) and salt, which are the same as those of the spicy ramen.

The contents looked the same as those of spicy Samurai Ramen UMAMI.

This time I added mulukhiya leaves, Japanese ginger (myoga), and wakame seaweed. Though mulukhiya was originated from Egypt, it has become a popular summer vegetable in Japan because it is said to prevent exhaustion from the heat. Japanese ginger is also popular in summer with its refreshing flavor and crispy texture.

The ramen was ready in five minutes.

I expected it would taste much milder than the spicy version of Samurai Ramen. So, I was slightly surprised to find that it was still a bit spicy. It may be because it contained chili oil. When I finished eating, I was sweating. But the ramen was tasty and other ingredients added together were also good. The taste of the soup may vary depending on the additional ingredients, so it will be interesting to have other combination of vegetables as well. I think I’ll add some corn next time to make it a little sweeter.

Samurai Ramen UMAMI popular among visitors from abroad

It has been quite hot recently (27 degrees now). I feel like eating delicious curry with newly baked fresh naan bread at an Indian restaurant, but I still don’t dare to eat among people in a restaurant.
During this corona period, I have become more interested in vegan foods available in supermarkets than before.

Yesterday, I found a vegan instant ramen called Samurai Ramen UMAMI at BIO Atsumi. As you may know, Samurai is a warrior that can be seen in Japanese historical dramas. Personally, I can hardly identify with samurai because I’m a descendant of farmers as most ordinary Japanese people, and I don’t like that the image of samurai is often emphasized when talking about present Japanese people. But I still got interested in the ramen itself, which was in a pack like this.

It bears a mark of samurai,

 the Indian green vegetarian mark, and a “Vegan” mark.

On the backside, you can see how to prepare it and ingredients written in English. It contains no alcohol and is also suitable for Muslim. According to their website, this ramen has been popular among people who visit Japan from abroad. But I saw it for the first time yesterday. Maybe it is still unknown in most provincial towns.

This pack contained ramen and soup for two servings.

It took about five minutes to get it ready. This time I added sprouts of celery and soymilk skin.

I found the soup very spicy. It may be less spicy than the cup noodle Shin (辛) Ramen I introduced before, but I was a bit surprised. The soup contained ingredients such as ginger paste, chili oil, and chopped garlic. The soup was also tasty with the flavors of miso, soy sauce, sesame paste, ground sesame, etc. I liked it very much. The sprouts of celery added a flavor, and I think ordinary celery may also go well with the soup.

In addition to this spicy vegan version, there is another vegan Samurai Ramen UMAMI that does not contain five spicy foods (全素不含五辛). It is in a red pack and is available through Amazon Japan. Hopefully, it will be sold in ordinary supermarkets because it may become popular among a wider range of people, including those who can’t eat spicy foods and small children.

*On June 13, I went to BIO Atsumi again and found that Samurai Ramen UMAMI in a red pack is also sold there. Hopefully, both types of Samurai Ramen will be available permanently.