Memoirs of Aleisha

Tonight’s mid-week dinner was at one of the few places that is still open - Hirafu Fleur.

After ringing around two other restaurants that were closed, and in search of a restaurant that we hadn’t been to, Hirafu Fleur was it. It’s right at the very top of the main slope, under the Popolo Onsen.

It’s a nice little restaurant which does cheap, hearty and pretty tasty food. I was quite impressed, and very hungry on this particular occasion. Full time office work at a desk all day (9am to 6pm), means I don’t snack, which makes me very hungry by the time dinner comes around.

So I went all out and ordered heaps of food for myself. I got a glass of red wine to accompany the service dish we got - prawns.
I then ordered a fried ebi salad, the ishiyaki genghis khan (lamb and vegie stirfry hot pot), garlic toast and a bowl of rice.
The salad was good. I was craving ebi. The dressing was a little too mayonnaisy/creamy for my liking. The garlic toast was great. Definitely would get that again. Rice is a given. The genghis khan was a little disappointing. The vegies were great  but the meat wasn’t so good. I usually don’t eat a lot of meat, so when I do, I like it to be really good quality.

The menu is very reasonably priced. Would come back here again. Next time, I wouldn’t order as much food. A cool little place to come to, that isn’t over hyperpriced nor overpriced.

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Hotel Kanronomori is a little ways out of the village. Located at Moiwa ski jo, Hotel Kanronomori is a really nice Japanese hotel with really nice fine dining restaurants, and a really nice onsen too.

For three days only, there was a special running. For 3000yen you got onsen entry and buffet dinner, with unlimited non-alcoholic drinks as well. Pretty good value, so we took up this offer and enjoyed an evening of indulgence.

The hotel even provides a courtesy bus service to come pick you up. Very benri indeed, so we got picked up from the local Seicomart and were picked up and driven out to the hotel.
We had an hour to relax in the onsen, and then headed on up to a buffet dinner. All the usual offerings at a Japanese buffet - soups, sushi, fish, various meats, salads, noodles, fruit, dessert, juice and tea.

The food wasn’t too bad. Like most buffets, you compromise quality of food for quantity.
After at least five small plates of food, I think I got my money’s worth. We were all very full afterwards.

This will probably be my last week of full on eating for a while. Got a few more dinners lined up for this week, but then I’m gonna cut back on eating, and maybe blog about my exercise program instead. At the end of this week, I will be losing my dining buddy - Bex, who is going back to England.

Am thinking about blogging about my own recipes…I think I will cook more and be more experimental. I will probably also blog about exercising and trying to lose the kilos from all this eating, and probably should blog about Japanese study too.

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This week’s mid-week dinner was at Yummy’s - one of the few restaurants in the village open all year round.

Once again we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. Am I the only person who eats in this village? There sure as hell ain’t no grocery store in town.

Wine was only by the bottle, not glass, so we indulged in a bottle of wine to wash down a couple of pizzas.
We ordered two pizzas to share - a vegetable pizza, and a prosciutto pizza. The pizzas here like most in Japan are on the light side. They use a really thin crust that tastes much like air. Pizzas in Japan rarely fill me up. We also ordered a side dish - a chicken, cheese and potato gratin which was tasty enough but on the runny, oily side.

A nice warm meal in a cosy restaurant, topped with dessert - chocolate brownie with icecream and a cheesecake.

A somewhat pricey meal at just under 4000yen per person, but that did include a bottle of wine and dessert.

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We headed into Kutchan tonight determined, and craving for kaiten sushi. Alas, we got there after 9pm and the kaiten sushi restaurant was closed!!! It closed at 9pm. What kind of restaurant closes at 9pm on a Friday evening. So we were denied cheap sushi.

We headed towards Miyako dori in search of alternative eats. On the town for the night, we decided to try a place that we couldn’t get back in the village, so we ate at a Chinese restaurant. It was a poor substitute for sushi, but nevertheless, it filled the stomach. Amongst the three of us, we ordered a handful of dishes and shared them.

As a free snack we were given soggy peanuts which I thought were inedible.
The gyoza though was excellent. Really good gyoza if I do say so myself, as were the ebi spring rolls.
We also orded sweet and sour pork, which wasn’t really that good.
The combination noodle dish was ok, and the crab chahan was good.

The meal wasn’t too bad, and Chinese food makes a change from the scores of izakayas and yakitori-ya sans in the area.

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The eating continues this week as the season turns to spring. The kilos are slowly creeping on too, more from lack of exercise though, rather than all this eating.
I have a much more sedentary lifestyle with the onset of a full-time desk job. I haven’t been swimming, snowboarding or walking for a while now.

This week’s midweek dinner we returned to J First Hotel, not for its onsen, but to try out its restaurant. It is situated at the top of the main slope and has excellent views over the village and of Mount Yotei. The village is all but deserted now, so we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The lady upon our arrival kindly told us to sit wherever we liked.

I ordered the salmon steak set which included a garden salad, choice of bread or rice (I opted for the warm crusty bread), a soup, and the salmon steak ( a very bizarre-shaped salmon steak at that (served with capers, potato wedges and broccoli. It was a very nice balanced meal, although somewhat salty. Japan often dehydrates me. There are a lot of salty flavours in Japan such as miso, shoyu and various fish and sauces.

Bex got the crab risotto hot pot.

All in all, a very reasonable and good value for money dining experience. House wine is also only 400yen.
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