Shopping and EN Japanese Cuisine

After a tons of food and tea time we knew we had to walk off all the sugar….

Anna Sui – jacket was too big but loved the fur… also fell in love with gorgeous cowboy boots

Got a new hat from this awesome Japanese designer

I want this neon yellow jacket from Robyn

We walked and walked til almost 8, tummies were gurgling so we headed to EN…  I’ve seen it but just never been and yes I’ve been getting it confused with the one back in the States.. big mistake. Not only did we eat well over 20x the price of my lunch it wasn’t filling and just subpar :T Alas, let’s continue….

Sashimi… Tuna and Salmon…

Beautifully plated and super fresh…

Sanma-Umeni [Sanma Pike]

Braised in a soy sauce based broth…  this dish was TINY… it was tasty but I’m not quite sure it was really worth the price…

“Sanma” or Mackerel Pike usually comes on our plates with the advent of Autumn, but can be found until mid-winter in Shizuoka Prefecture
Known under other names such “Saira” or “Banjyo”, it is a fish with red meat rich with proteins.
In season, the flesh is fatty and sweet.

Its Japanese name 秋刀魚 means Autumn Sword Fish!

It is mainly caught off the north eastern shores of Japan as the fish swims down from Hokkaido.
But the more south it is caught, the less fat it will contain.
The annual catch exceeds 20,000 tonnes, although breeding is increasingly successful.
If you eat it at a sushi restaurant, you can expect its bones and head served deep-fried.”  [Source]

Okonomiyaki w/ Sakura Shrimp & Mountain Yam

Not the kind of we’re all used to, obviously, but this was super tasty and probably my favorite dish of the night. A lot of people can’t get over raw mountain yam… cooked mountain yam reminds me of a tender cooked potato but raw is gooey and daikon-ish… definitely like a crunchy radish but gooey… not as snotty as natto tho LOL… and tastier…  This was gooey, creamy, crunchy on the top and sides and just YUMMY!!!

EN’s Special Seafood Salad

Sashimi, Squid and delicious greens and caviar… light simple, but the descriptions on the menu sucked and I had no idea I was getting MORE raw fish in this dish… or else I would’ve picked a different salad… lol

Satsuma Style Deep Fried Burdock Root & Mitsuba

“Mitsuba is a Japanese vegetable that has three plain, parsley-like leaves on each long slender, white stalk. Young leaves and stalks have aromatic flavor and are often used as a seasoning in fish soup, Sukiyaki and many Japanese dishes. Young seedlings are used in salads. Seeds are sown in spring and early fall. The plant grows vigorously in mild climates and can be harvested 50 days after sowing. In Japan, plants are generally blanched in darkness or by earthing-up for growing white and tender stalks.” [Source]

And of course with Burdock, I eat it all the time…

This dish was NOT what I expected. I expected LITERALLY a crunchy burdock root, fried, not this fish cake like thing. MEH. Bland and disappointing :[ Squishy squishy..

And then the Snow Crab Hot Pot

Look at the sexy snow crab :] This was a special for the month of December.. also special hot pots were an oyster hot pot and a frogfish/anglerfish [?!] hotpot…. this was was double the price of the other ones tho.. but I found the basket lacking :[ Things were fresh but it could barely feed one, let alone three of us….

So we also ordered the BEEF… it’s their “Special” Beef but they only had one choice anyways LOL…

Fish of the Day grilled on Rock Salt: 石頭公 “Round ScorpionFish”

Lacking in meat and while it WAS tasty meat it was TEENY TINY and just… bony :[ Our poor little tummies needed more food…

Sauteed 油菜 [You Cai] with Cod Roe

YO! HOLY HUGE SAK OF EGGY ROE ROE.. they looked like preserved plums!

Seriously? I’m not gonna eat something that resembles gross veiny human balls.. kthanx. NOT hungry no more.Source: Google

By the time we got this tho we just wanted to get out of there.. and we didn’t wanna eat the cod roe… so we opted out of dessert, altho they did give us a lovely yummy cup of toasted rice green tea… and headed back to our hotel.