This is a continuation of Day 10, and of this earlier post:
http://wakeeatsleep.posterous.com/onsen-and-ryokan-minakami-town-part-1
Let's talk about the food that I enjoyed at Minakamikan. The image above is from their website. Your ryokan accommodation will typically provide you with dinner and breakfast as part of a one night stay. You'll be asked when you want dinner and breakfast served. I elected for a 7 pm dinner, and an 8 am breakfast. It would give me enough time to sneak in a bath and some onsen time before dinner. The dinner will be set up for you in your room. I left my room before 7 so that I could enjoy the small thrill of returning to find dinner prepared. I'm not going to lie, even though I already had a pretty decent idea of how much food I would get, it was still exciting to see the entire spread. First off, some crab legs, fresh vegetables and noodles:
I didn't realize it right away, but it was actually meant to get dumped into the broth that was set up. The server was nice enough to point it out to me. She didn't speak any English, and my Japanese was somewhat child-like, but for the most part I was able to get the essence of what I needed to do. Anyway, the end result looked like this:
Once I felt that they were cooked enough, I gradually transferred it to a smaller bowl to enjoy:
That crab meat was SO tender and delicious!
And the broth was pretty tasty too:
Some side dishes:
Tofu served cold:
Fresh clam!
Fish:
Sashimi that melted in my mouth:
Anyone know what sashimi this is? I almost didn't notice it in the ice bowl.
Another slight language adventure happened when the server asked if it was okay to have a sake-infused miso soup. Of course it was okay! It added a nice kick to the warm soup.
You'll have a healthy portion of rice to enjoy:
I saved this to gradually savor closer to the end of my meal. A very savory and tasty beef stew.
It didn't last very long.
I saved the rosemary cocktail for very last to polish off my meal. If I brought along someone, we would have taken up the entire table with food. My portion for one took up most of the table.
I almost left, but it turned out that I had one more dish to finish...dessert!
Enjoy the rest of the pictures in the set. We'll talk about the onsen experience next. -- to be continued --
http://wakeeatsleep.posterous.com/onsen-and-ryokan-minakami-town-part-1