ゆめみるこ
I visited a restaurant owned by Haruyuki Ogawa, who hails from Kurogi, known for its Kyoto-style cuisine. I had been wanting to visit this place for a long time and managed to find an available reservation on a booking site. As I approached the restaurant, the scent of incense filled the air from several meters away. I was seated at the counter, where I enjoyed a plum wine soda and cold oolong tea. The chef, who was younger than I had expected, served me the following dishes:
- Niigata black dance mushroom and conger eel bone dashi soup
- Sesame salad with myoga, ito-uri, cucumber, and shiitake in simmered sauce
- Cold bowl with pea paste, sea urchin, conger eel head dashi jelly, and yuzu zest
- Simmered yam stems with ginger
- Steamed fig
- Abalone liver hot pot with Shishito peppers and somen noodles
- Assorted delicacies including Hokkaido hairy crab and chrysanthemum salad, Chiba Katsuyama horse mackerel sushi, Maruju honey-coated fried chicken, mini okra, pumpkin, burdock, conger eel with sansho pepper, Oomisari cream cheese, tomato, and Ishikawa sweet potato
- Sashimi with grilled conger eel, salted conger eel roe, steamed octopus, bonito with plum soy sauce
- Winter melon stew
- Ginkgo nuts and zero yuzu salt-roasted
- Grilled eel
- Cold eggplant (Kamo eggplant) with Tokushima dried shrimp
- Meal with Sado's Koshihikari rice, miso soup, and corn rice
- Accompaniments of tuna with green pepper soy sauce, conger eel tsukudani, and rice bran pickles
- Dessert of peach white bean paste with sweet sake, Yamanashi peach, lily root white bean paste, and vanilla ice cream
Throughout the meal, I felt the chef's passion in every dish. The reserved chef became animated when reminiscing about his days at Kyoto-mi and expressing concern about the lack of successors for Sado's terraced rice fields' Koshihikari rice. I caught glimpses of both his strictness and kindness towards his apprentices. It was a delightful experience enjoying the early autumn cuisine.