A Japanese Feast - Dinner At Taenoyu Onsen

Another part of our stay at Taenoyu Onsen, this time about our dinner there. For the first installment, read it here.

There were two dining halls at Taenoyu Onsen. One was a European influenced lounge complete with a fireplace and the other was a Japanese style dining room. Our dinner at 6.00pm was at the Lounge. The staff seems to know all the guests and we were ushered to our table without so much asking for guest name or room name.

Each table was marked with the respective room names. I forgot what our room was called.

The lounge area, with plates and burners ready to for the guests. By 6.00pm, it was already so dark here that it felt like we were having dinner at a much later time.

Our dinner was a several course dinner, I lost count by the 7th plate. The portions were small, but with so many dishes served, we didn't leave the table still hungry.

Photos of our dinner. The food was explained to us in a mixture of English and Japanese (mostly Japanese because I think they took it that I did understand what they were talking about), but I forgot what most were called. So just enjoy the photos with a few odd explanation. :-)

A bowl of tsukemono

Seasoned konnyaku

Mountain vegetables, I think it was fern. Hahaha makan pucuk paku all the way in Japan!

Nice and chewy top shell. Even Raimie loved it.

Mushrooms ready for grilling. I didn't know grilled mushrooms (eaten with the accompanying lemon and seasoned salt) can be so delicious.

The pride of Akita region - kiritanpo, here eaten as kiritanpo nabe. Kiritanpo is cooked rice that is kneaded and then toasted on a skewer. It is then cut into 5-cm lengths and cooked in a pot with burdock, Chinese leeks, Maitake mushrooms and other seasonal vegetables. A staff lighted up the burner and soon the pot bubbled away and it was time to enjoy the nabe.

Originally designed as a portable meal carried by woodcutters and hunters working in the mountains, its name comes from its shape, which resembles a tanpo-yari (leather spearhead sheath enclosing a cloth ball filled with cotton).

Sashimi
More soups - plenty of kinoko (mushroom) inside
Foiled baked salmon with mushroom and broccoli

Udon served in a cypress cup.

Raimie is such an old hand at slurping noodles. He can make all the appropriate slurping sound too.

Last dish before getting our dessert. We actually put this dish aside because there were meat inside. Out of curiosity, I asked what type of meat were cooked in the dish and was informed that it was horse meat. The phrase : "nani niku?" and "niku wa arimasu ka?" is two favourite phrases of mine when checking on what food to buy. Pardon the atrocious grammar.

Caramel ice cream with fresh cream ended our dinner.

The menu. We were given a copy of the menu as souvenir.

We ordered just two sets of dinner for the three of us because we don't really eat much, fully expecting to share the sets with Raimie. But the hotel was kind enough to serve portions of the meal that weren't already on the table (those needed to be grilled and cooked on the burner) to Raimie. So he didn't need to share his rice, his udon and his ice cream. All at no extra charge, we learned later. Wasn't that kind of them?

Time sure went by fast, we finished our dinner well into 7.00pm. We usually didn't take that long to finish our dinner! The staff here were attentive, always on hand to explain the dishes served and to quickly cleared up empty plates and putting new dishes in front of us and asking whether everything was fine with us.

After dinner, we head to our room for a rest before getting into our reserved private bath at 8.00pm. Then, it was time for some zzzzz...... We hit the bed before 10.00pm! Oyasumi nasai (good night).