Service: professional and smiling Equipment & facilities: spotless clean. Strong points: high-class French cuisine. Pate and terrine, the specialty! Superb local and Japanese products. Doubles as a superb wine bar during and after hours. When Hiroshi Haraguchi/原口広さん decided to open his own restaurant in Shizuoka City this year after a long stint in a star-studded establishment in Tokyo he certainly hit the jackpot, the more for it that French restaurants of note in this City had become scarce of late! Having already published books of his own masterpieces, here we were suddenly finding ourselves with a new chef of renown! It is a busy place but at last I had the opportunity to share dinner there in great company! To start with HARAGUCHI offers an excellent wine list for all budgets. Although the food is consequently priced, I found the wines quite reasonable! As only two of our group drank wine we chose a Crozes Hermitage 2010 offered by ever-reliable E. Guigal dealer!

The cuisine is both traditional and modern, as well as the table settings! Naturally the (whole wheat) bread is home-baked! As amuse-bouche/starter, we were served an elegant salmon mousse! Now, as the main starter, being French, I couldn’t help sample the exquisite-looking and very generous terrine de campagne (although called “pate de campagne”!)! True to tell, it was more than par with the many I ate back home! And the home-made pickles and local fine salad were just perfect! Actually, I would recommend anyone to first visit the wine bar and savor a great one with one of the terrines and pate on the menu! As for the fish dish, we had a sawara/Spanish mackerel caught in the neighboring Suruga Bay, cooked to perfection with a crackling skin! One of my friends opted for this succulent beef raised in Aichi Prefecture! I don’t have to extol the qualities of Japanese beef, do I! It certainly doesn’t need any artifices! Pork is probably the most underrated meat away from these shores, and it is just impossible to list them all1

his particular piece was from a nasu-ton, that is pigs fed with eggplants in Tochigi Prefecture! Tender, juicy and so tasty! I didn’t leave a iota on my plate! The dessert, an exquisite example of simplicity consisted of seasonal apple tart, very Alsatian in style, cinnamon ice-cream and bitter caramel sauce! And I can assure you that the mignardises did not last long, just the time to explain their origin to my friends! Now, since I have to sample all these terrines and pates myself at the wine bar, expect more visits and reports! 420-0035 Shizuoka City, Aoi Ku, Shichiken-Cho 9-5, Trenz Bldg, 1F (along the Aoba Park Street) Opening hours: 11:30~13:30, 17:30~20:30 (LO), ~24:00 (wine bar) Closed on Mondays, 1st & 3rd Sundays Lunch: 3,500, 5,000 yen Dinner: 7,500, 10,000 yen (a la carte also available) So Good Sushi Restaurant in Nice France Navigating Nagoya by Paige, Shop with Intent by Debbie, BULA KANA in Fiji, Kraemer’s Culinary blog by Frank Kraemer in New York,Tokyo Food File by Robbie Swinnerton, Green Tea Club by Satoshi Nihonyanagi in Shizuoka!, Mind Some by Tina in Taiwan, Le Manger by Camille Oger (French), The Indian Tourist, Masala Herb by Helene Dsouza in Goa, India, Mummy I Can Cook!

by Shu Han in London, PieCuisine, Francescannotwrite, My White Kitchen, Foodhoe, Chucks Eats, Things that Fizz & Stuff, Five Euro Food by Charles,Red Shallot Kitchen by Priscilla,With a Glass, Nami | Just One Cookbook, Peach Farm Studio, Clumsyfingers by Xethia, PepperBento, Hapabento, Kitchen Cow, Lunch In A Box, Susan at Arkonlite, Vegan Lunch Box; Tokyo Tom Baker, Daily Food Porn/Osaka, Only Nature Food Porn, Happy Little Bento, J-Mama’s Kitchen, Cook, Eat, Play, Repeat, Bento Lunch Blog (German), Adventures In Bento, Anna The Red’s Bento Factory, Ohayo Bentosushi online bestellen winterthur -Sake: Ichi For The Michi by Rebekah Wilson-Lye in Tokyo, Tokyo Through The Drinking Glass, Tokyo Foodcast, Urban Sake, Sake Worldumi sushi menu uae -Wine: Palate To Pen, Warren Bobrow, Cellar Tours, Ancient Fire Wines Blogsushi maker tupperware brasil

-Beer: Another Pint, Please!, Beering In Good Mind: All about Craft Beer in Kansai by Nevitt Reagan! ABRACADABREW, Magical Craftbeer from Japan -Whisky: Nonjatta: All about whisky in Japan by Stefan Van Eycken -Japanese Pottery to enjoy your favourite drinks: Yellin Yakimono Gallery Non gastronomy must-see sites by Shizuoka Residents HIGHOCTANE/HAIOKU by Nick Itoh in Shizuoka CityTraditions are not very important in my family.  sushi tei bali tripadvisorDespite our Japanese heritage — a culture that very much emphasizes the power of traditions — we have few rituals we practice year after year.  jiro dreams of sushi netflix canadaNot surprisingly, the few that we do practice revolve around food.where to buy sushi grade fish in winnipeg

One such tradition of ours is to feast on Japanese food on New Year’s Day.  What better way to start the year than with mountains of sushi, loads of chashu marinated pork, fried dumplings, teriyaki ribs and more, all made by my dad and his sisters.  We gather with friends and family and together we feast.  After all, isn’t that the point of life? Unfortunately, I haven’t been to the celebration for years.  I unintentionally started a new tradition of my own, spending New Years in a different city.  The hardest part isn’t ringing in the new year away from my friends (the last two years I’ve traveled alone), it’s being away from my family on New Year’s Day. It seemed necessary for me to continue the tradition of starting the year off with Japanese food so I combined it with my obsession for Japanese ramen.  For three years now, I’ve had ramen on New Year’s Day; starting with Chicago, then Washington, D.C. and now in Vienna. That’s right: I found Japanese ramen in Vienna.

I love hunting down a familiar favorite food when I travel.  It truly reveals how a city takes a dish and puts a unique spin on it.  Some cities are able to replicate the authenticity of ramen in Japan (like L.A. or New York) while others (like Paris) modify it for the local taste buds.  Vienna gave ramen its own spin, too, substituting marinated pork for breaded duck. Akakiko in Vienna is an Asian fusion restaurant that serves classic Chinese dishes like cashew chicken stir fry and sweet and sour duck, Korean favorites like Bulgogi Bibimbap, Japanese-style bento boxes with sushi and creative bowls of udon and ramen, like seafood ramen and ramen with duck. Several locations of the chain restaurant are spread throughout Vienna; luckily one was within wandering distance of my hotel.  When I finally woke up after partying at the Silvester Ball at the Hofburg Palace, I headed straight for Akakiko. The ramen was familiar, but had a few creative spins to it.  One was that it arrived in a metal bowl, causing it be extremely hot.