Nadaman is in the Hotel Intercontinental. It is a traditional Japanese restaurant.
We were given a private room. I loved the wood work outside. Normally, this room costs ¥7,000 to rent.
From the get-go, you know it's a classy place.
And, you overlook the bridge and harbor. We watched a cruise boat leave.
Me and Jun-yi.
Okay, I'd better go back to the beginning. We love to go on field trips with our Japanese class. We wanted to eat classic Japanese food. Reina's dad knows a guy who is friends with the chef. We got 1/2 off our food, and this room, to boot!
So, thank you Matsumoto-san for hookin' us up!
Our server stayed with us the entire meal with all of its courses. She is pouring a sake and yogurt 'drink.'
Obviously, there isn't a lot in the bowl, but it was good!
They'd gotten early sakura flowers to decorate this fish on rice cake.
Chestnut and mushrooms wrapped in meat.
Uni in a miso soup. Uni is sea urchin. Jun-yi hadn't had it before. We are told to make sure your uni is fresh, or you will have a bad experience. She had a good experience.
Sensei Reina, Caroline (me) and Jun-yi.
I had to take a picture of each of our sashimi platters. Fresh wasabi and radish leaf (both hot spicy) and I even ate the curled carrot.
More sakura garnish.
I wonder if the snapdragon flower was edible?
I am still blown away by it all.
They brought us a vase to put our sakura in. It is tradition to eat under the sakura blossoms once a year.
Raw squid with a sweet miso type sauce.
One simple piece of art on the wall.
Reina and I.
The next bento -style 'box' of food.
Bamboo and fish taste.
This uni was fresh. Uni tends to liquefy in the mouth. You do want the best quality. BUT the green jellied komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach) was OMG DELICIOUS!!! I can't explain it. One must try it to believe how wonderful it is.
This is a small bit of beef with a wonderful mustard and garnish.
This was more than a shrimp ball. It was heaven. And the broth was slightly thickened.
Salmon, large bean wihth seeds, the pink spotted fried thing was delicious, the egg sweet, fried fish on a 'stick' nummy, and the red konyaku very good. These are mostly Japanese tastes. All are very subtle, and I will miss it when I leave. (Most restaurants are more tempura or tonkatsu, no real art to it. This was a Rembrandt. I mean, 'Suzuki.'
These small shrimp you ate shell and all. Really good soup.
This is a repeat of what I talked about before, but notice the sakura petals! This is over a month before they bloomed. Amazing.
Fish on a stick. So good, so small.
This is the Bento box from Jun-yi's perspective.
And the design on the side was another beautiful detail.
The sweet bean with seeds (a special kind, I can't remember the name) being eaten.
And just when we were full, this arrived!
Rice with goodies on top. The sliced egg was so amazingly perfect (it looks like shredded cheese here).
Another fish in a leaf, if I remember correctly. Don't you love their little dishes?
A sweet steamed cake wrapped in a rice paper. Well, it wasn't paper, but it was amazingly thin.
This plum was sweet. Many are eaten salted and sour for their Vitamin C. This one was sweetened.
Okay, you'll see bean paste on everything, and I like it! Japanese strawberries are so sweet, and I love mochi (dango mochi is a sweet version). Such a tiny bit!
This is the black sesame ice cream. It tastes a bit like a peanut butter.
This was how the last two items were served.
And then the yogurt with fruits. That isn't lychee, it's a mochi-type ball.
Here's the artist, Chef Suzuki!
He was very gracious, and it was such a pleasure getting to meet him! The years of study to fine-tune the Japanese dishes... he is a true master of the art.
Okay, on a whole other art item... Reina is leaving this island for Hawaii soon. So, we took this picture on our way home from Nadaman in order to make her some shopping bags (it was a joke...she got us designer bags from Shanghai, and we got her cheap bags with this on it):
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