Day 40-44 Cycling Home Sweet Home to Delicious Miyama

Jun 7 • Blog, Kyushu • 2591 Views • 3 Comments

After spending the night at Bobby and Yori’s in Saga City, I met up with the 65 year old triathlete, the owner of yakitori restaurant, at 10 in the morning. We had promised that we’d cycle together to have the famous unagi (fresh water eel) in Yanagawa. It was a windy, but absolutely beautiful spring day, which made us both reassure how great cycling was.

The destination was my parents’ home in Miyama City, which was right next to Yanagawa. I had to go home to renew my driver’s license. My father sounded so happy over the phone to let me know that the letter of license renewal came. So I was cycling home on the way to head north.

Yanagawa is famous for its Seiromushi of unagi (freshwater eel). Unagi is grilled and then steamed with the unagi-sauce-flavored rice. Unagi is popular in many places in Japan, but the way it’s prepared differs. Seiromushi is what I grew up with when it comes to unagi. The yellow ribbons on top are chicken eggs. That particular style of cooking the eggs is called, kinshi tamago. Kinshi means golden thread, tamago is eggs. Isn’t it a beautiful name for the pretty ribbon eggs? So many dishes and food in Japan has pretty names like this.

The accompanying soup is called kimosui, which is a clear soup with tiny inside parts of eel. What’s floating in the soup is called, fu, which is like a piece of bread. (There’s a story of giant fu when I was in Okinawa, have a look)

After saying bye to my new cycling friend from Saga City, I cycled home and fell asleep in the living room back home. The headwind for the last hour really did me in. My mom was so surprised with joy when she found me and immediately called my dad. I hadn’t notified exactly when I was coming home. My bad.

I got home just when they had these uber nice shimo-furi steaks! Wow, I tell you, this is not a regular occurrence at our home. Shimo means frost. As you can see, it is a kind of meat in which the fat is distributed like frost in the meat, and that makes the beef so juicy and tender.

Itadakimasu!

In the garden, my mom’s botan (peony) was in full bloom. I love peonies, especially the light pink ones!

So I spent a few days around my home town, renewing my driver’s license, seeing friends and spending time with my family. My father told me that I seemed a bit more confident with my bike than back in March. Thank goodness for that.

My friends and I went out for lunch to a very Japanese restaurant with tatami floor in Yame City. Yame is one of the famous cities in Japan for green tea production. This was actually an Italian restaurant, where they used local, organic produce.

Though the carbonara above was delicious, no restaurant food can beat a home-cooked meal. Here’s a Japanese home cooking staple, curry and rice. Thank you, mom!! Japanese curry is sweeter and a bit thicker compared to Indian or Thai curry. In general, Japanese food is very mild. Many of us are not used to hot and spicy flavoring, which is quite common in the neighboring countries like Korea and parts of China, where they use lots of chili.

Halibut and razor clam sashimi that my dad likes.

Coming home to Miyama in Fukuoka Prefecture is always nice. It’s a small, pretty town where they make lots of egg plants (aubergines) and celery. Another of its famous produce is pickled mustard leaf called, takana. This is SO good with white rice or on top of Hakata ramen (pork based soup noodles). Ahhh, I’d like some right now.

In smaller towns like this, probably as in many other countries, it is a common sight to find some vegetable at our home entrance. My father’s friends would leave their seasonal produce that they picked in the morning. Even non-farmers grow all kinds of vegetables, and lots of it! I find this so heartwarming. It is something that doesn’t happen so often in the big cities.

Home sweet home during my cycling tour was a nice break to see the smiles of my family, and to show them mine with a bit of sun tan.

« Day 39-40 I Am Never Alone in Saga City Day 45 Sakura Onigiri, Mom & Dad’s Obento, Hakata Ramen in Fukuoka »