Friday
Sep012006
Kaiseki Yu-zen Hashimoto
Friday, September 1, 2006 at 9:51PM 
(Note: all photos except for the very top and bottom were taken by Masaki Hashimoto or his son.)
As I mentioned in a previous Blathering, Jeff and I went to Kaiseki Yu-zen Hashimoto (6435 Dixie Rd., Mississauga, Ontario, Phone: 905-670-5559) to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. We had visited Hashimoto several times before, as you may have read in one of my previous Blatherings. From the outside, the restaurant isn't all that impressive, plus it's situated in a strip mall out in Mississauga. But I promise you this: it's worth the trek.
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Once you step through the doors, the outside world vanishes. The setting is intimate, with only two tables that seat four each; there is also some bar seating available. Carefully chosen lighting and furniture helps creates the illusion that you're sitting in a small village restaurant in Japan, stars glittering in the black sky, dragonflies flitting around the paper lamps hanging above.
Here, Chef Masaki Hashimoto prepares his culinary masterpieces in the kaiseki tradition. We were served by both Madame Hashimoto (I'm sorry, but "Mrs. Hashimoto" seems so wrong in this context) and her youngest son. Most restaurants that offer kaiseki on their menu are actually offering a fusion. Chef Masaki Hashimoto adheres more strictly to the true kaiseki traditions.
Kaiseki is arguably the highest form of Japanese cuisine and is generally reserved for celebrating special occasions. It's usually quite expensive because of the extensive training required to cook and serve it. The chef's son told us that after he completes his business education at a Toronto university, he will be going to Japan for 10 years for training with a master before returning to his father's restaurant.
The kaiseki tradition comes from the tea ceremony, where a light meal is sometimes served. The old story is that Buddhist priests in strict Zen training would help make their fasting more bearable by keeping a hot stone (seki) in their kimono pocket (kai). You can find out more in this essay on Kaiseki Ryori by Setsuko Yoshizuka.
Kaiseki uses the fresh ingredients of the season, and the dishes are cooked in ways that enhance the original taste of the ingredients. We were told that since we were at a point in the year where the summer was just about to turn into autumn, our dishes would be based on some ingredients from both the summer and autumn seasons.
At Kaiseki Yu-zen Hashimoto, the star ingredients on this particular evening were sea urchin, matsutake (pine tree mushroom) and hamo. Hamo, or pike eel, is an eel-like fish that lives in warm seas and is caught in Japanese coastal waters between the Kii Peninsula and Amakusa in Kumamoto, Kyushu. According to this source, it is a seasonal summer delicacy in Kansai.
Hamo caviar was served in our first course, on top of a shaped mound of agar-agar. The pink flower on top is shaped from mountain potato that has been marinated in Japanese plum juice. Leaning against this creation were two small bundles of deep-fried soba noodles, wrapped in seaweed:
After each course was served, Madame Hashimoto or her son would briefly explain what was before us and how it was prepared. For me, these explanations greatly enhanced our dining experience. The Hashimotos were also very open to questions about the food...unlike some of the high-end restaurants we've visited where the server's attitude is so distant and superior that conversation about the food is clearly discouraged.
The second course consisted of slices of aji (horse mackerel) and other type of fish whose name I unfortunately forgot to record. :-( The fish was served with freshly ground ginger and a special sauce. As for the uni....
Ah, the uni.
I hated uni when I first tried it years ago...it was slimy and tasted like soap. Ugh. How could people eat that stuff? But then a friend told me to try uni in the winter, when it's the best. I did, and liked it. Didn't love it, but would order it again.
While talking with Madame Hashimoto about uni, we discovered that there are different types. The uni being served at Hashimoto's was from Kyushu, the most southerly of the Japanese main islands, where the uni is best during the summer. Winter uni is from northern Japan. Our uni was very fresh, flown in from Japan the previous day, and looked as though it was being served in the spiny shell in which it had arrived:
Served with the uni: freshly ground wasabi and paper-thin slices of sudachi, a small citrus fruit flown in from Japan.
And the uni?
The uni was AMAZING. I was astounded by how velvety smooth it was, how it melted on my tongue. I've never tasted anything quite like it, and was the highlight of the meal for me, in terms of flavour. It tasted nothing like the uni I had tried in restaurants before.
The next course was a clear hamo broth with mitsuba (Japanese wild parsley), matsutake, gobo (burdock root), a slice of sudachi (or it might have been yuzu, another Japanese citrus fruit...), plus another ingredient I didn't quite catch. Apologies in advance for any inaccuracies, by the way.
The soup was fantastic. Delicate flavours intermixed, with the pleasant crunchiness of the matsutake and gobo. The ingredients of each of these dishes had clearly been chosen for the particular combination of textures as well as flavours.
Madame Hashimoto advised us to take a sip of our soup before and after we had a sip of sake. She was right...the broth's flavour was enhanced after tasting the sake:
The next course arrived on an artfully arranged tray:
The paper message says "Good Luck." Beneath, we found taro (a root vegetable) with octopus that had been simmered for three days with matsutake sauce, bundles of deep-fried wheat noodles wrapped in seaweed, and a mound of purple yam.
The octopus was marvelously tender, not overly chewy like the octopus often served in other restaurants. I especially liked the sweet flavour of the purple yam.
Next came the deep-fried course:
In the larger bowl: two delectable pieces of king crab wrapped in a thin layer of cooked egg, delicately flavoured hamo wrapped in seaweed, crunchy deep-fried corn on top. On the bottom of the bowl: a thin layer of Usukuchi (thin, light-coloured soy sauce) mixed with radish.
The crane sculpture was hand-carved from daikon (Japanese radish) by the chef and was so gorgeous that it took an act of will to finally dismember it and dip the tangy pieces in the mouthwatering carrot sauce in the smaller bowl. Note the "Happy Anniversary to Debbie and Jeff" mini-banner across the dipping sauce. :-)
Next was the rice and pickles course, which varies each meal:
This course always comes near the end, and is the one course where you're invited to have seconds if you'd like. I asked for seconds. You'd think I'd be full by now, but the courses are small and spread out over three or more hours...by the end of the evening, I felt pleasantly satisfied but not stuffed, and so did Jeff.
The above course featured uni-gohan (rice and uni, wrapped up like a present in the above photo). The small bowl on the left contains pickled cucumber slices and two aka shiso-flavoured takuan (picked radish) slices that have been marinated in squid ink, sprinkled with sesame seeds. The bowl on the right contains shiro-miso (white miso from Kyoto) with snap peas and shinodamaki (fried tofu wrapped around vegetables).
The course was served with Gyokuro, which is considered the highest grade of tea available in Japan.
And finally came dessert:
The taking of photos was prohibited in the restaurant, but Chef Hashimoto takes photos of each dish he makes. Patrons can be asked to be e-mailed photos of their meal; the restaurant also keeps a record of what was served and to whom...that way you will never be served the same dinner twice.
I wish the photo above was of the food itself rather than the covered dish because the food presentation was so interesting...but I know I'm lucky to have pictures at all. :-) Our dessert was a fresh Japanese plum that had been simmered for 10 days (yes, I said 10 days) and served in agar-agar with peach sauce.
It was the perfect ending to a perfect dining experience. So much thought had obviously gone into the preparation and presentation of each dish, the matching of textures and flavours. It reminded me a great deal of our ryokan meal experience during our visit to Kyoto years ago, in terms of the beautiful presentation and peaceful zen-like atmosphere.
Afterward, Chef Hashimoto came out to chat with us:
We also chatted some more with his wife, youngest son, and their friend's daughter who was visiting from Japan. She practised speaking English with us, and I inflicted my horrible Japanese on her. Then they surprised us with the wrapped package in the photo at the top of this page. The wrapping was gorgeous with a gold and white dragonfly pattern on it, and had the texture of handmade paper.
Inside was a small towel imprinted with the image of a Japanese shrine.
They had a replica of this same shrine on a wall in the restaurant.
As you can probably already guess, our evening at Kaiseki Yu-zen Hashimoto was one of my all-time favourite dining experiences. Not just because of the food (which was spectacular), but also because of our surroundings, the excellent service, friendly hospitality and exquisite presentation of each course.
For both of us, it was a feast of the soul as well as of the senses.
tagged Food
Food 
