Browse Tag

sigassiga

A Surprise Weekend Guest

Jun 07, 2010
/

On Friday night after work I met up with Kuniko to try out Hola!Achaho in Sannomiya for dinner. This was our first time to try it, and we were very pleased to find that it has a similar menu and style to our old favorite, Sigassiga. While we ate and drank and talked Ms Fujiwara (the wife of the Sigassiga chef/owner) kept us in food and drink. It was nice to see her again, and near the end of the meal Mr Fujiwara himself dropped by and was surprised to see us. All in all a good night, and I’m sure we’ll be back to Hola!Achaho again soon.

The point of the dinner was to get together with Kuniko before her overnight trip on Saturday. Since I wasn’t going to be able to see her at all this weekend, we wanted to spend some time together relaxing. On Saturday morning she got up at the regular time (5:00 a.m.) and headed off to work. I tried to sleep in but in the end I got up as well, and did some chores around the house. Most of the day was pretty relaxing – doing some shopping, cleaning, and enjoying the beautiful weather. I bought some things to grill for dinner – spareribs, a small piece of salmon that was sold as sashimi, and a package of shiitake mushrooms.

In the early evening I got a phone call from Kuniko, and she said that she was heading home. Due to some drama with one of her students, her principal thought it would be best to skip the trip and stay home. She didn’t complain about his decision, and neither did I. We spent the evening partying (again) and toasting the health of her principal.

The grilled foods turned out OK. I was sure the spareribs would be delicious, but I wasn’t sure about the marinade I used for the shiitake mushrooms. As it turned out maybe a bit too much lemon juice. Any ideas for a good marinade for mushrooms? I’ll experiment a little more in the future. I was a little ambivalent about cooking the salmon, and cut a little bit off and ate it raw – it was excellent. In the end I glazed it with a little olive oil and Italian dressing and grilled it for just a few minutes. When you aren’t worried about whether it is raw or not then cooking it becomes a lot easier. The result was a very juicy and delicious cut of fish – the outside was seared but the inside was very tender – so I think it turned out OK.

Sunday we enjoyed having Kuniko around. In the morning some NTT guys came over and spent an hour or so upgrading our internet to a fiber optic connection. It turns out that it is about the same price as the DSL we were using before. After futzing with the passwords and my router for about an hour I finally got it working without installing their CD full of crapware and support software. Now our download speeds are around 2 megabytes per second – plenty fast for the time being.

Kuniko requested a Mexican dinner, so we picked up veggies at the store and made burritos full of beef, beans, avocados, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. So good. There are enough leftovers for us to eat for a couple more nights as well.

I’m off to work soon. We have changed to ‘cool biz’ at work, which means for the next 3 months I don’t need to wear a tie or jacket. Still, today is pretty cloudy and so I’m still wearing a tie to work. The jacket can stay at home today, I think.

Hola!

Jun 04, 2010
/

It was pretty tough to get out of bed this morning. Kuniko was working late last night – she had to visit the home of one of her students to try to convince the student to start coming to school regularly. The girl has been having some problems lately, including occasionally running away from home. Yesterday she decided to run away from home again, and I think they’ll finally call the police and try to figure some other solution out. Strange doings in private school land.

Today after work Kuniko and I will meet in Sannomiya to have dinner at Hola!Achaho, the sister restaurant of the now defunct Sigassiga. This will be our first time to eat there, so we’re hoping that the menu is similar. I made reservations the other day, and the master of Sigassiga’s wife recognized me and said they are looking forward to seeing me at the new place. That was a good sign.

It should be an early night, actually. Kuniko has a busy weekend, so I want to get her home ASAP. She is pretty stressed with this student’s situation, so she looks like she needs a getaway. Hard to believe she just got back from a week in Canada.

Getting The Rice Started

May 10, 2010
/

We had a very nice time at Sigassiga on Friday night. It was the last meal there for us, but it turns out that Fujiwara-san will still keep his other restaurant open in Sannomiya, so next time we’ll have to go check that place out. The food on Friday was served “omakase” style – we just told the chef that we’d like him to select our menu, and he brought everything out in courses. The highlight was the pasta course – beef tail and asparagus – yum.

After Sigassiga we headed over to another favorite – the Spanish izakaya hidden down a side street near Tokyu Hands. They are starting to recognize me there, which resulted in getting a table on a very busy night. There it was another bottle of wine (a Primitivo) and several tapas dishes to keep us going. The atmosphere at this place is really nice, and it is fun to watch people there having a good time.

Yesterday Kuniko and I went to her family’s rice field to help get the rice crop started. It was the first stage of the process – we used a small machine to fill hundreds of trays with soil, fertilizer, rice seeds and water. Then we drove the trays out to one of the fields, donned our big rubber boots and sloshed around laying everything out in the mud. This was my third or fourth time doing it, and so between me and Atsushi (my brother-in-law-in-law) we laid out the trays at breakneck speed. It was good to see Kuniko’s dad relent a little and let us do some work for a change. He is really big on attention to detail, and so handing over some of the workload to us was a big deal for him.

After a couple hours of work on the rice, we raided their nearby field for strawberries, onions and snap peas, and then headed to their home to have dinner as a group. Atsushi and Tomoko stuck around for dinner as well, so it was nice to have the family together for mother’s day.

We’re both beat from a long day in the sun yesterday, and as one of my students pointed out – we don’t have another holiday at my workplace for more than seven weeks. Time to buckle down and get some work done.

That’s Entertainment

Feb 21, 2010
/

It was a pretty big weekend for us. Kuniko had a birthday on Friday, so we met up after work and went over to Sigassiga. They did a great job with dinner, and we had a nice bottle of wine with it (a 2003 Spenker Zinfandel). It was good to get out and relax after work, and I think it was a memorable birthday dinner.

Saturday night Yoshi and his family came over, and we had a good evening catching up, drinking plenty of wine, and eating (probably too much) food. I had barbecued some chicken, served it with risotto that Kuniko made, and we also had plenty of salad and grilled veggies to go with it. Akira kept busy with his Nintendo DS, and in contrast, Kuniko gave hers up for the evening. We talked a lot about traveling, and it is possible that we could take a trip together in the future. We partied late into the night, and I was surprised to see five empty wine bottles on the counter the next morning.

Today a pregnant Jimi came over with her husband and son, and we spent the day trying to talk to the little guy. He was pretty shy through most of the visit, and I think I scared him quite a bit. We spent a pretty relaxing day eating tacos, talking about their family size growing, and catching up.

We were busy all weekend, but it was good to see everyone and have fun at home. I’m not sure what is happening next week – we’ve got a bit of a break in our schedule, so it may be a chance to invite someone else over, or it may be a chance to rest up on our own.