This was a few weeks back when the cherries and their blossom were still a recent memory... But the photos came out nicely, so it's a shame not to share them, even after the fact.
A "snack" — if you can ever call such exalted fare that — at Nihon Ryori Ryugin. Love or hate the dragon's lair decor, Chef Yamamoto and his cuisine are worthy of all the considerable attention he is garnering worldwide.
A lacquered chawan bowl. Yes, needless to say, with a dragon motif...
Inside: a suimono. The most wonderful aroma of premium dashi. And, pride of place, a perfectly tender cut of the finest sakuradai ("cherry snapper") from the Naruto Strait, so close to Yamamoto's hometown in Shikoku...
Lacquerware of this quality is fiendishly hard to photograph, so you'll have to take my word for it that the design at the bottom of the bowl is Raijin, the god of Thunder; and on the lid is Fujin, the god of Wind.
Next up, a small sashimi course...
Wrapped inside that cherry leaf — and lightly imbued with the subtle fragrance of that fresh foliage — are a few choice cuts of sakura-masu ("cherry salmon").
And, finally, a small lacquered bowl of rice topped with fresh sakura-ebi shrimp — from Suruga Bay naturally.
But in the best Japanese cuisine nothing is ever quite what it appears. Under that topping of sweetly crunchy golden-pink shrimp, the rice is mixed with finely chopped wild sansai herbs, bringing with them the sharp lingering bitterness of springtime in the uplands. Umi no sachi, yama no sachi. So simple, so profound.
This was not the end of the occasion. But the denouement will have to wait for another post...
