Our Insanely Good (and Huge) Dinner at Sakan

Two nights of our trip to Japan were spent at Sakan, a hot spring hotel outside of the city of Sendai which is a couple of hours north of Tokyo by Shinkensan (bullet train). Our stay at Sakan included all dinners. When we arrived at dinner the second night, this is what was already at my place. For those that have never eaten Japanese it's very confusing, so let me explain. Clockwise from left, the first is a basket with crab, glass noodles, tofu, and vegetables, all raw. The contents of that basket are meant to be placed into the large metal lidded pot above the basket. On the top right is uncooked rice with the bowl in which it will be served overturned on top of it. On the tray is a series of appetisers and next to it is shoyu sauce for the sashimi. Once you sit down they start bringing out the rest of the food:



First a lightly fried fish served with grated cucumber and lemon,


Then a serving of anago sushi (Truman's grandma would only let me eat the eel, cuz the rice would supposedly fill me up too much);


Next was a light poached white fish served on top of soba noodles;


Sashimi plate, half eaten, including ama ebi, squid, tuna, and scallop;


Once we sat down the hostess light a fuel canister under the metal pot and heated the broth inside. When it boils, you place the contents of the basket in one by one, starting with the crab. A big part of Japanese cuisine is cooking the food right in front of you;


Finally about halfway through dinner the hostess comes in and lights another fuel element under the uncooked rice, which has just been soaking in water since we sat down for dinner. The rice cooks and bubbles while you work on the hot pot and the sashimi. The rice is amazingly good, shiny, and tender. They serve it by itself at the end with pickles. When I told Truman's mom's Japanese friends that in American Japanese restaurants the rice is served with dinner, they thought it was very weird.

Finally for dessert we were served orange sorbet in an orange peel. Honestly, this is a frozen orange peel with sorbet in place of the fruit. Those damned ingenious Japanese! Thank God we wore robes to dinner so there was room to loosen our belts! Holy crap do I love Japanese food.