Jeff and I went to Japan Fest yesterday with my sister, Danielle and her two children, Astrid and Lula.

Here’s Lula with a flower she picked for me.

And Astrid practicing his “smile for the camera” face.

Japan Fest was held at the Gwinnett Convention Center…

We were all starving for lunch when we got in so it was straight to the food court for us!

Here’s Danielle with a chicken and rice bowl…

Jeff and I shared some sushi samplings including one of our favorites, inari, which is fried bean curd skin wrapped around rice.

It was ok.  We got Danielle to try one of each and she was not happy, she was a trooper and didn’t spit anything out though!

Astrid liked this White Peach flavored drink…

Jeff and I had tea, of course.  Ito En makes the best bottled teas, no sugar added which is how we like it.

We split this Sapporo between the three adults (of course.)

The kids were really antsy during lunch so we knew we had to go do something fun quickly or there was going to be a meltdown.

We took them to the children’s area for some arts and crafts projects. Astrid made a fish kite with the help of his uncle Jeff…

Lula was deeply immersed in drawing polka dots on her shoe-shaped box…

Here’s the finished product with Danielle’s addition of a kitty on the front.  So stylish!

We met another kitty on the way to our next stop.  It’s Maneki Neko!  The kids posed with their craft projects, which they were very proud of.

We watched a little sumo…

And looked at the beautiful embroidery on these kimonos…

We watched some traditional dances.  Lula kept saying to Danielle, “They’re so beautiful, mommy!”  She’s in her “princess” phase right now and I think that she was convinced that the dancers were princesses in their “gowns.”

After that we walked through an ikebana exibit…

Then did some balloon fishing.  Astrid caught a big one!

We shopped but didn’t find anything to take home…I kinda wanted a Totoro hat though!

There was more to see but we were pretty beat so we checked out some bonsai then headed home.

Astrid could not wait, as soon as we got in the door he was begging Jeff to let him play Mario.  That kid is definitely a gamer at heart.

All in all a great day.  There were some other things we wanted to see like language seminars and sake-brewing classes, but the kids would have been really bored with that stuff.  And we missed a lot of the really entertaining things like archery and swordsmanship demonstrations for no good reason other than that what we wanted to see always seemed to be on the other side of the convention center and we wouldn’t make it in time.

The day was really about spending time with our lovely niece and nephew, though, which is exactly what we did.  We always look forward to seeing those two, and my wonderful sister.   Thanks for a great day guys!

Dinner tonight was a total surprise, I had no idea what I was making until it was on the plate.  Every once in a while something just magically comes together out of completely humble beginnings.

I started by cutting up two small sweet potatoes and roasting them in olive oil at 400 degrees (more on that later.)  Then I pressed the extra liquid out of a block of extra firm tofu and crumbled it into a hot pan with sesame oil.

While it browned, I contemplated my next move.

I chopped up a handful of shiitakes…

…and started sauteing them with the nearly finished tofu.

Then I added this…

About this much of it….

Which turned the mixture into this glistening pan of yumminess.

By that time the sweet potatoes were all crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

I put the tofu mixture on top of the potatoes and topped it all with some fresh avocado and toasted sesame seeds.

Wow.  This was all my favorite flavors on one plate!  Jeff and I kept looking at each other trying to figure out if it was “good unusual” or “bad unusual.”  Judging by the number of “mmmmm’s” uttered during dinner, I’d say it was a success.

This one goes into the “make again” category for dinner experiments!

Jeff and I have both been craving sushi for weeks now, so we thought we’d have a night out at one of Atlanta’s best: Nakato.

We started by selecting a sake.  This one is called Kitaya, a dry sake that tasted very fruity and light.

 

Jeff pouring for the lady first…

We decided to do an omakase dinner for 2.  Omakase means “I’m in your hands,” and it’s where the sushi chef will prepare for you whatever he feels is special or seasonal for that day.  It’s a great way to make sure you are getting the best the restaurant has to offer, and to learn a little about your chef’s style to see if you’d like to sit with him again in the future.

We started off with a whole aji (horse mackerel) for our sashimi (raw fish without rice).  The chef prepared it diced with scallion to be eaten with wasabi, and sliced for eating with ginger.

 

Then we had a sashimi plate of tai (snapper), another type of aji, and bonito (skipjack tuna) with shaved radish and a sticky soy-garlic sauce for dipping.

The bonito was awesome.  I use dried and shaved bonito all the time at home, but I’ve never had it fresh.  I had always just assumed that because it is more commonly dried, that it must just not be a particularly good fish to eat raw.  Wrong!  It was amazing.

 

Then we were given the fried skeleton of the aji that we were served in the beginning.

 

Yes, you eat it bones and all.  Tastes like a crispy fish cracker.

Then we were ready to start our sushi courses.  The chef makes one item at a time and you just keep going until either you tell him to stop….or he stops you.  I’ll tell you right now that we had to be stopped.

First up, fatty tuna torched on top and glazed in soy.  One of my favorites.

 

Pretty sure this next one is aji again.

I forgot to take a picture of this next one, snapper, but Jeff caught it just as it was shoved into my gaping maw.

Next up, ika (squid).  I hate raw squid.  I especially hate that it’s commonly served with a bit of shiso leaf under it, I think the combination tastes like soap.  That and it takes a long time to chew, so the offending flavor is in my mouth for twice as long as anything else.

It’s my own fault though.  I looked the chef straight in the eye and told him that we eat everything, to make sure he wouldn’t neglect to offer us something because he might have thought it was too “adventurous” for us.

 

The chef watches your reactions to each item to try and figure out what you like.  After my conspicuous face-full-of-squid grimace, he offered to make us something soft and sweet.

Behold…ama-ebi with uni, or sweet shrimp with sea urchin roe.

 

Uni is Jeff’s favorite.  His eyes were rolling back in his head.

This is all that’s left of that sweet little shrimp…

While we were gushing about how good that uni was, the shrimp heads were being fried up behind the counter.

 

Again, just shove it in your mouth and bite down.  Tastes like soft-shell crab.

Mmmm…shrimp heads!  I am convinced that the picture behind Jeff here is some kind of calligraphy interpretation of two people gettin’ it on.

Next was salt-water eel, and my favorite of the night, but I neglected to get a picture of it because the delicious smell caused me to shove it in my mouth before I realized what I was doing.

And then ikura (salmon roe), not a fav of mine but one that Jeff really likes…

 

And you know the meal is over when you are served tamago (sweet egg omelet).  This one was sweet and soft enough to be considered a dessert!  Hard to explain what it tastes like, it’s not an exceptionally eggy flavor, more like a pancake soaked in syrup.

 

We ran out of sake just in time.

We were both so full that we didn’t really want to get up right then though, so we both ordered shochu to sip on for awhile.

Shochu is a liquor that can be made from lots of different things.  Mine was made from sweet potato, Jeff had one distilled from barley.  The taste is deceptively clean, you can’t tell just how strong this stuff is, but you can surely feel it!

 

We sipped and talked with the chef about our honeymoon in Japan.  He was telling us a story about how he had lost his wallet in a Tokyo subway with somewhere around $2000 US dollars in it and a bus pass loaded with a huge amount of yen on it that anyone who picked it up could use for themselves.  It was turned in to lost-and-found three days later with everything in it!

That completely lines up with our experiences in Japan.  Everyone was so polite and helpful and respectful.  You didn’t have to worry about someone stealing your stuff if you took your eyes off of it for a split second.  The streets were clean enough to eat off of, the subways were nearly spotless.  People throw their trash away and don’t spit gum on the ground and don’t go shopping in their pajamas even at a convenience store.

Not to mention the food was amazing!  While it’s hard to find a truly authentic experience of Japanese cuisine outside of Japan itself, Nakato does a pretty good job and deserves to be considered one of Atlanta’s best.

The head chef even gave us a few free passes to a Japanese festival for this weekend!  I think we’ll take my little niece and nephew and my sister and gorge ourselves on all that delicious food.  Sounds like a plan!