Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: 1, 2, 3... (Ichi Ni San / One Two Three, Yuzawa)

For some reason, a lot of the eating places in Yuzawa were closed on Tuesday nights. That's how we ended up at our 3rd choice (one of those recommended by the hotel staff), eating seafood at Ichi Ni San.


The place layout was essentially the "standard package" with 3 Japanese type tables (you either submerge your feet in a pit below the table or sit cross legged on the floor) behind, and a row of counter seats. Although it was only just after 5pm, it was already packed with what I assume (from the shoes) were snowboarders.

We took our usual favourite counter seats, and tried to decide what to order. Its probably quite difficult for those who speak /read absolutely no Japanese, because these small places generally don't have an English menu.


Since this place was suppose to be good for seafood, that's precisely what we decided to order. We started off with 2 versions of the Akai Ika (red squid) which was in season. The cooked version came delightfully soft and tender, with its flavour nicely brought out with the grilling. The sashimi version was thankfully not too fishy or rubbery, unlike a lot of other places.









The next order was the sweet Ebi (prawns). I don't usually order this in Singapore because I find it pretty tasteless, expensive and highly over-rated. But these were very much fresher and sweeter than those I had ever eaten before.

Everywhere around us, all the other tables were ordering these huge pots of butter clams. That's all it took for us to decide that we just had to try it too. Every single shell had a piece of soft fragrant clam meat, and I wished I had some bread to soup up the remaining sauce. (very un Japanese I know)


Last dish was the fish. Decided to order this just to try. It was ok but probably the one we had at Aburiya was better. Finally we got up nice and stuffed and ready to brave the cold walk home...

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