"What is Hip?" in Japan from Japanese frontdesk manager

We did the Okinawa event in Apartments33 with the support from

Seifuku Brewery and Mitsukura Foods company.

http://www.seifuku.co.jp/ 　

http://www.mitukura.jp/ 　

It was the first time to cook Okinawa dishes for me, so I tried to

start to research what is the Okinawa vegetables and foods for

the ingredients.

I visited Washita shop in Ginza, and asked to the shop manager

what is the good way to express real Okinawa style.

http://www.washita.co.jp/info/shop/ginza/index.html 　

They have so many kind of Okinawa vegetables, but some are

just different way of call them they have.

Sakuma-san is the president of Mitsukura foods company, he sent

us a great brown sugar for us, so I could cook RAFUTEE cooked

pork, and their sugar have so nice flavor too, so I added every dishes

too.

Typical ingredient is GOYA, it has so much bitter taste, so I thought

it is difficult to accept for the foreign country’s people, but most of

our guest enjoyed them.

Awamori from Seifuku brewery is so popular in Tokyo, and their

rich flavor is so different from others. My friend Mark-san strongly

recommended them when he went to Okinawa.

I worried about the strong flavor of Awamori can be accepted

to foreign countries people, but everybody enjoyed Seifuku.

Most of our guests, does not know what is Awamori, so I recommended

to enjoy with ice cubes, and also I said to them wait for 10 min to be

mild. Then every members came to me to say “It’s nice!”.

I think it is very important for the foods and drinks at the entrance.

Also my dishes are so popular with them too!! I think I should have

small restaurant in future!

I am trying to plan for next one already, so see you next!!

Thank you Mark-san to find a great brewery with your Okinawa tour!

Takahiko Saito

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We did the event with Itske-san and Tony-san for Kyoto event!!

Itske-san started to plan this event for our party, for long time,

and she brought Yoshino-san he is he traditional Japanese doll

Gosho Ningyou maker.

We also got the great support from Tojo-san from Naito shouten

in Gotanda. He always support us so well. Thanks for him, we can

try real sake and shouchu!!

Yoshino-san also brought over 80 Gosho Ningyou too.

Those were so cute and very interesting!!

In old time, Japanese Daimyou had to visit to emperor place

in Kyoto. Emperor gave Gosho Ningyou to Daimyou.

I tried to cook several Kyoto style dishes over 9 kind of dishes.

Our maintenance staff Nakaya-san originally from Hokkaido,

he sent us so many Hokkaido potato. So I cooked dophinois with the

recipe from my friend Sandrine-san!! My friend Yuka-san also sent

me a recipe book for French cooking, so it works so nice too!

Itske-san did a great lecture about Gosho Ningyou.

Everybody interested in it, and some of the members decided to

buy them. I also wanted to do the event like this.

We want to make our party more cultural meaningful event.

She already did for Kokeshi doll lecture last year, it was so great

event I think. So I hope we can continue the event like this.

Apartments33 is organized with so nice members, and we also

do the service something different from other place. I hope

it will be our appealing service.

Next one is Ishigaki island event!!

See you then!

Takahiko Saito

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Finally, we did the party with Jamaican Jerk Chicken and Sake rock party.

My friend Double-H he is coming from Jamaica, he is the owner of Jammer’s record in Shibuya & Reggae music DJ too.

http://www.myspace.com/jammersdjdoubleh

We used to work at the ski park in my young age at Jungle Jangle in Tendou city in Yamagata. He cooked me the real Jamaican food called Jerk Chicken which is the national food and we can see many of the shops sell that on the streets.

I got a recipe from Double-H, so I did several times with our event, so I know everybody like this dish. I also tried Thai curry like a taste with Viet Nam style by using sweet potato. I also tried to make sorbet with some orange juice.

My friend Johnston-san’s family and Satbhai-san also joined to our event. They said it is very popular in UK too.

Normally we do not take sake with ice cube, but I think it is very good to take in summer time to get more easily for the foreign country’s people.

I think it is one of the ways to drink not high class sake or not good conditioned one.

Old Scottish friends could get together again at our party!

Thai curry with Viet Nam style was so popular like Jerk Chicken too!! I could feel very happy everybody liked my dishes. Sometimes our my friend told me I do not need so much for cooking and party, because they know it is very hard to prepare. But when I see our residence smiling, I can feel satisfied so well.

After the big disaster, it is very hard to get the brewery to introduce, but Gamrat-san supported with wines last night, so I could feel I need to keep on doing our event!!

We will keep for our Kyoto event!!

Anyway, it is getting much much better occupancy now, so I will try to think about more better event too!!

Takahiko Saito

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