November 11, 2025 Breakfast at Itsuki. Lunch - Made in Japan in Yufuin. Dinner - Hibachi restaurant

 November 11, 2025 Breakfast at Itsuki. Lunch - Made in Japan in Yufuin. Dinner - Hibachi restaurant 

We soaked in our private hot tub in the morning and then went to breakfast at 8:30. It was a Western style breakfast with an egg omelet, sausage, bacon and ham, baked rolls, apple and strawberry jam, fruit juice, and coffee and tea.

We then rested until around 10:00 when we walked to the little lake at the edge of Yufuin and then to its main shopping street.

 On the road to the shopping area was a small takeout restaurant with a couple of tables named Made in Japan that offered grilled oysters and scallops. We were thrilled that we had found Japanese oysters. It was noon, so we stopped and ordered two oysters and two scallops and two beers. The oysters and scallops were large and the owner cooked them with butane welding torch and immediately handed the cooked and seasoned shellfish to us, so they were very fresh.

They were delicious with a milky liquid residue in the bottom of the shell that was pleasant also. They were delicious. The total for this small but elegant lunch was 4700 yen or about $31.00.

We then walked on toward the shopping street. Our attention was drawn to ponds of coy under a mix of walkways. While watching the fish we noticed vending machines that sold boxes of fish food for 200 yen, so we bought a box and Suzette fed the fish, which created a tumult of wreathing fish fighting to grab a pellet of food. It was quite exciting and a brilliant passive income strategy in my opinion. You raise fish that tourists feed without any attendant or paid intermediary.

We then walked onto the shopping street that contained lots of food and souvenir shops, mostly selling uninteresting stuff to us like stuffed bears or fried sweet potatoes, although I thought one that offered extract of horse placenta interesting.

Soon we came upon a store that sold quality handicrafts, so we went in. I was enchanted by the ceramic chop stick holders in the shape and coating of polar bears, sea otters, and other animals, but they were not anything we would need or use. Then we saw turned wooden bowls and plates. I fell in love with one the size of a rice bowl or large tea cup that was cut so the rings made an asymmetrical design and bought it for 3850 yen or about $25.67.

We then walked to the street that goes back to the river where the traditional city bathhouse was located. Unfortunately, the boathouse was closed so we walked back to Itsuki and rested until the cocktail party at 6:00.

I had a great day in the market with everything going up because the Senate had voted to end the shutdown.

At 6:00 we joined the group for sake and rice crackers and then five of us were driven to a local restaurant specializing in vegetables and meat grilled on charcoal fired hibachi grills we divided up into groups of four around braziers and were served a platter of vegetables and a platter of meats that we grilled.

          Dessert was a scoop of pineapple sherbert with a stripe of bitter orange marmelade

                                     Large Leonard sitting on a chair like me.

Each place had a ceramic tray with three sections, one each with a miso sauce, a ponzu sauce, and a soy and mirin sauce that we dipped the grilled veggies and meats into.

Almost everyone sat on the floor on mats except for a few of us who were provided low chairs.

The sake cups were kept filled during the dinner.

After dinner we went back to Itsuki in a cab with Sue and Larry, while the rest walked to and from the restaurant.

It was almost 10:00 when we returned, so we went to bed.

I loved the simple food today, especially our first Japanese grilled oyster.

Bon Appetit

November 10, 2025 Breakfast at Richmond Hotel Kaiseki Dinner at Itsuki Inn

 November 10, 2025 Breakfast at Richmond Hotel   Kaiseki Dinner at Itsuki Inn

We started the day with another spectacular breakfast at the Richmond Hotel at 8:00. We both ate a hard boiled egg. I ate two bowls of vegetable soup with tofu, green onion, and wakame and a pile of stir fried noodles with a glass of grape juice.

Then we boarded a bus that drove us to the Tokyo domestic airport where we boarded a plane that flew us to Oita on the island of Kyushu where we were met by a bus that drove us to the Itsuki Ryokan (Inn) in Yufuin-Machi. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn that offers a cultural experience beyond just a place to sleep. They are known for their hospitality.

There was a team of women dressed in traditional Japanese dress who greeted us , took our luggage to our separate casitas, explained the elements of the casita, and later served us our dinner.

We rested until 6:45 when we put on the split toe socks provided, donned traditional wooden sandals and black jacket provided in our casita and joined our group for dinner. We were divided into three private rooms of four, four, and six for dinner.

The dinner menu was a fixed menu except for one choice of three different rice dishes toward the end of the seven course meal, beef, raw fish, or tempura. Suzette suggested I take tempura and she took raw fish. Our two dinner companions were Mateo and Billie from Santa Fe.

Billie works for the Forest Service as a fire fighter.

Dinner - here is a photo of the menu. We were asked for our choice of beverages. Mateo took a highball, Billie took beer and we took glasses of sparkling wine. Then the food started coming in waves more quickly than I could analyze the ingredients. The meal started at 7:30 and ended at 9:30 for our group that was the last group to finish.

First Course - Grilled Eggplant with Sesame sauce. This was an elegant  offset arrangement of two pressed grilled and chilled eggplant rectangles garnished with a boiled shrimp, a bright green slice of steamed okra cut in half to expose its seeds, topped with a cluster of salmon roe, on a white sauce I had never tasted before so it must have been a creamy mayonnaise sauce made with sesame oil. Color, composition, and a sophisticated combination of flavors were all evident in this lovely small dish.

Second Course - Hassun — Hassun refers to a course in traditional Japanese cuisine that serves a variety of small, seasonal appetizers on a square tray, typically measuring about 24 centimeters (eight "sun"). The name comes from the Japanese unit of measurement for the tray's size. This dish highlights the best of the season's ingredients from both land and sea. 

What can I say that will characterize this platter of food accurately. Everything tasted fabulous. Kaz came by to remind us to season with the seasoned salt on the table. The main dish on the tray was filled with  a circle of thinly sliced translucent slices of red snapper with a small pile of red pepper, two muscles of the red snapper from next to its dorsal fin, and a pile of tiny green onion slices on a shiso leave. Also on the hassun were a bowls with two walnuts cooked in brown sugar syrup, a cute little bowl with a fish cover containing a slice or two of raw swordfish, a slice of roasted beef on sushi rice, and the best thing on the hassun was a small square bowl of fresh cooked seaweed with a small wedge of local citrus.

Third Course - a Lidded Bowl — This was an elegant chicken soup, chunks of locally raised chicken simmered in a thickened soy and chicken broth with a small cluster of brown beech mushrooms, a half circle of lotus root, a round of potato, three slices of woody burdock, and a leaf of Japanese parsley. The inside of the lidded bowl top was decorated with the image of the local mountain that dominates this valley, so yet another homage to the locale.

Fourth Course - Seasonal Dish - Japanese Landlocked Salmon

The name given to this dish is Yamane, which literally translates as Mountain Root, or, as I interpret it, a dish rooted in the mountains. Which is appropriate for this dish because it features slices of floured and fried salmon and salmon skin from salmon that have apparently returned to their ancestral mountain roots to spawn and die, thus becoming landlocked again.

The fried salmon slices were served in a bowl on a small bed of fresh lettuce drizzled with what May have been thickened and sweetened soy with a wedge of local citrus that softened the fried taste when drizzled onto the salmon.

Fifth Course - Grilled Dish - Oita Wagyu Steak Sukiyaki —This was an elegant beef lover’s dish. Thin slices of Wagyu beef, apparently raised in Oita, where our plane landed today on the island of Kyushu and on which Itsuki Inn is located, combined with a fresh shiitake mushroom, a slice of green onion, onion threads and a chunk of incredible tofu that was firm but also softly toothsome in a sweet beef, mirin and soy broth baked in a bag made from a sheet of clear cellophane and sealed with the kind of metal and paper twist you find sealing a bag of bread. This was clearly a modern high tech adaptation of the traditional French cooking method called en pappillote. 

The French cooking method using a sealed parchment bag is called en papillote, which means "in paper". It is a moist-heat cooking technique where food is sealed in a parchment paper pouch with aromatics and liquids, and then baked in the oven. This traps steam, cooking the ingredients and creating their own sauce while keeping the food tender. 

What made this dish even more interesting and delicious was that it was served with a poached egg with a rich dark orange yolk.

I loved everything about this dish, especially the sweetened sauce and amazing tofu.

Sixth Course - Taste of Kyushu - Rice Bowl with cup of Miso Soup and pickles

By this point in the meal when one is satiated, you are served a bowl of the local rice with one of three different toppings, stewed beef, raw fish (yellowtail and red snapper), or vegetable and shrimp tempura. I had ordered tempura at Suzette’s suggestion, so I traded her my tempura for her raw fish. Billie got the beef and it appeared to be the better choice. It was probably more of the simmered cooked wagyu beef in the prior sukiyaki course, Billie did not seem to mind though, liking it as much as she did when served it in the sukiyaki.

The star of this course is the rice. I am not sure but I suspect that the rice was recently harvested and fresh. It was creamier than what we ate in Narita and slightly sweeter with a distinct freshness.

Served with the rice bowl was a cup of miso soup with finely minced cooked seaweed that was fabulous and a plate of pickled vegetables including umiboshi plum, cabbage, cucumber, seaweed, and daikon.

At 8:30 with the rice course we ordered more sake and talked.

Seventh Course - Dessert - Vanilla Ice Cream with fresh pineapple and a stripe of caramel — This was Billie’s favorite dish. I liked it but it lacked the appeal that chocolate desserts have for me (because they feed my addiction to chocolate).

During dessert we had a discussion about Argentinian Dulce de Leche as a chocolate substitute and our adventures in Argentina and Billy described climbing 6961 meter (22,838 feet) Anconcagua in Chile. She climbed to 18000 feet to the second base camp but was prevented from summiting the peak by a storm with 90 mph winds.

Billie described climbing mountains as being within a category of “Type 2” vacations that many of her friends favor.

Mateo knew all the good Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants in Santa Fe and Albuquerque and was clearly a fellow gourmet and seasoned traveler.

Finally around 9:20 our waitress served us each a cup of camomile tea for the finale. 

I went to the bathroom at 9:30 and noticed the two other private tatami dining rooms were empty. I had to reconsider my thought that I would have preferred a 3 1/2 hour meal to a 2 1/2 hour meal in order to fully analyze each dish.

In fact, I had to put the fried salmon aside when the beef sukiyaki was served. When I returned to eat the salmon, the citrus had soaked into the flesh, softening the fried batter shell, making the salmon even easier to eat and enjoy.

We returned to our casita at 9:30 after an exceptional evening of food and pleasant conversation.

What I have not figured out yet is what goes with what. In other words, are the specialty salts and condiments and pickled vegetables meant to enhance each dish or does each dish stand on its own. 

Bon Appetit