Four Hundred Days Til Re-entry

Danger zone #5 - no danger

The weekend saw us travelling to Mie as part of the extended birthday celebrations for M. Mie is to the south of where I live with the mountains inbetween. If you look at a map of Japan, look for the big lake and then go South. There should be a little bulgy-type peninsula thing. That is the Ise (E Say) peninsula.

As well as the aquarium, of which I may post pics if God and my workload spare me, we also wanted to experience the local delicacy, ise ebi. Big prawns to me and you. Here they are!

This one was Mariko's and, starting top left and continuing clockwise, consisted of seaweed soup, kombu (a diferent kind of seaweed, I think), pickles (Japanese ones, made with salt not vinegar), a bit of orange, a muscle and a cockle (cooked), Tuna sashimi with nori (dried seaweed) on rice and deepfried prawn, octopus and oyster.

This was mine, mostly similar, though mine had no sashimi and the deepfried gear was limited to two eight inch long prawns, sliced down the middle before bread-crumbing, in the middle at the top.

I spend a bunch of time complaining about Japanese food but this was great and really cheap into the bargain. The whole meal cost about fifteen pounds and would easily have cost twice as much in the UK. Highly recommended.

On a warning note, the brand of Ise-ebi doesn't really mean much any more. The guy who ran our hotel was telling us that the supply of locally caught prawns is nowhere near the level of demand so the local businessmen cater to visitor expectations. Which is the polite way of saying that most of the prawns come from way out in the Pacific and are sold in Ise.

This didn't bother us too much because we usually eat cheaply anyway and the prawns don't taste any different. He also added in passing that it was the same for the Matsusaka beef, up the road. Now M's mum bought a couple of kilos of this for about a hundred quid a year back. Was it real or bogus. Two facts which will serve as food for thought, if you will.

There is no mandatory monitoring of trading standards in Japan. There is no Health and Safety exec. Chilling.

posted by Between daisies @ 11:57