Saturday, October 9, 2010

Kachoufuugetsu Hana

I introduced a Japanese coffee shop "Karakuan" in January, but it went out of business recently. And this new Japanese restaurant opened at the same place. During the past few years I've seen so many restaurants or coffee shops disappear due to this recession. 

This new restaurant just painted the former sign of the coffee shop differently, and the basic structure of this restaurant was the same as the coffee shop, as both of them were based on the theme of "Japanese-styled".

The meaning of the name of this restaurants is "beauties in the nature". But literally, "Kachou" means "flowers and birds", while "fuugetsu" stands for "the wind and the moon". This is the yard that I could see from my seat.

This is where I was seated. In the 80s or early 90s, we saw so many things that were designed the Western way, but during the past decade I saw relatively many "Japanese" shops or restaurants that got in business.

Sometimes Japanese dishes are more expensive than steaks and pasta. And the lunch set I had today cost more than 15 us dollars. The raw seafood you see in this saucer is called "Sashimi", and it is something like sushi without rice.

The right dish had boiled white radish with Yuzu miso on top of it. Yuzu is an aromatic citron. The left one was boiled fish seasoned with sugar and soy sauce. You can also see some mushrooms sitting on the fish.

I think Japanese people still have a strong penchant for the Western and/or the American culture, and that's the reason why we have so many western restaurants in my city. But it is said old people prefer Japanese food they used to have when they were young. I don't know if it'll be true of me in the future.