Japanese teppan dining with views of Kanazawa

Icho chef cooking up din dins for me and mum

We're totally spoilt for choice for places to eat in Kanazawa, but if you're after a special night, something a bit different than your regular izakaya, yakitori or conveyor belt sushi joint, I'd recommend the Icho teppan grill on the 29th floor of the Nikko Hotel in Kanazawa. (thanks Dustin!) Teppanyaki is a style of Japanese cuisine that uses an iron griddle to cook the food. At Icho, you sit around a bar with the teppan grill in the middle watching chefs cook up your dinner.

Mum and I went for some sunset dining (in all honesty we were just too hungry to wait until later) Make sure you take the glass lift to the 29th floor, not for the acrophobic like mum though..

There is a variety of set menus to choose from ranging from one that'll blow your budget with courses that'll take you a week to get through to less extravagent ones. We opted for the latter, a ¥10,000 pp (about £60) set menu without the fish but with sirloin steak cooked to your liking.

After a few wonderful delicious a la carte starters, I was beside myself with excitement when the chef appeared loaded with ingredients and started cooking our dinner right there in front of us.

My dinner at Icho, 3 wonderful dipping sauces for your steak.

Meat can be expensive in Japan so I have hardly eaten any since I moved here but these sirloin steaks were to die for! We were wondering exactly how we'd tackle them with the chopsticks that were laid out for us but in true Japanese style they were cut for us into delicate little pieces and were we given dipping sauces to try with the steak. Very unique.

The views of Kanazawa from the restaurant are also stunning, it's so nice to see the city from up high and to get your bearings. I'll let the piccies speak for themselves.

If you're a bit strapped for cash and dining in the restaurant is out of the question there is a bar on the same floor called Vol de Nuit that serves cocktails from 5.30pm onwards (cocktail hour) at around ¥700 a pop, ooh la la..

Get kitted out in kimonos, Kanazawa

Met Yoko & co this morning, Yoko is a lovely lady who I met a while back who seems to be forever organising us Kanazawa gaijins. She is now my Japanese teacher as well, poor dear. Since my experience at the Hykamongoku festival I was dying to be dressed up in a kimono again so I had arranged a "kimono trying on experience" for me and mum whilst she was here.

Well being more specific it was a yukata, a summer kimono made from cotton. The word "yu" means bath and "katabira" means under clothing. Thousands of years ago, Court Nobles wore linen "yukatabira" which were draped loosely after taking a bath. It gradually became worn by japanese warriors and then by the general public when the japanese public bath became popular. Anyway enough of the history...

Putting on a yukata or kimono isn’t just a case of slipping it on a tying the obi belt around your middle. Remember, this is Japan! There’s almost ritualistic method of putting on the yukata which requires native help. Once you've got it on you need to make sure you wrap the right side of the yukata over the body, then overlap it with the left side. Right on top of the left is only used to dress a corpse for burial. That's where native help becomes valuable!!

Yoko and co (some little old ladies who had come to help=native help) then used about 3 other varying size belts to tie us into the yukata, not for the claustrophobic that’s for sure! I can only liken it to being fitted into a 15 inch Victorian corset. Once the team had strapped me in, they made the back of my obi belt into a beautiful butterfly shape by overlapping and twisting the fabric a few times.

We had a go at trying to do this ourselves but couldn’t really master it, I was still sweating like a pig which wasn’t helping the concentration levels! Nevertheless the end result was great (minus the shiny sweaty faces) don’t you think?

All dolled up we then headed for our tea ceremony, read the next post for that experience, it really was an unforgettable one..!

Making a brew, the Japanese way..

Me making a brew. I never thought picking up a spoon could be so complicated

In our wonderful yukatas we made our way to the entrance of another tatami mat room for our tea ceremony. Just to give you some background on the Japanese tea ceremony. The art of making tea, in traditional Japanese sense of the word, has to be the antithesis of making a quick brew with your Tetley teabags back home.

The tea ceremony (茶道, sadō), or "the Way of Tea," is the highly ritualised ceremonial preparation and presentation of the powdered green tea known as matcha. These tea ceremonies can last up to 4 hours so be warned, sitting on my knees for half an hour nearly killed me, 4 hours would have felt like a marathon!

When we reached the entrance we were instructed to sit on our knees and were shown the traditional way to enter a tea room although the ladies themselves were a bit confused as to which hand goes where. Definitely comforting to know even the locals get confused!

After a women’s institute type debate we eventually entered the room, first me then mum, opening the wooden screen door with the right hand to halfway, then with your left complete the opening of the door (this may not be correct but it was something along these lines). Then on your knees shuffle along the floor in 3 or 4 fluid movements until you reach the tea making area. We were in! That part took such a long time I was wondering how long actually making the tea would take.

First we were served some biscuits, a bit like pink wafers. Apparently the flavours of the sweets and bitter tea compliment each other and is a sign of harmony. The older Japanese lady demonstrated how to make tea.

The utensils, a tea bowl, whisk and tea scoop are placed in a pyramid arrangement. She placed a spoonful of green tea powder into the bowl with water from the hot clay pot using a wooden scoop. (NB Important to make sure the water scoop is placed on top of the pot in the correct way!)

Pot for boiling water (note position of water scoop)

She then whisks the tea with a wooden whisk, a bit like preparing an omelette.

Mum whisking up the green tea like an omlette

When you receive the tea, you have to bow and then raise your bowl of tea (known as chawan) in a gesture of respect to the host. You then have to place the chawan in your left hand and rotate the bowl with your right hand three times clockwise, You then turn take a sip, wipe the rim and then rotate the bowl back

Mum turning her chawan, serious concentration going on here!

We then had a go at tea making part but there were so many things to remember it’s hard to get it right, even the way you put down the spoon. Mum was way better than me, she’s obviously just made more omelettes!

Fab experience all round and in mum's top 3 for her trip to Japan.

Higashi Chaya (Geisha Entertainment) District, Kanazawa

Me and ma at a wet Higashi Chaya District, Kanazawa

Higashi Chaya District, Kanazawa (taken on a sunny day a few days later!)

In the pouring rain me and mum caught a cab to the Higashi Chaya district, another famous area in Kanazawa. It was such a shame it was raining, I had purposely picked Sunday because you can often spot ladies all dressed up in their Sunday gear (i.e kimonos) or if you’re really lucky spot a wedding party.

The Higashi Chaya district is the largest of 3 chaya districts in Kanazawa and is definitely a must see if you’re visiting Kanazawa.

A chaya (literally meaning teahouse) house is an exclusive restaurant, where geisha (traditional female Japanese entertainers) entertained people by performing dances and playing Japanese traditional musical instruments. If you don’t know much about geishas then I’d definitely recommend you read Memoirs of a Gesiha, written by Arthur Golden, to learn more about this ancient Japanese custom or just watch the film if you're feeling lazy!

The infamous willow tree in Higashi Chaya District, Kanazawa

The Higashi Chaya exudes charm with its wooden latticed geisha houses and paved streets. You will notice a big willow tree at the bottom of the main street in Hiagshi Chaya (you will notice it by the hoards of tourists having their photo taken in front of it) The willow tree marks the boundary point for geishas during the Edo period. Geishas would wave off their clients at the willow tree but were not allowed to go past this point.

Make sure you go into the Shima Teahouse, a 2 story preserved geisha house turned museum, which is a few metres up from the willow tree on the same side. Since we went on a wet Sunday we had the house to ourselves.

The waiting room where guests would wait to be entertained by geishas

The upstairs of the house is for the guests and performances. Cross the creaky floorboards and you’ll find the performing room where Geishas, we were told, used to perform many Japanese fine arts; the koto (Japanese harp), dancing, tea ceremony and sing noh songs The proprietress quarters and Geishas dressing room were on the ground floor.

On a quiet day in Hiagashi Chaya you can really soak up the atmosphere; the steaming wood aroma from the ancient teahouses, the little cobbled streets and the sounds of the koto being played in the distance. OK, OK I know I'm sounds like a bloody tourist guide so I'll leave it at that!

More about the Shima Geisha Teahouse in Kanazawa's Higashi Chaya District here

Drinking gold at the Yasue Gold Leaf Museum, Kanazawa

Kanazawa, at first glance, is a modern thriving city but scratch the surface a little and you’ll realise its still a bit behind the times when it comes to international focused tourism. There are a few brochures in English but not really an opportunity to book a tour in English so we approached the Kanazawa Goodwill Guide Network, basically volunteers who will give you a tour of your chosen sights in Kanazawa.

Met the goodwill Guides, Mr.Akahori and his apprentice Ms Harada at the tourist office. There were some lovely little old Japanese ladies serving some refreshing ice cold black tea (bocha) with gold leaf (I'll get to that later). Lovely!

Mum drinking her gold leaf tea

We then headed to the Gold Leaf museum a few minutes walk from the station and were given a brief talk in English about the history of gold leaf production in Kanazawa and a tour of a small gallery of gold leaf handicrafts as well as gold beating tools collected by local gold leaf craftsman Yasue Komei. Kanazawa produces 90% of Japan’s high quality gold leaf and uses the gold leaf to cover vases, boxes, chopsticks, bowls, trays, screens, furniture. Come and you’ll see what I mean!

We were then taken into a tatami mat room that overlooked a beautiful little Japanese garden with carp pond. We were then offered a cup of green tea sprinkled with gold flakes. It’s meant to be good for rheumatism, so we drank although I have to admit it feels a bit strange drinking pure gold!

Me and mum with our serving of gold leaf tea and a biccie (no dunking done here..)

Bowl of gold leaf tea, you can see the sprinkles of gold floating on top

We were then given a gold leaf transfer demonstration, known as haku-utsushi, by this little old lady. Amazingly, a piece of gold the sized of a bean (about 2 grams) can be beaten so that it stretches over the area of a tatami mat, about one metre by two metres.

Once the gold has been beaten it needs to be cut to size. She picked up the incredibly thin sheet of gold with tweezers, laid it out on a small cushion and blew on gently to spread it open. She then trimmed the sheet of gold with a wooden cutting device and laid the trimmed sheet in a device full of other sheets. She then asked us to hold out our hands and she oh so delicately placed a thin sheet of gold into our palms.

Pure gold leaf in the palm of our hands!

The gold is so thin that if you touch it (which I did so I know!) it’ll just disintegrate into the sweat of your hand.

You can easily go to the Gold Leaf museum without the guides, as they have a leaflet in English. It’s literally a 5-7 min walk from Kanazawa station. For directions to the Kanazawa Yasue Gold-Leaf Museum see http://www.kanazawa-tourism.com/eng/guide/guide1_3.php?no=2