Cooking and Dancing

3 November 2022

I was up at 530 for a 6 am bath and 7 am breakfast. Then at 10 am we were off to find our cooking class in Asakusa Tokyo. We had not been on the Ginza subway line for some time. We went in the wrong entrance and then had to go out and reset our Suica pass to get back out.

It was a short walk to the place we were having our class, Chagohan. We were the only ones in the class so it was like a private lesson. The owners of the shop, who were husband and wife (Masa and Junko), had been there for 8 years and lived a 20 minute walk away. There were way more ingredients than I thought you would need for soy sauce Ramen and pork gyoza.

The many components of the Ramen are prepared separately such as; The eggs cooked separately and then soaked overnight in a mixture of soy sauce and rice vinegar.

The soy sauce component is made by adding dark soya sauce to miran, apple cider vinegar and sugar.

Seaweed broth is prepared overnight by soaking it and the specially prepared bonito fish slices and dried mackerel slices are added. This is simmered for 10 mins and then is ideally used within the hour.

Chicken wings and neck meat are boiled for about 40 minutes to provide a fatty tasty broth.

The noodles are cooked for 2.5 minutes and while doing this the 3 broths are mixed together and then the noodles are added. Then you put in the egg, seaweed paper, the leek flakes and leek infused oil along with some finely sliced chili pepper. Pork was carefully prepared with a delicious sauce and added. This is all presented in an amazing mixture.

As the broths for the ramen were cooking we made gyoza filling by mixing numerous things including sake, potato flour, pork fat, carefully prepared cabbage, mirin, ginger and sugar. This was allowed to sit for 10 minutes. We learned how to make gyoza by adding filling and then specifically pinching the dough and coating the bottom with a special flour. All of these 21 gyoza were arranged in a sunflower shaped pattern in a frying pan and then browned on one edge, then water added, steamed, leek infused oil added and then further steamed. The whole pan is carefully flipped onto a plate and then a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar and chili pepper powder is added. Jennifer did an amazing job of the flipping. They were delicious and then we had the ramen right after.

We headed to Sensoji shrine and ran into a parade for culture day. There were interesting people dressed in crane outfits who danced like birds.

It was the biggest crowd we have seen yet due to the national holiday day. Jennifer found the place to get her temple book signed and then it was time to find our way back to the hotel in Ueno. We ended up walking to the wrong subway station and went a couple stations to catch the normal train back to near the hotel. We did some shopping, had a coffee and then back to the hotel for a rest.

Once it was dark we headed into Ueno park toward the light fair which we found out was an energy expo showing the importance of conserving energy and finding more environmentally friendly energy sources.

They had booths where people could make energy by pedaling a bike or waving a fan to create wind energy. There were booths with different led lights, a company that renovates older living quarters and then a booth that you make VR goggles and another where you build a boat. We were getting near the end of the pavilion and then people started gathering around a stage looking area where 3 different girls dance troops did their 2-3 different numbers each.

We went to a coffee house near by and were able to eat a nice meal outside. Our meal with drinks was only $30 which was one of the more expensive meals.

Then it was time for a bath and then bed.