The rice specialty restaurant we will introduce this time, called "Tanbo", won first place in the "Everyone's Favorite Lunch Restaurant" poll held at the Monosus year-end party in 2015. The reliability of their rice balls and set meals is well known to everyone at Monosus.
Rice field in front of the store
Exit the west exit of Yoyogi Station, cross the intersection, and you will see the rice fields just beyond the Natural Lawson store. Look for the scarlet carpet in front of the store. Another landmark is the rice fields. Although small, they are replicas of real rice fields inside the boxes. It is winter now, so the rice has been harvested, but in summer you can see lush, green rice growing.
Rice fields in winter. Rice will probably be planted again in the spring.
Freshly cooked rice in a rice container,
There are many ways to eat it.
When you enter the store, you will see a wooden sign hanging in front of you that states the name and place of origin of the rice. The rice is carefully selected from all over Japan and changes weekly. The rice is cooked freshly milled in the rice fields.
The manager said that he gets nervous when cooking rice, wondering if it will come out delicious. When I hear stories like this, I can feel the manager's spirit in the name of the restaurant, "Rice Specialty Restaurant Tanbo."
This week's rice → Nagaoka Koshihikari from Niigata Prefecture
When you think of rice fields, you think of "Ohitsuzen," a set meal that includes an ohitsu filled with freshly cooked rice, side dishes, miso soup, tea for ochazuke, arare rice crackers, wasabi, moromi miso, and a sweet after-meal snack.
The rice accompaniments are salmon, mackerel miso, cod, bonito, salmon and salmon roe (luxurious), and eel (the height of luxury!). There are also meats such as chicken breast and braised pork, so it's always difficult to decide which one to choose...
This time, I chose a seasonal ohitsuzen meal. It was grilled Spanish mackerel with a saikyo-style miso sauce, as it was a seasonal fish.
The seasonal meal for this day was grilled Spanish mackerel in saikyo-style miso. Spanish mackerel is a fish also known as the messenger of spring.
The main dish is two bowls of freshly cooked rice served in a rice container.
Eat the first bowl normally with miso soup and fish, and make ochazuke with the remaining fish for the second bowl. You can eat it however you like, whether you make ochazuke from the beginning or not.
I'm making ochazuke by topping shredded fish with wasabi, rice crackers, and moromi miso.
I still had some rice left, so I ordered some Kishu Umeboshi. I don't need anything else as long as I have rice and Umeboshi. Japan is great. Rice is the best! I was soaked in such emotions, humming to myself how delicious it was, and finished off the rice in the rice cooker.
We finished off with some roasted green tea. Today's lunch was also delicious.
The rice container has been eaten down to the last grain. The store is particular about the rice containers as well. It is a lacquered rice container made from Kiso sawara wood by a lacquer craftsman in Kiso. It is said that lacquered rice containers can keep rice fresh.
Another joy of the rice fields.
It means rice ball.
At Monosus, most people probably buy onigiri to take away, but I like to eat them in the restaurant. I like to have a simple meal of onigiri, miso soup, and one side dish.
Compared to the large rice bowls being brought out in front of the other customers, it may look a little lonely to an outsider, but the freshly made, warm rice balls you eat in the shop are also nice.
Freshly made, it arrives. At first the nori seaweed is crisp and firm. Then it becomes moist.
In fact, what I like most about this onigiri is the nori seaweed. The steaming rice is pressed into a perfect firmness, and the nori seaweed wrapped around it from underneath is amazing.
When I first tried it, I had to look twice at the rice ball, wondering if seaweed could smell so good. The sign inside the store said that it was made with the first harvest of seaweed from Ariake, Saga. Perhaps the steaming hot rice accentuates the aroma of the seaweed. With each bite, the aroma wafts through my nose.
It's hard to imagine this when you eat onigiri from a convenience store, but when you eat rice field onigiri, you can see all kinds of landscapes, such as the sea and mountains.
If you order takeout, they will wrap it in a wooden sheet. When you open the sheet, you can smell the delicious smell of wood and seaweed. Crisp is good, but moist seaweed is also good.
Ohitsuzen Tanbo Yoyogi Main Branch
1-41-9 Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
TEL: 03-3320-0727
Business hours: 11:00-23:00 (22:00 on Sundays and holidays)
Closed: Open all year round
http://tanbo.co.jp/
FURIHATA Yukari