kobe
today, i took 2 hours of trains to meet up with my friend tsukasa again in kobe.
the highlight of the day is of course going to be the beef. but i will get to that later.
i arrived a bit early and kind of meandered around kobe taking photos.
i’ve never been to new york city, but kobe feels a lot like the way media portrays new york.
you ever want to drink a rum and coke while running on a treadmill?
also, i dont know where to put this in the post, so i am just gonna put it here. i just found out that kobe bryant’s parents named him after kobe beef.
beef
readers may have heard of kobe beef. kobe beef is a specific type of wagyu beef, from kobe. its kind of a champagne thing. wagyu beef is “sparking wine” and kobe beef is “champagne”. its not really kobe beef unless the cattle is born in hyogo prefecture, raised exclusively on food grown in hyogo prefecture, and slaughtered in a specifically approved slaughterhouse in hyogo prefecture. it also has to be descended from a lineage of cows passed down since the 1600s, be evaluated for marbling, and assigned a 10 digit code by the kobe beef marketing & distribution promotion association. it is a very strict process.
i could keep writing, but really, just like… the beef tastes good.
the restaurant tsukasa picked out was a very small spot. we ordered a multi course sampling of a bunch of different cuts, and i got a lemon sour.
while writing this, i have learned that the little flower symbol next to “kobe beef” at the top of the menu is an official symbol indicating that it is certified authentic kobe beef, per the ridiculous guidelines i outlined previously.
the course started with some green bean soup, and the 4 most delicious bites of food i have ever taken.
next up was a small salad. if you asked me what was in this salad, i would say “salad?” it was good, that’s all i got.
next up was the main event, the beef cuts.
there were a few more meat bites, but i was pretty entranced by the food and didn’t photograph everything.
next up was a small bowl of soup, and a bowl of fried rice. the fried rice was interesting, because they tell you to eat half of it, then they give you a little kettle of green tea to pour over it to make into chazuke, one of my favorite japanese foods.
finally, it was on to dessert. a small slice of cheesecake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
that meal was so incredible that i dedicated this much blog space to it. 10/10. but it was so much food.
kobe at night
after dinner, we walked around kobe for a bit. coincidentally, the first picture below is the beef restaurant we went to last year.
we ended up going to a magic trick themed bar. i didnt take any photos in there, but it was a ton of fun. they put on a great show, and made a great lemon sour. i bought both the bartenders a beer.
the journey home
i was having so much fun, i forgot about the trip home being an hour and a half. when i got back to kintetsu-nara station at midnight, the city was predictably empty and quiet.
zoom in on the family mart photo for a fun easter egg.
post-edit: i just realized you can’t zoom in on it from the blog post. so,
nara is a totally different experience at night. the deer are still out and about, but seeing them just sit and stare at you like you are the strange one as you walk by is really surreal.
thats the post!
じゃあまたね!
