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Ginkgo nuts and miso-pickled egg with sea urchin dressing, apple and persimmon checkerboard coated in white sauce, Ishikawa taro with nori, spicy simmered shimeji, shrimp and sea bream ball-shaped sushi, pressed dried sardine sheet, deep-fried shrimp legs and lotus root

This is a sake accompaniment. We have arranged, in a display-style presentation, the little bites we normally serve between courses to go with sake…

Bamboo Shoot Grilled with Kinome; Diamond-Shaped Kamaboko; Clam and Rapeseed-Flower Sushi; Bamboo Shoot Simmered in Shirozake; Icefish, Bonbori-Style Grilled; Lily Bulb and Tachibana Citrus Chakin; Halfbeak, Cherry-Blossom Dried; Three-Colored Dango

Titled "Appetizers, Grilled and Simmered Dishes for Early Spring," this begins with the appetizer course. I prepared a single warm dish, a dish tied…

Tender-simmered raw sea cucumber, yellowtail kaburazushi, smoked aigamo duck, and more

This is the pre-course dish. For tender-simmered raw sea cucumber, the important thing is finishing the sea cucumber tender: we slowly bring it up in…

Molded whale terrine with mustard vinegar-miso sauce, savory shrimp sponge cake, conger eel and cucumber roll, two-color rice cracker, abalone and lotus root mannen-ni

First is the assorted small-dishes course. For the molded whale terrine with mustard vinegar-miso sauce, if you set it too firm, the umami is cut in…

Snow-view okara coating

Since the shrimp is live, it's fine if the inside is left about half-raw. Coat each prepared ingredient with okara (soy pulp) that has been…

Sesame Vinegar Grilled Roast Pork

For the sesame vinegar grilled roast pork, with about 800g of roast pork, use a convection oven and roast at 160°C for around 25 minutes.

Hairy Crab Zucchini Roll

This is hairy crab (kegani) zucchini roll with fava bean soy milk sauce. The crab is split open, picked from the shell, wrapped in yuba, and then…

• Serves 1 · ¥790

• Cook time 20 min

Sesame Soy-Milk Somen -- Using "Macro Tare"

We thought about "Giving Value to Vegan Cuisine" by making use of a sauce that delivers impact without any animal-derived ingredients. The "Macro…

• Serves 1 · ¥238

• Cook time 30 min

Kuruma Prawn Checkerboard, Kinko and Scallop Shinjo Wrap, Mountain Yam and Salmon Roe, Sesame Daigo, Warm-Smoked Salmon Kinuta-Maki, Early Bamboo Shoot in Habutae Kinome Coating

These are the appetizers. For the kinko (a traditional dried sea cucumber) and scallop fish-paste dumpling wrap: when I was young I was taught to…

Shinshu giant char cylinder roll, char roe in soy marinade, autumn fruit and walnut mousse, Shinshu pork steamed with sansho, grilled maitake with foie gras, chrysanthemum petal salad, Shinshu salmon with egg-yolk mustard sauce

This is an appetizer presented in hassun (seasonal-assortment course) style, using Nagano Prefecture's prized traditional vegetables and, since it is…

• Serves 1 · ¥350

• Cook time 1 hr

Grilled sea cucumber dressed with its own innards, red-and-white namasu, layered salmon and lotus root, jewel-shaped egg, wakame with herring roe, rapeseed blossom steeped in mustard, kuruma prawn simmered lightly in soy, black beans on a pine-needle skewer

This is the appetizer course. For the grilled sea cucumber dressed with its own innards, we slit open the sea cucumber's belly, clean it, skewer it…

Spring vegetables in an aromatic salted sea-cucumber-intestine marinade, tender-simmered baby octopus, cherry-blossom-viewing dumplings, seared squid with bottarga, rare Shimane rock-nori tofu

This is the course of dishes to accompany sake. The strained konowata used in the spring vegetables with aromatic konowata marinade is a liquid made…

Sanbō-stand assortment: shrimp and lily bulb temari-zushi, squid temari-zushi, and more

For the shrimp and lily bulb temari-zushi, the lily bulb and Japanese mountain yam are steamed and then worked into a smooth paste in a double boiler…

Snow Crab Momiji-ae, Herring-Roe Wakame Pickled in Sake Lees, Pressed Mackerel Sushi, Fragrant Fried Matsutake, Salt-Steamed Abalone

First, the appetizer course. For the snow crab momiji-ae, snow crab and vegetables would normally be dressed together in a fragrant…

Ishikawa taro simmered with plum, foie gras jelly, hoshiko temari sushi, scallop castella, Hakata-style suizenji nori, okra and egg-yolk sushi, green-simmered fava beans

Next is an assembled platter in a mixed-assortment style. These days you really have to watch food costs, so I've made this from ingredients that are…

Matsukawa-style longtail red snapper, stone-wall-style yam bulbils, hijiki fish-paste dumpling, rising-sun-style mullet roe, iron-fan-style kuruma prawn, sweet potato simmered with lemon, and petal-shaped New Year mochi

Among the appetizers, the stone-wall-style yam bulbils are styled after the image of 'until moss grows upon it' from the Kimigayo (Japan's national…

Pinecone-scored squid, cut-bamboo early butterbur, syrup-simmered plumped plum, sprouted arrowhead bulb, ten-thousand-year simmered burdock, calm-wave-cut lily bulb, snow-capped herring roe, turnip namasu, steeped early bracken fern, and Hakata-style sweet bean jelly

Kuizumi is osechi, New Year's food. At New Year, packing lots of dishes into tiered lacquer boxes for the family to eat, and also to serve when…

Monkfish tomozu

At the restaurant where I work in Oarai, Ibaraki, monkfish is an ingredient we use often during its harvest season, from November through March. By…

• Serves 1 · ¥350

• Cook time 40 min

End-of-season pufferfish and wagyu, assorted preparations: miso-bed-pickled rib-eye grilled over a wire net, seared rib-eye, pufferfish flesh-and-skin roll pintxos, cold-smoked pufferfish nigiri sushi, translucent-sliced pufferfish skin with cream cheese, saimaki shrimp marinated with spring citrus

The miso-bed-pickled rib-eye grilled over a wire net and the seared rib-eye both use the same single rib-eye; cooking it before pickling in miso…

Chinese yam noodles, mock tofu, conger eel rolled around burdock root, young sweetfish in gabion-style sweet potato, Ishikawa taro with cheese miso

This is the appetizer course. For the gisei-dofu, I sauté tofu that has been passed through a sieve together with burdock, carrot, shiitake mushroom…

Herring pickled in rice malt, pumpkin and spinach two-tone, cheese egg, runner bean and carrot sweet-simmered, sardine and eggplant hakata roll, matsutake and shrimp shinjo deep-fry, flounder datemaki

These are the appetizers. For the herring pickled in rice malt, I add amazake so it doesn't become too salty. I used 60g of salt, though I think it…

Horse meat simmered shigure-style, steamed abalone and soft-set egg steeped in a salted rice-malt marinade, slender daikon pickled with Ise ceremonial salt, salmon marinated in wine, kumquat cream cheese, scarlet runner beans simmered to absorb the broth

What's on the raised serving stand is the steamed abalone and soft-set egg steeped in shio-koji. I remove the abalone from its shell, quickly blanch…

"Cool flavors": summer crab shinjo, small-grade kuruma prawn, oil-simmered tuna, fresh yuba, blanched pike conger, kinjiso jelly, piped anchovy cheese

The appetizer, which I named "Cool Flavors," was designed to give guests a sense of coolness. The saimaki prawn and avocado dashi-soy jelly is made…

• Serves 3 · ¥500

• Cook time 30 min

Smoked Pork, Summer Daikon Simmered in a Glossy Glaze

For the smoked pork: because the meat is cured in a block, it's important to cure it for about three days. If the internal temperature is raised too…