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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…

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…

Lotus-root dumpling

Renkon manju is served as part of a simmered assortment course, or arranged as a single item for the appetizer course. Normally I shape one serving…

Pike conger eel, lightly seared

This is the soup course. For the seared hamo, I bone-score it and cure it in kombu before searing, which removes its fishy odor and draws out its…

Salt-simmered yellowtail

From our use of the winter ingredient yellowtail, this is a simmered dish. I think it's common to enjoy yellowtail for the umami of its fat, but the…

• Serves 1 · ¥1,200

• Cook time 1 hr

Herring Roe Tinted with Sea Urchin, Black Bean and Lily Bulb in a Twisted-Cloth Purse, Candied Baby Sardines in a Sweet Rice-Coating Wrap, Two-Color Egg in Green Bamboo, Pine-Needle-Scored Abalone Two Ways, Rolled Salmon, Plum-Blossom Carrot in Saikyo Miso, Snow-Ring Lotus Root in Sweet Vinegar Pickle

Toso-zakana (a New Year's spiced-sake accompaniment), part one. Otoso cuisine refers to the three mitsu-zakana, or auspicious dishes: herring roe…

Milt Egg-Custard Steamed with Sea Urchin Sauce, Seared Pufferfish and Mountain Yam, Lotus Root Sesame-Mustard Dressed

This is the appetizer. For the milt egg-custard steamed with sea urchin sauce, cod milt is used rather than pufferfish milt. For the sea urchin…

Lotus root deep-fried in egg yolk, sweet potato sandwich deep-fry, icefish wrapped in yuba and deep-fried

The fried course's renkon kimi-age wraps grated lotus root and yamato yam in a lotus root slice and deep-fries it in egg yolk batter; this time I've…

Kinki rockfish, celebratory grill; monkfish liver pressed in layers; fugu in savory jelly; king crab, yellow chrysanthemum and komatsuna blanched in dashi; baked yuzu cup; winter moroko, simmered and marinated; azuki bean and lotus root; plum-blossom lily bulb; three-color kinpira; grilled burdock with young sansho leaves; accordion-cut kombu

This is the yaki-hassun — a grilled hassun assortment, written with celebratory kanji. For the Winter Moroko, Simmered and Marinated, I use moroko (a…

Okoze suppon-style soup, deep-fried lotus root manju

Spiny lobster grilled with salted fish-innard paste, tilefish grilled with sea urchin, Tosa-style herring roe, black soybean and lily-bulb sweetened mash, snow-ring lotus root achara pickle, salmon wrapped in squid

For the grilled Ise lobster with shuto, I use Ise lobster, a New Year's staple, basted and grilled with shuto. For the grilled tilefish with sea…

• ¥1,500

• Cook time 2 hr

Tanba Black Soybeans in Sweet Syrup, Tosa-Style Herring Roe, Lily Bulb Chakin, Korin-Pine Lotus Root Stuffed with Spicy Cod Roe

This is a celebratory New Year tiered box. It was designed to be colorful and to keep well, so that families gathered together could enjoy a relaxed…

• ¥2,800

• Cook time 3 days

Blended Miso Broth, Char Wrapped in Lotus Root

My workplace is in Karuizawa, Nagano, so I think of the four seasons of Shinshu's clear mountain streams as four kinds of warmth, and I used char…

• Serves 1 · ¥780

• Cook time 40 min

Japanese flounder rolled with rapeseed blossoms, pond smelt grilled with sansho leaf, shrimp plum-blossom sushi, bracken fern shoots and lotus root, and lotus root three-flavor deep-fry

Seared autumn sea bream pressed sushi, sweet-vinegar red turnip pickle, lily bulb autumn-foliage mound, "dead-wood" burdock, sudachi-shell cup with salted fish and jelly, lotus root with sea cucumber entrails, oyster fish-paste dumpling, ginkgo nuts on pine-needle skewers

Sweet Deep-Fried Carp

This is a fried dish reimagining Yamagata's local cuisine. For the Sweet Deep-Fried Carp, in Yamagata in the old days, carp was eaten as an…

• Serves 4 · ¥2,406

• Cook time 1 hr

Karasumi Mochi, Stuffed Lotus Root, Conger Eel Yawata-Age, Young Ayu Deep-Fried with Kinome, Tara-no-Me Wrapped and Deep-Fried

This is the second of the seasonal vegetable courses. For the karasumi mochi, house-made karasumi is sandwiched between mochi, coated in batter, and…

Deep-Fried Lotus Mochi Dumplings

These are deep-fried lotus mochi dumplings. We fry them quickly at high heat, but we want to finish them without letting the heat fully penetrate the…

Grilled mackerel sushi, physalis-style egg, akebi pod stuffed and grilled, Dadacha-mame edamame, lotus root crackers, grilled myoga stuffed with cheese, baby apple gratin

At our restaurant, we use popular, seasonal, local ingredients for our local customers and place great importance on regional cuisine, but we are…

Herring and roe pickled together, Naruto-style conger eel nanban-zuke, small sea bream double-fillet grilled, matcha deep-fried lotus root, herb-steamed free-range chicken

The herring oyako-zuke among the appetizers: the herring is first thoroughly bled and rinsed in water to wash off excess fat, then a strong salt cure…

Saimaki prawn and spring-grade shiitake wrap, new burdock and cauliflower mushroom stuffed, clover-cut kabocha squash

The sakizuke is the very first dish served to the guest, and since I wanted to make an impactful dish, I devised a savory dashi and shincha…

Winter Solstice Kabocha Manju

This is the steamed course. For the winter solstice kabocha-squash manju, in keeping with the winter solstice custom I fill it with ingredients whose…

Chakin-wrapped freeze-dried tofu, Daitokuji-style wheat gluten cake, small rolled yuba, and more

The chakin-wrapped koya-dofu (freeze-dried tofu) has a small amount of simmered azuki beans inside, but take care on one point: if the azuki beans…

Aigamo Duck and Mochi-Lotus Root, Agedashi-Style