Full Of Okinawa

good food, good life

Recent Restaurent Blogs

Wagyu Beef Steak Omakase

  On Henza Island, where you can go by car on the bridge, a new restaurant opened in November 2018.  Using the knowledge on meats, butcher skills, network of Wagyu beef suppliers, a former butcher in Osaka moved here to open a Wagyu beef steak house.   Henza Nikuya, the butcher’s steak house. RESTAURANT INFO   They are so popular now in lunch time.  We came for dinner.  Nice space on the deck.   They renovated a house.  Clean and homy.   They have A5 and A4, top graded brand-name Wagyu beef, and the price is so descent.  And the variety of cuts of beef is something you don’t see […]

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Found the sushi chef we were looking for

Just across the street of Hyatt Regnecy Naha opened a new Edo-style sushi bar in May 2018. Sushi Yaginuma RESTAURANT INFO   The owner chef. We were actually looking for this young sushi chef.  He used to work for another sushi restaurant we often go to, and he told us he would leave and open his own place, but he didn’t tell us where (for the consideration for his master).  We missed his sushi and we looked for him.   In this cozy sushi bar with just 8 seats on the counter and 2 tables, he the young owner chef serves his authentic, yet creative, Omakase sushi courses that he goes great lengths to. […]

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A New Wave Okinawa Soba

A new Okinawa Soba opened early this year in Nago.  There are some parking spots in the back, but it’s really narrow neighborhood.  The street parking should be OK around here if it isn’t too much.   A very clean cut looking restaurant like a high-end Japanese Soba or Udon place.   The sign says, Okinawa Tofu and Soba, Shinuchi Tanaka Soba. This restaurant is produced by a Ramen master named Chihiro Miyazaki, who won a Michelin star.   Simple but clean setting.   There’s a ticket machine to check in first. They have 2 kinds of soups to choose from.  The red one is Moto-aji (the original flavor), which […]

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A Champion Burger?

  This is Bone’s in Uruma, near Ishikawa IC.  It’s nested in the beautiful sub-tropical forrest park.   Actually, I’ve been here before.  Despite how nicely this restaurant is decorated and set up, I found the food wasn’t as good as we expected.  It was the time they just opened, so I decided to let it cool off a bit and come back later. Then, this restaurant won a burger competition at Okinawa Burger Festival 2016.  I also heard that they joined the competition a year before and they got all fueled up with the fact that they didn’t get any prizes.  So 2016 was a dramatic comeback for them.   I […]

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Edo-Style Tempura Bar

  Tenka in Naha is a classic Edo-style (traditional Tokyo style) Tempura bar.   One-person operation by the chef over the counter.   We ordered JPY8000 course.   Appetizer.  Soft boiled egg with some seafood in nice dashi soup.  If you taste Dashi, you can tell a lot about the restaurant.  Very delicate and round rather than sharp.     Crunchy salad with nuts and sesami oil.   Here comes the tempura sauce set.  Put some grated Daikon radish and ginger in the soup.  Also the lemon and kombu salt will be good for some pieces.   These are very pointy chop sticks.   Here comes the first piece.  Chef fries tempura […]

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Our Steady Choice for Chinese Cuisine

  Sometimes we want to have some Asian food for a little celebration, and Getsuen Hanten is our steady choice.  Located in Plaza House Shopping Center in Okinawa-shi, near Rycom Shopping Center.   Also known as Charlie’s Restaurant, this chinese restaurant was founded in 1954 when the Plaza House Shopping Center was open.  63 years old.  The Cantonese cuisine with Okinawa ingredients has been so loved by local families over generations.   A classic interior of an upscale Chinese restaurant.   They are doing healthy menu based on TCM dietary therapy, incorporating some Okinawa herbs and vegetables with medicinal properties.   Tsing Tao Beer from China.   We were here to celebrate 5-day intensive […]

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Masterpiece Lamb Shoulder Chop

This is our birthday week.  I had mine last week.  YuYu will have hers next week. And we always fall back to our favorite restaurant, Kato Shokudou in Ginowan.  Especially we saw that they have the lamb shoulder chop roast in the weekly specials.   Cheers!   A small fixed appetizer. Don’t underestimate this little appetizer.  The cheese and jamon serano (today it was pork shoulder) are gorgeous.   Brocoli with anchovy olive oil.  Don’t forget to order this little perfection.   Our favorite 2 choices from the charcuteries. Pork pate is my favorite.  Perfect temp control for the rich pork flavor with a hint of livery flavor.  Little chunks of […]

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Firewood Grilled to Perfection

  It was my birthday dinner.  I took this opportunity to the new restaurant that has been shaking the island of Okinawa.  Restaurant Ardor.   I heard it’s a spanish-italian-french cuisine.  Popular local chefs and patissier has come together, under the promotion by the owner of the famous pizzeria Bacar in Naha, to open this restaurant a month ago.   Very artistic hallway led to the open kitchen. These counter seats have been recommended, but we couldn’t book them this day.   Right in the center is a bathtub, where foods are stored on ice.   You can talk to the staff and pick what you like to be cooked for you.  YuYu […]

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Recent Cooking Blogs

Bluefin Tuna in Season!!!

Did you try bluefin tuna yet? Did you know all the fish markets in Okinawa are all stirred up by the seasonal arrival of this treasure fish right now? You should go and get it for yourself as soon as possible because it will be around only for the next couple of weeks.  Then it will be gone.  And right now, this fish supply is so much in the balance of fish auction, it’s unbelievably cheap!  If you want to knock yourself out with the fatty tuna belly “Toro”, now is the time!!!   So we came to Tomari fish market in Naha.     I think you can get bluefin tuna […]

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BBQ Sous Vide Pork Chops

As Japan is having the national holiday week “Golden Week”, it’s time to BBQ!!!   It has been a year since I bought Weber Baby Q grill and Anova Sous Vide.  I’ve been learning and experimenting with these toys.  It’s very fortunate I have friends who want to pay to come for my cooking, so I can play some more.   Sous Vide Pork Chop, 62C for 1 hour   (The picture was taken some other time and it was set at 70C) Sous Vide machine circulates the water and keeps it at exact temperature you set.  While other cooking methods apply high heat like 200C to the outside until the […]

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My Pop-Up Fish Restaurant

A lot of people believe that Okinawa has no good fish. So did I. But when I started fishing in the deep off shore here, I quickly learned that the fish that this ocean can offer is amazing!  There’s cold, mineral-rich deepsea current flowing through the area and I catch some gorgeous fish.  They are very expensive fish if purchased. Now I decided to share it with fish lovers in a pop-up restaurant style with a help of cafe Miyabi Chaya in Okinawa-shi. The restaurant will really pop up. I usually go fishing on Wednesday. Once or twice a month.  I will make the announcement on facebook ‘Full of Okinawa’ on Thursday. The […]

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We have Sous Vide now!

Sous Vide came to our kitchen! I stumbled on the idea of sous vide cooking a while ago.  After some research, I figured this is a way to go.  And here it is. Anova Precision Cooker The idea is to bag the food in a zip lock, air sealed, and cook in a water with a controlled temperature.  Every other cooking basically gives high heat like, 200C or more to the surface until the internal temperature reaches a desired temperature, like 60C.  It takes skills and experience to know the right timing, which is hard to acquire for home chef.  But with Sous Vide, you set the goal temperature and […]

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Travel Blog

Kyushu Trip Part 3: Fujimoto Onsen

      Ryokan Fujimoto, Aso Onsen We arrived at our second lodge.  Our most favorite Onsen, Fujimoto. Ryokan Fujimoto     Fujimoto has only 8 rooms.  It’s a small ryokan.  That’s one of the reasons we like about it.  Kurokawa Onsen is a great place with lots of different Onsen spas and the whole village itself is like a heritage.  But sometimes it can be too much tourism. Fujimoto is always private.  You go bathe in the onsen for so many times and hardly see or hear other people.   They recently renovate all their 8 rooms.   Very comfortable modern Japanese design.           We liked […]

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Kyushu Trip Part 2: Kurokawa Onsen

  Our first lodge was Ikoi Ryokan in Kurokawa Onsen, Kumamoto.  About 2-hour drive from Fukuoka.   Ikoi Ryokan, Kurokawa Onsen   Ikoi Ryokan is a pretty lodge with a dozen of onsen baths of different tastes. Ikoi Ryokan, Kurokawa Onsen   The arctic cold air mass was pushing down for the last time of the season.  It was getting chilly.  Just the way we would like it.  You don’t get this kind of chill in Okinawa.   Walking up the hill to one of private onsen baths.   All the onsen baths here are flow-through.  The onsen spring source is at 68C degrees and they let the water flow through […]

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Kyushu Trip Part 1: Fukuoka

  It was March.  We had the craving again to go to a cold place and bathe in onsen. I grabbed a sales with Peach Aviation and got a JPY12000 round trip to Fukuoka.   Arrived in the morning.  We hurried to our favorite breakfast.   Uogashi, Fukuoka   Uogashi is located in Nagahama Fish Market Building.   This place is a high-class restaurant for expensive dinner.  But they provide very cheap, super fish plate for breakfast and lunch.   Saba (mackerel) sashimi and teri braized Mackerel.  This is JPY1080.   Goma Saba.  This is Fukuoka special.  Mackerel sashimi with sesami powder with sweet Kyushu soy sauce.   This is light-roasted Sardine on […]

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Hawaii Big Island | East Coast

We finally came down to our final episode of our vacation on the west coast. Kona district, the dry, sunny side of the island. It’s amazing the big island has all the climates. From this sunny dry heat of the West, wet jungle of the East, cool grassy area of the North, and freezing high land of the Middle.     Seafood Bar and Grill, Kawaihae   This is a restaurant that the ranch owner recommended us. He described it as “not a fancy restaurant, but good food that locals love.”  That sounds like what we were wanting to hear.  But we were not really hungry, so we just dropped […]

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