When you come to Okinawa, eat pork.

When you come to Okinawa, eat pork.  Forget beef (unless you know that the restaurant has good beef.)  Located in the city of Nago at the end of Okinawa highway is Manmi, the best place for Okinawa pork.   Manmi is the pork specialist.   The restaurant is like an old traditional house.  Very homy atomosphere. Each table can have little charcoal grill on it with powerful ventilation duct.  It’s Yaki-Niku, a Japanese grill-your-own-meat style of BBQ.   Meat Assorts for 4 people. As far as I can remember, loin, rib, fillet, throat, heart, neck, and breast.  Such varieties.  So beautiful. My favorite is breast.  It’s sitting in the front in the picture.  As you […]

Read More

Possibly the best espresso in Okinawa

This coffee was a wonderful surprise for me. I know a few coffee places in Okinawa I like.  But basically I’ve given up to just bump into a good coffee in Okinawa.  There is a guy in Onna village who I always buy my coffee beans from.  He roasts with firewoods organic coffee beans.  I think his coffee is the best I can get on the island so I always carry around my coffee, and I don’t expect much from outside coffee. So when I bumped into this place today, it was a big WOW!   Located in one of the most popular shopping malls in Okinawa, American Village in Chatan. […]

Read More

Spicy Curry Udon

Sans Souci is definitely one of the most successful cafe in Okinawa. It’s 11:30 am, Wednesday. Already crowded and 5 parties were waiting when we got there.   It’s a restaurant in an American style house. Hybrid food and sweets of Kyoto traditions and Okinawa goodies.   Wanna have spicy rich Udon? Light traditional Udon? Wanna have some Donburi (rice bowl) too… Can’t decide.   She decided to go light. Japanese traditional broth Udon with Kujo Negi (Kyoto green onions), plum, and local chicken.  JPY850 Very refreshing. This is the way to taste the high quality Japanese broth here.   I had spicy curry Udon with egg.  JPY900 This is something […]

Read More

Fish Party

Invited my friends over and got a fish party.   I caught some fish to cook.   Cold smoked Amberjack. I made this about 3 months ago, kept it frozen, but still it was in an excellent sashimi quality. Because the moisture is absorbed in the process of smoking, it didn’t lose much quality in freezing and defrosting. This was a super cool discovery!   This was a beautiful salad with Japanese Large-Eyed Bream.  The fish was soaked in 2% salt water with a little bit of sake for 30 minutes and then semi-dried by Pichitto! over night.  This was a very tasty fish. Seasoned with olive oil, salt, citrus juice, and […]

Read More

Napoli pizza meets Okinawa goodies

We had a new restaurant opened this spring in the beautiful Maeda cape.  Pezzeria da Enzo is a fancy restaurant which serves Napoli pizza and other Italian cuisine. We happened to have some friends working there and it was great to visit for our first time.   Very spacious and stylish room with full bar.   A nice open deck area which looks out the beautiful Maeda Cape.  It is a very popular diving spot for “Blue Cave”.   A serious Italian pizza stove, an Italian chef, in somewhat Japanese attitude.  A very nice guy.   Not just pizza, they have some Italian dishes with local goodies too. They use Okinawa brand pork “Agu” with […]

Read More

Yaki Gyoza – pan-fried dumplings –

Yaki Gyoza (pan-fried dumplings) is, of course, originated in China.  But it has become one of the most popular dishes in Japanese home cooking.  Most of Ramen restaurants have it in the menu too. Have meat and vegetables all chopped up to make the filling.  Take a spoonful of filling on the round flatted dough, wrap up and close it by pressing the edges together with wet fingers.  Pan-fry dumplings with sesami oil.  Just one side.  Inside the dough, all the moisture and juice come out from the ingredients and all mix together to get a little hot pot cooking in each dumplings.  Then you add some water into the pan, just about enough to […]

Read More

Okinawan Fish ‘n’ Chips

Maru Tama opened in 2014 in the port area of Naha. It’s run by a lovely family.  Very nice people. Okinawa has its own style of deep-fried finger food.  It’s called Tenpura here, but Okinawa Tenpura is pretty different from Japanese traditional tenpura.  It’s really like a fritter.  And it has established its popularity for local people as afternoon snack. Now they are taking on the challenge to provide their fish ‘n’ chips that they learned in New Zealand.   They report where every ingredients come from.   They are some other fries too.  Oysters, JPY300. Camembert, JPY900.  Avocade, JPY300.  Goya (Bitter gourd), JPY200.  Okura, JPY200.  Loofah and cheese, JPY250.   Fish […]

Read More

Shio ramen at Awase 3rd St. Ramen

Awase 3rd St. Ramen is a very simple, yet, very unique Ramen restaurant.  Located in the coast line of Awase, Okinawa-shi.   They are playing Jazz. Try shio (salt) Ramen here.  JPY650.  The clear soup is from pork bones, chicken bones, and vegetables.  It’s light, but the body is solid and filled with flavors and umami.  Very heart-warming sips. The noodle is light and curled, a good match with the soup. Chashu is lightly seasoned, but it’s very juicy and tasty. It’s topped with “A-sa”, okinawa local seaweed.  It’s very unique to have this seaweed on Ramen.  Some people like it and some don’t.  We like the oceanic scent that it […]

Read More

Kino Store

In the middle of sugar cane field of Ginoza village is a little cozy sweets shop.  As we live in this rural village, Kino Store is a precious relief for our craving for sweets.   All the ingredients are carefully selected and prepared.  It’s just one of those foods that you feel the tender loving care of someone who makes them. They are mostly baked cakes and cookies.  Nothing fancy.  But they have solid fans.  They usually sell out in the late afternoon.   Today’s target was their famous Lemon Cake.  JPY150.   Restaurant Info   kino store    

Read More