Service: excellent and very friendly
Facilities: great washroom, great cleanliness overall
Prices: reasonable, good value.
Strong points: Interesting wine list. Great use of local products.
entirely non-smoking!
This superb dish conceived by Chef Tooru Arima at Pissenlit in Shizuoka City has a history I actively contributed to!
To make a long story short I spent this morning high in the mountains in Hirano picking the first tea of the year in the fields of Marufuku Tea Factory (details at the end of this article) and I was really starving when I came back downtown at noon. I decided to visit Pissenlit as I had a couple of ideas in mind!
I did enjoy a full meal before and after the main dish but allow me to concentrate on the latter as it is a true Shizuoka Gastronomic experience!
First the beef is fillet of local Suruga Beef raised in Aoi Ku, Shizuoka City. It was prepared as a classic French steak with Madeira sauce!
Except for the tea leaves the vegetables come from Hirokawa Organic Garden in Mishima City.
As usual Mr. Arima steamed them to perfection preserving their taste, flavor and crispiness!
Marufuku Tea Factory Organic Tea Fields in Hirano, Aoi Ku, Shizuoka City!
Mr. Bunji Itoh grows among others two varieties of green tea organically in altitude (over 800 m.!) up in the mountains of Hirano, Aoi Ku, Shizuoka City near the source of the Abe River.
I joined him and his daughter, Asami, to pick up the first leaves of the year (Ichi ban cha)!
While workers were busy cutting the rest of the fields I was invited to hand-pick my own new tea leaves, a great honor if there is one!
I knew how to choose and pick the tender tips like the one shown above.
I found myself with a whole bunch of them. By bunch I mean a bag full of them!
The ideal idea came to my mind (sometimes my brain works in the right direction…): I brought them to Mr. Arima at Pissenlit who was more than glad to obtain the first leaves of the year of authentic organic tea from his own city. There are all kinds of ways that a great chef can accommodate them but probably the best one is tempura!
Tender new tea leaves as tempura is not only a gastronomic experience but you can imagine how difficult it is to get the opportunity to taste such a delicacy reserved to the first day of the first crop of the year!
I very much doubt you can be served it even in the best restaurant in Tokyo!
What’s going to be next…? I already have a clear idea! LOL
PISSENLIT
420-0839 Shizuoka City, Aoi Ku, Takajo, 2-3-4
Tel.: 054-270-8768
Fax: 054-627-3868
Business hours: 11:30~14:30; 17:00~22:00
Closed on Tuesdays and Sunday evening
Homepage (Japanese)
Credit Cards OK
Marufuku Seishya Co. Ltd. (Mr. Bunji Itoh)
Shizuoka Shi, Aoi Ku, Wakamatsu Cho, 25
Tel.: 054-271-2011
Fax: 054-271-2010
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Robert-Gilles, thank you so much for this detailed explanation and the link. I find the article about tea an excellent idea! I feel you will beat wikipedia 1000 times 🙂 I am looking forward to read it!
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Brrr. a lot of work in perspective! LOL
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Green tea tempura sounds like a dream… You are so lucky! I can’t even taste a decent good tea (the last one I bought the most expensive Japanese tea available it was full of stems and my Japanese cookery bible says it should contain only leaves…), not to mention the first tea of the year!
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This was “ara-cha/coarse tea” which does incclude the soft stems of the leaves!
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It was only written gyokuro and I believed my book claiming that gyokuro is only leaves. Although I don’t regret buying it. It is much better than the sencha I usually buy. Thank you for the explanation! One lives and learns!
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Dear Sissi!
玉露/gyokuro is in fact “jewel dew”, but it tends to be a misnomer these
days.
It is indeed supposed to be the best tea. Sorry for the vagueness of my
reply.
Now there are a lot of classifications!
Please check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_tea as this is basically
correct!
Even in Shizuoka which produces more than 45% of the green tea in Japan (Tea
was first grown there as well as black tea!), you must include quite a few
tea trees hybrids as well as regional names!
But saying that bancha is the lowest grade is also a misnomer as bancha in
Shizuoka is comparatively extravagant!
It might be time I run an informative article!LOL
Best regards,
Robert-Gilles
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