Afterwards, we took the train to Osaka, so we can take another train to Sannomiya: the heart of Kobe city. And of course, our first stop was to find a Kobe Beef restaurant.
It took us a while to find the recommended restaurant, for there were two of them with the same names. Once we arrived, it was full, so we made a reservation for 30 minutes later and proceeded to head to a Tokyo Hands store to wait hungrily.
We came back and were prompted to our seats, which was set up in a bar like fashion in front of the "stainless steel countertop stove" or whatever it's called. We were eagerly awaiting or meal.
It started off with a, I believe if I heard our waitress correctly, a roast Kobe Beef appetizer. It was delicately seasoned with what seemed like a soy based sauce. Perhaps I was highly expecting s delight meal meal, thus making me biased, but the appetizer was absolutely delicious. After the appetizer, our chef came out with salads and brought out the 4 slabs of Kobe Beef.
As we munched on the lightly dressed, but highly tasty salad, the chef started to cook the beef. We all wanted it rare, so he cooked two slices at a time and served a quarter of each one to all of us. It was like a show when he cooked as we saw him masterfully handled the knife and spatula-like device (let's just call it a spatula). He cut the slices of beef into equal slices and served us. Before we ate, he would explain to us what the recommended way was to season our meat (and later our vegetables) with the 4 types of I was most impressed as he scooped up the excess meat juice with the spatula. Between slices of beef, we had our vegetables cooked for us. Once again, it was quite delightful. Finally, we had a fried rice dish, along with some sort of... Beef broth miso soup? Finally, a tasty sorbet and coffee to finish a wonderful meal. It was my most expensive meal to date, but the amount of time that it took to eat (the entire process from the first appetizer till the coffee took around an hour) was definitely worth the price. It also gave me some pride in our Alberta beef, in that our beef is somewhat similar in terms of taste. Definitely not the marbling of fat, but general taste.
After a fulfilling meal, we walked to the Chinatown. It was fairly large and had lots of interesting scenery. I found myself the grape drink that I saw on YouTube: a drink with pieces of grape inside.
We then travelled to harbour land. The scenery was pleasant and there were quite a few shops around the place. We didn't spend a lot of time there, so we headed back to Kyoto to eat dinner at s buffet place before heading back to our hotel.
Tis the events of day 12! Off to Himeji tomorrow!
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