Visiting Kobe

Kobe, one and a half million inhabitants, is the calm capital of the Japanese prefecture of Hyogo, which is part of the Kansai macro-region. You can get there from the international airport of Osaka. Kobe is about one hour’s drive from Osaka and 23 minutes by Shinkansen, the Japanese high-speed train. To cover the Kobe-Tokyo route, around 550 km, you need just 2 and a half hours

The Hyogo prefecture – divided into the 4 provinces of Settsu (Kobe), Harima, Tamba and Tajima – unites two coasts: the Sea of Japan and the Seto Sea in the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its symbol is the Himeji castle, a Unesco World Heritage site built in 1601. In a few weeks’ time, cherry trees will blossom all around it, a much-awaited sight (photo by dronestagr.am)

The fame of Kobe grew in 1868 when the port was opened, which today dialogues with 500 ports in 130 countries across the world. It’s a popular stop for cruises. Kobe is an important centre for heavy industry and steel: among others, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi and Toshiba (photo by seanews)

One of the most lively culinary spots in Kobe is underground, inside the Sogo shopping centre. Dozens of very well finished stands with all sorts of culinary products. First of all, patisserie and chocolaterie shops, a perfect copy of the French model

Bread is an important symbol of Kobe’s gastronomy, for locals and expats, around 40K residents coming from all around the world

Macarons are very popular in posh Kobe

Let’s move to the marvels of authentic Japanese gastronomy: also underneath the Sogo shopping centre, drapes of fabric with ideograms hide the entrance to small family-run restaurants, like this teppanyiaki. A total of four tables, each with a griddle, on which you can cook all sorts of things. In our case, soba meshi (fried noodles with meat) and okonomiyaki, a sort of omelette. Fine sweaters are forbidden

A lively Chinatown appears in the centre of Kobe. There are strong trade ties between the Japanese city and the Chinese island (with irredentist aspirations) of Taiwan

Restaurant Matsunoya was reborn in a new location. We wrote about it in this article

At Matsunoya the kaiseki menu ends with matcha tea blended a few seconds with bamboo canes, a very popular dish

We’re welcomed in the headquarters of the Hyogo prefecture by the governor himself, Mr Toshizo Ido (in the photo, to the right). «We wanted to thank you also for our formidable experience at Expo», he said

Vases of tulips in the garden of the residence of Hyogo’s governor

Where to buy cooking knives in Kobe? At Kireaji-no-le, on the Moto manchi dori, a popular shopping street

With the multi-awarded butcher’s Moriya, we move to the symbol thanks to which the port city is famous worldwide: Kobe meat. Made with purebred Tajima calves, raised for two years in the farms in Hyogo. We wrote about its marbling features on various occasions during Expo. What we didn’t know is that until 1868, when the port of Kobe was opened, no one in town ate meat. It was the British who taught them the art of butchering. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to visit any breeding farm. The official reason? «You’d need to stay in Kobe at least 80 days», the spokesmen at Jetro Kobe said, «only then your bacterial composition will no longer be harmful to our cattle»

Kobe meat is served in 37 establishments in town (and 300 across Japan). Where to go? Kobe Plaisir, at 2-11-5 on Shimoyamate, in the Chuo-ku neighbourhood

The blackboard with the menu at restaurant Kobe Plaisir, a hymn to the most yearned for meat in the world

The chef working at the teppanyiaki, the spectacular grill at Kobe Plaisir

On his tray, two marvellous Kobe beef entrecôtes. Seared on the side, red inside, they melt in the palate

Asking for a Kobe steak tartare is impossible: they’re forbidden

The guy will also grill onions, mushrooms, aubergines and beetroots

The tour begins far from Kobe, looking for other delicacies from the Hyogo prefecture. We start with miso produced by centennial firm Rokko in Ashya. If you say miso in Italy, you think about just one product. Yet just like there’s no such thing as “one beer” or “one wine”, we need to learn to use the plural for a word usually and naively used in the singular form in the west. There are infinite types of miso, depending on the processing techniques (with the rice boiled in water or steamed), the type of ingredients (rice, but also rye or wheat, to which they then add the cooked black soy beans) and the duration of the fermentation

When cooking, the use of miso is not limited, as we believe in Italy, to the soup opening the meal (or at the end of a marathon: athletes drink it immediately to loosen the muscles hardened by kilometres of running): Japanese culinary literature abounds with marinated meat and fish and desserts

The miso to-be is left to ferment for two years, pressed by large stones, under the floors at Rokko. These varieties of miso are precious because they are much less salty than their cheaper versions

Asakuro sansho (pepper), preserved in spirit. It’s one of the most interesting products we’ve come across in the prefecture of Hyogo: we tried it in the inland of Yabu, near a popular skiing track. Also known as the “green diamond”, its raw fruit has a strong citrus note that pleasantly anesthetises the tongue for a few minutes

Asakuro pepper is harvested on the last week of May, when all the families in Yabu and the surroundings – including the elderly – shake 5,500 small tries, swept by a frenetic energy. Longino & Cardenal are about to import it to Italy. We can already bet it will rapidly spread in signature menus

Beef from Tajima with Asakuro pepper with soy and red wine sauce. Behind, crispy vegetables. We were served this at restaurant La Riviere in Yabu

A formidable trio of crème brûlées, also at restaurant La Riviere. The dessert is only seemingly orthodox as every small cup is driven by a special aromatisation: left to right, matcha tea, Asakuro pepper and ginger

The media go wild with the Italian guests at restaurant La Riviere….

…even the mayor of Yabu is there to welcome us…

…and the results arrive the following day: with the author of this piece there were also Felice Lo Basso, chef at restaurant Unico in Milan and Riccardo Uleri, CEO at Longino & Cardenal

Evening intermission: vegetables…

… and meat, to be grilled on the teppanyiaki, of course

Next stop: we discover the precious black soy beans (tambaguro) from the province of Tamba (guro=beans). In the photo, the entrance to Odagakishouten in Sasayama, a company founded 180 years ago

Black soy beans have been cultivated for over 400 years. Sewing starts in June; one hundred days later, from mid November to March, they pick the pods: in November, a small part is to be used as edamame (the beans we often find at the beginning of a meal in a Japanese restaurant), a large part will end in the factory we’re about to visit

The most interesting step in the process takes place on the floor above: on 5 round tables, teams of 6 workers each examine the picked and dried beans, one by one. They must discard those that are not round or are bearing insect punctures. «Good black beans make a sweet sound when they bounce on the table», they explain. They’re the ones to end in the final processing. Absolute quality

Black soy beans are sold au naturel, steamed, caramelised or roasted

Tea and flour used for desserts, such as the black soy ice cream (to the left), can be made from black soy beans

At Harima, inside the Ibonoito museum, we move to another great traditional product from Hyogo: somen pasta. Made with white flour, pristine water from the river Ibo and salt from Ako, it has a 600-year long tradition. Premium somen is sold in bundles and wrapped with a band in the middle, which changes colour depending on the diameter

For a long time, somen was hand rolled with complex looms, like fabric. Today the technique is updated with sophisticated machines

Somen magic, pasta with a strong elastic texture

Japanese pasta (kanmen) is a rather varied group: on top of somen (photo) we have the popular ramen (wheat flour, water, salt and kansui, that is to say alkaline mineral water), udon (white flour, water and salt but thicker than somen and with a strong texture), soba (buckwheat flour and white flour mixed with hot or cold water, with a medium diameter) and chasoba (in the photo, same technique as soba but with green tea in the dough)

Chasoba: soba with matcha tea in the dough

Felice Lo Basso tests himself with the art of somen

Somen is cooked in boiling water for two minutes (even less, if the diameter is smaller) and will give birth to a wide series of dishes, from salads to desserts. The best tasted? Somen dipped in hot duck broth. But it’s also great in cold soups in the summer

Of all the products in the Hyogo basket, we found the onions from Awaji, an island south of Kobe, to be delicious. Harvested, dried, hanged and cooled, they have an unusually sweet taste

With the last stop, we discover in detail the production process of the most famous Japanese emblem: saké. We return to Kobe, in the headquarters of Hakutsuru, the world-leading brand, a company founded in 1743 with a revenue of 34 billion yen (276 million euros)

A nice museum, on multiple floors, illustrates the history of saké and all the steps in its production. The first step is the cleaning (senmai): rice is washed after the harvest

The clean rice is then separated according to its use, and put to cool in barrels, lifted up with a rope

The museum shows all the steps and the tools used for distilling, filtering, skimming, pasteurising up to the final pouring into the casks made with cedar wood from Yoshino

The picturesque saké casks

The most precious saké? Junmai Dai Ginjo, in the picture. Made with Yamada Nishiki rice (the formula one of saké rice), then blanched (by hand) so as to reduce its volume to a record 38%, it is then fermented at a lower temperature. Only 300 pieces are produced every year. It’s sold for 80 euros in Japan, up to 400 euros abroad

Kobe by night