Taking a break from my Japan trip blogging so I can write down all my thoughts from my recent visit to The Pine in Creemore, Ontario – a one Michelin star restaurant serving contemporary Chinese cuisine using local ingredients. They broke the top 20 on a list of Canada's top 100 restaurants this year, too.

But I mostly wanted to visit because a) is close-ish to the farm, and b) a local food reviewer(?) (he's a guy who posts reviews of all the restaurants he visits and his palate is either super aligned to mine, or I've just been following his recs for so long that I tuned my palate to match his) posted a rave review of the place. And I guess I'm also a huge fan of local ingredients in Chinese cuisine!

I managed to get a reservation for August 1st, which means we went for our one year wedding(?) anniversary (is it a wedding anniversary if we didn't have a wedding and only got married?) and/or our 16th “being together” anniversary. It's always nice to have a reason to go to a nice restaurant!

Other people on the internet can probably give a better description of the place than me, so I will leave it to others to do so. I'm simply going to start with the experience I had, beginning with entering the building.

We were the last group of our seating time to arrive, which was also the last seating of the day. We were put at a round table that probably could have fit 4 people but was set for our group of 2, facing the open kitchen prep area. One of the servers commented that I had a really nice camera with me, and even brought a stool over for me to put it on while not in use! There were hooks for purses, but she brought the stool since it'd be better to not have the camera bang around on a wall (for both the camera and the wall, lol).

We were offered still or sparkling water, and as a complete sucker for fizzy water nowadays, I opted for sparkling. I asked if taking photos was okay, and this server said it'd be totally fine and even checked that I was already brought a stool, which made me feel better about it. It only had about 6-7 other groups of 2-3, so I felt pretty self-conscious with a whole-ass camera with me (it's a me thing, nothing about them – I feel awkward taking photos even in busy restaurants. I'm not cut out to be an influencer, lol).

They started the evening off with a complimentary glass of local sparkling wine, and I had one from Westcott Vineyards. They also offered a non-alcoholic sparkling, which Keelan had.

(I'll be honest, I have no recollection of what this was except it was the non-alcoholic sparkling).

When we were chatting with one of the servers later in the evening, we found out that 90% of their clientele drives up from Toronto and then drives back the same night, so that would probably be why they offered non-alcoholic versions. In fact, they even offer non-alcoholic pairings, which Keelan also had. I had the local Ontario wine pairings, since I like Ontario wines just fine, and I didn't think international wines were worth the extra $50. If I were the kind of person who didn't like Ontario wines, maybe it'd be a better prospect.

Once they took our beverage order, they started serving the food. We were told that it would be 20(!) courses long and it sure was. I do not remember everything that they told us about the courses, and wish I took notes or something, because I also want to steal their ideas for my own cooking! (I am not anywhere close to executing on their level though lol).

The first was the “Beijing Rosette” and the only thing I remember about it is the duck confit puree, which was excellent. The green rosette was very crispy and I'm pretty sure it was made with some sort of green that's in season, but I would not be able to tell you which one. When serving this, as well as all the other dishes that didn't require utensils, they told us how many bites was recommended, and this was 2-3. I maybe did 4-5 bites because of how crisp it was – it shattered so much that I wanted smaller bites to keep it all in my mouth.

Next was one of their signature dishes – the tea egg. This was devilled egg style with a mustard and egg yolk filling. The white was flavoured with tsaoko (black cardamom), and the whole thing was topped with sturgeon caviar from the Atlantic. I loved this one and it's probably the most elegant tea egg I've ever eaten.

This was followed by the “No Boil Boiled Fish” which played on the Chinese dish that I love eating, “water boiled fish”. Also honestly could not tell you what this dish consisted of except the fish, which was a trout tartare. The flavours riffed on the traditional dish without being as spicy.

Then our wine/beverage pairings started coming out. The sommelier(?) (or otherwise the beverage pourer) told us that it'd be ~3 courses per pairing on average. I lamented the fact that I clearly wasn't drinking quickly enough, but they said that it's fine to go at whatever pace and that lots of people only have sips anyway.

My wines are mostly self-explanatory since I made a point of taking photos of the bottles and labels (and it was super nice that they placed a bottle on the table with the pairing!) but I'm not a huge fan of chardonnays. This one was actually quite nice and drinkable though – it's wild fermented so it had a lot of umami to cut the typical chardonnay qualities that I don't like!

For the non-alcoholic option, Keelan had a sumac-ade. He said it was oddly salty but he wasn't sure if it was because that's how sumac is or because of how they made it. Now that I'm writing this up, I wonder if the salt was an addition to add a savoury note to match the wine?

The next course was a rock crab rangoon. I believe the flowers here are phlox. I really loved the presentation on this one. I was also the weird one asking the server who cleared the dish, “do you know what kind of rock this is?” and when he was like “uh, no,” I followed up with, “is it local?”

It is, in fact, local, so Keelan and I suspect it it granite. Our server did tell us that the chef searched around the area for nice stable rocks for the wordplay/presentation! The other local rock could be limestone but it didn't look or feel like limestone would. Plus limestone would be an odd choice for food, since it dissolves in acids...

“Wuxi Lamb Ribs” was next, and I really liked this. The lamb was perfectly cooked – it's actually so hard to cook lamb well (or maybe I just have bad luck with finding it?), so I was really impressed. There were multiple sauces involved, but I don't remember any of it. I think one was some kind of molasses (but not actually molasses). However, I do remember that the flowers on top are Bachelor's Buttons.

These cute little rolls on crabs (which I said to the server, “I think I've seen these as fountain pen holders” because I'm a complete weirdo) are a little take on jianbing, hence the name “Good Morning Shanghai.” The chef apparently ate tons of these when he was in Shanghai. These were crispy, unlike the soft crepe that a traditional jianbing is, and it actually reminded me more of the crispy little roll cookies you can get at egg waffle places (the direct translation would be “egg roll” but that does not lead to the right places when searching the internet).

Anyway, these were filled with lobster and crab puree, hence the cute holders. I could eat a million of these – if someone were to mass-produce these as a snack, I would be there.

I don't have real recollection about this wine, so I suppose it was just a typical gamay. I can't remember if I've ever been to Malivoire but I've certainly had lots of their wines before.

Keelan started to get some de-alcoholized wines as his pairings. This one was apparently steam distilled.

This cute dish was called “Oyster and the Oyster Thief”. The little oyster shell was made with the oyster thief seaweed (which the internet actually tells me is an invasive species in Canada – I'm a fan of eating invasives as a control method). There is an oyster blade beef tartare. I think the puree on top was made with oyster mushrooms but don't quote me on that. It was a lovely oyster dish with no real oysters. Beef tartare is obviously more chewing than I would like for a real oyster but I really liked this one.

As a nod to Shanghai's French colonial past, and one of the restaurant's signature dishes, we have “The French Concession”. It's the only French dish on the menu, with a piece of sourdough toast topped with foie gras ice cream. I don't remember what berry puree is on top.

Another dish with playful plating and a play on words, “Hold Your Tongue”. It was a beef tongue croquette. I think the green puree was yet another in-season vegetable, but absolutely no recollection of what it was.

What I do remember, however, is our server clearing away the empty plate and saying, “let me give you a hand with that,” which was fantastic.

The next wine was a rose from Pearl Morissette, which recently ranked as top restaurant in Canada. They also have one Michelin star. I've never been to Pearl Morissette but would like to go! I don't have strong memories of this wine either, so it must've been fine or an otherwise typical expression.

The non-alcoholic option went back to a little rhubarb-y drink for Keelan. He said the straw was super weird – the bottom was actually a bulb with a bunch of holes in it, making it hard to drink when you got to the bottom.

The next dish was a cute take on “Prosperity Salad,” which is a Singaporean tradition for Chinese New Year. There was from the bottom going counter-clockwise, trout roe, watermelon radish, beets, idk, chrysanthemum greens, idk, maybe pickled cucumbers?, and flowering cauliflower. In the centre under the flowers was more trout.

We were provided a set of cutlery to do the mixing, and another to actually eat with, which was fun. But my favourite part was actually this:

Love this fish cutlery rest.

The next dish had different cutlery, and also different cutlery rests.

Mushrooms! We even got to choose. I picked the morel and Keelan picked the chanterelle. The server who had the box open for us to pick from was like, “you guys really know your mushrooms,” since both Keelan and I had said out loud which mushroom we wanted before grabbing it. I don't recall what other mushrooms were available to pick, but they were all pretty distinctive edible mushrooms, so I'm more surprised that most other guests wouldn't know the mushrooms. But I guess I'm also the weird one who asks about rocks, so...

Anyway, onto the next wine pairing. I think this might be the first orange wine I've had? I've seen orange wines a lot more on wine lists and especially in the natural wine space recently. This one apparently is notable for the length of skin contact – apparently typical orange wines only have like 5 days of skin contact whereas this one is over 200.

I recall telling Keelan that this wine was surprisingly tannic, not in flavour necessarily but in the way it stripped the tongue. But tannins come from the grape skins, so it's not actually that surprising.

I'm not sure how you would describe this but maybe as a wine replacement? Mock wine? Especially since it's using verjus.

The next three dishes were the dim sum course! This was the carrot jiaozi, so a carrot skin and carrot puree inside and a carrot sauce outside.

The red dumpling was called “Red Oil Handcopy” which we were told was a direct translation of the Chinese dish it's riffing on. I suspect it's 紅油抄手 which is wontons in chili oil.

The last one is a mushroom dumpling, hence the mushroom cutlery rest. It was filled with mushrooms and had a mushroom foam, reminiscent of cream of mushroom soup but less heavy.

Keelan said this course was his favourite.

After this course, we actually were asked to get up and come up to the kitchen where we had a little palate cleanser. The menu cards tell me it was called “Refresher”. It was a little white currant popsicle and was refreshing.

The next dish took place outside in their back garden, which was really cute! But that is why the photo is so garbage. The dish was a Digby scallop with a black garlic tamari, which was fermented in-house for 6 months. It was smoked in the shell, and the smoking setup was actually in the garden I believe. Except it was dark so I couldn't really see it or get a photo of anything it or anything else. The garden also had raised beds with some nasturtiums and herbs though!

But I really liked this! The scallop was very tender and the flavours worked really well. I also thought this was a nice interlude. It forced us to get up and stretch our legs for just a little bit, and enjoy the outdoors since we've had some nice summer weather too. The server chatted with each of the three groups for a little bit before we were ushered back inside (this is when we learned about most people coming from Toronto).

The next wine was a Riesling from Cave Springs, and I love Cave Springs Rieslings, so I was excited when I saw the bottle. It was a 2015, so a 10 year old wine. Our beverage server said they wanted to highlight the age-ability of Ontario wines. Personally I just drink things as we get them in the mail, since we're part of two wine clubs... but I did like this one. It was richer than the Rieslings I usually associate with Niagara (or maybe it's just the ones I gravitate to and thus buy), which are bright with lots of acidity and minerality. This felt heavier on the tongue and lingered.

The non-alcoholic beverage was another de-alcoholized wine, this time a pinot noir.

This next dish was called “La Zi” on the menu cards but I'm really not sure how it ties into the dish I'd associate with that name, la zi ji which is spicy chicken (both the translation and what it is). This wasn't really spicy at all! It was beautifully cooked trout though, with a braised pattypan squash. There were multiple sauces in the middle, one of which was apparently pawpaw based.

Now that we're in the “mains” territory, I guess we have one wine per course. This obviously has a really cool bottle. I've been to Stratus, and they do some really great wine. This was a Cabernet Franc that I honestly couldn't tell you anything about. But I like cab francs and I like Stratus, and so I probably was predisposed to liking this wine already. I'm assuming it was a typical expression of a cab franc.

Keelan had another de-alcoholized wine.

The red wines were there to stand up to the char siu here. This was a veal char siu, made with rose wine I believe? The nasturtiums garnish was from their back garden, and they encouraged us to eat it. The mustard circle is where they painstakingly spooned the sauce in, one spoonful at a time, from a copper measuring cup.

After they finished that, Keelan asked our server, “do you ever just wanna... [pouring motion]?” which she laughed at. She said yes, and that they went through multiple spoon iterations and this one that they landed on is the most aesthetic, but has the least capacity! I certainly admire their commitment to the experience.

Anyway, this was probably my least favourite of the whole meal, which is unfortunate because I think they intend it to be their star course. The round portion at the right was oddly mushy for me. The square portion was a better texture but I was already put off from the round bit that I don't think I enjoyed it as much. The flavour was great but I couldn't get past the mushiness.

Now we were into the dessert courses, and with that, a sparkling rose. I don't recall anything about this wine either, but I do remember thinking this was a decent wine for something out of Prince Edward County (we visited some years ago and were not impressed with the wines there). The orange wine is also from PEC so I guess they've improved over the years!

Keelan also got a bubbly option – this was his final pairing.

The first dessert was a riff on douhua (or I know it more as toufu fa), and they called it “Tofu Flower” in another direct translation. We had a tofu jelly(?) on the left with a soy milk sorbet on the right. They were both dotted with haskap puree and with a rhubarb ginger syrup to round it out.

I am not actually a fan of tofu in the slightest, but I actually liked this. The tofu pudding(?) or whatever you'd call it had a panna cotta texture to it. It definitely wasn't a typical douhua, which is just freshly made soft tofu. The soy milk sorbet tasted super fresh, and I think that helped me get over the soy-ness, which is what I don't like about tofu and soy milk. If I recall correctly, they made these all with local soybeans.

My final wine pairing was a late harvest Riesling. As mentioned before, I love Cave Springs Rieslings, so I liked this. I also definitely prefer late harvests to ice wine, because ice wine is just way too sweet and syrupy for me.

Their “HKFT 6.0” – the 6th iteration of their Hong Kong French toast – was very very good. A deep fried milk bread coated in egg, as all HK French toasts should be, served with caramelized condensed milk and shaved salted egg yolk. They also poured over a smoked milk, which they suggested we drink like cereal milk after eating the French toast.

My one comment on this is that I expected a filling, potentially a salted duck egg custard, like most HK French toasts, but there was none! I get that it'd probably be too rich and also it'd be hard to get the balance right in something of this size, but it stuck out to me.

Finally, into the last desserts of the night, or the “Tianshi” course. This was a sable with a sweet pea ice cream.

Some “timbits”! We joked with the server that it's “local” cuisine where you drive down to the nearest Tim Horton's and pick up a 6 pack. These were actually a corn fritter coated in five spice sugar. Their five spice is very cardamom forward.

Finally, more rocks! Well, actually tuiles. I do not recall what made these tuiles special. I enjoyed eating it. But I think I enjoyed the timbits more.

Anyway, that rounds out the many courses we had at The Pine! In terms of final comments, I think it was a lovely experience but I wasn't prepared for it to be 3 hours long. That's on me more than anything.

The service was outstanding, and everyone was very knowledgeable and friendly. It wasn't a snobby affair, either – the vibe was casual while still being professional. But they let their personality as a restaurant shine, and I really liked that. And I think it was just well suited to me as a person.

People always talk about “authenticity”, and I think The Pine has it. They're out here making good food (stellar food) and having a good time doing it, and it doesn't feel like a place that's chasing stars or “best of” lists. They can get the star and onto the lists because they're good at what they do.

At least that's the impression I got.

I will say that the miss with the char siu felt extra disappointing, mostly because it should have been a star of the meal. I think it also is slightly because of the price point at over $200 per person just for the food, especially comparing to the one Michelin star restaurant we went to in Nara on our trip (which I still need to write about). I think they were vastly different types of experiences but there were no misses there, and it was less pricy (even accounting for the depressed yen at the moment).

Some more pictures available in my album here but honestly not much that wasn't included in this post.

Meant to post this before I went camping but didn't, whoops! So here it is, almost a month later. Which is actually pretty good, considering I'm at like 8 months past my Japan trip without having blogged about 90% of it...

#food #photos #restaurant

Since we were jet lagged and slept in a parking lot, it's no surprise that we woke up at 3 AM. We lay in the camper trying to go back to sleep for a while, but eventually made the decision to get up and all that jazz, especially since the service area is open 24h.

The washrooms were super clean, and even had indicators for which stalls were taken, and if they were sit or squat toilets! I know it's so minor, but doing a whole trip in a camper made me really appreciate nice toilet facilities (of which there were many in Japan – I can only think of maybe one or two washrooms that were questionable, and they were still nicer than some I've been to in Toronto.)

Anyway, we got a hot meal of gyuudon. Keelan had one with onsen tamago while I got a grilled salmon with mine. A hot meal after all that travel and poor sleep was super satisfying. We did some wandering around after eating, including buying some coffee and tea from the vending machines.

The cups were also super cute!

By this point in time, it was around 6 AM, which is not a great time to be awake, but no longer obscenely early. But the most unfortunate thing is that places don't seem to open until 10 AM in Japan!!

We took our sweet time driving out to the Gotemba Premium Outlet area and still got there super early. And Google Maps took us on some weird side roads. We eventually decided to go to yet another Service Area (Ashigara), since they had a dog park and a little grassy walking area!

You can see our camper behind the red motorcycle.

It was a bit overcast and dreary, but it was super nice to do a little walk. The leaves were starting to turn in this part of Japan too!

We didn't end up going into the dog park (and there was no one in it anyway) but it was nice for all of us to stretch our legs.

Keelan and I had second breakfast at the Starbucks. He had a sausage roll, a cinnamon bun, and another coffee. I had another matcha latte and an Aomori apple pie with custard. (I didn't take notes on this so I'm just going off my memory and the photos! Don't fail me now, brain...)

I also managed to do all the ordering for this in Japanese, which helped build my confidence more. I mean, Starbucks is probably one of the easier places for an international traveler (in any country!) but it was nice for me haha.

In case you're wondering what Koharu did as we ate, the answer is “sleep in the camper”.

After this, we ended drove to the SWEN outdoor store in Gotemba and spent an hour in there, picking up various supplies we thought we'd need. (We also spent like half an hour in their parking lot waiting for them to open and reconfiguring our camper, now that it was light out and there was more room without tons of moving vehicles!).

In terms of stuff we bought, it was a fire pit (since most places in Japan don't have built-in fire pits, like campsites in Canada, and you obviously don't want open fires in random places), camping chopsticks, and a cute camping lantern. I think we also bought some small consumable stuff like butane canisters, charcoal, etc. But it was nice because we got most of it tax-free! They were set up to refund tax for tourists, which I was not expecting, but I guess Gotemba is a pretty major tourist area.

Once we did our shopping, we drove to the actual outlets, but specifically Hotel Clad for the onsen, Kotonoha no Yu. It was really nice!! We rented a private bath for one hour and I really liked it. Plus it was nice to slough off all that travel gunk finally.

Very relaxing and a lovely view, especially since it cleared up and was turning into a bright sunny day!

We could've eaten lunch there, but opted to keep going. Mostly because it was starting to get pretty toasty and we didn't want to leave the dog alone for that long. I don't think it would've been a concern, but I always joke that I'm the one with separation anxiety. I don't like being away from her for too long!

For our lunch, we went to a dog friendly restaurant (Hoto Labo) in the Fuji Five Lakes area that I had looked up in advance. I was really looking forward to it, since it's a local specialty and everything, but it was actually a really weird experience. We waited for a table and that was fine, but then when we were taken to our table, the person just kind of... dropped us off at the entrance and left? So we were standing there being like “uhhhh?” and then just opted to sit down at the table next to us, since it was empty. One of the other patrons asked me if we were supposed to be there, lol.

Eventually they came back with water and then pointed to an iPad for us to do the ordering. At least ordering was simple! And the food was tasty, too. We even ordered a little hoto meal for Koharu!

Even though she looks excited for it...

She did not even touch it lol.

My meal was pretty good though. I apparently didn't take a picture of Keelan's, whoops. The other customer who was originally like, “why are you here” asked me about Koharu and I asked about her shiba inu, and managed to not suck that much at Japanese.

But the entire experience was like... super strange. Because it was so quiet in the restaurant. Everyone was essentially couples with their dogs but no one was talking!! Just really odd and silent.

When I went to go pay, they asked me if I posted on social media, so I put up a couple pictures of Koharu not eating her food on Twitter and got a little discount lol.

Anyway, after that, we walked along the lakeside trail!

And as it is in the Fuji Five Lakes area, you could see Mt Fuji! It turned out to be a beautiful day and I think we were all happy to go for another walk and enjoy the weather.

Something that we only realized as we were driving out was that Mt Fuji was actually right behind us when we drove in. We didn't notice it at all until we were leaving though!

Anyway, our next stop was Fujisan Winery, and that was also a bit of a weird experience. The drive itself was beautiful – quiet little roads with forests and hills and some small buildings every once in a while. But the entrance to the winery was a totally sketchy dirt road that was overgrown and did not feel like the right place, except there was a sign that said “Fujisan Winery” pointing down it, so... off we went.

We did eventually get to the winery, though. We got out of the camper and were like, “okay now what” because there were multiple buildings but nothing was clearly marked, and there were some people doing a wedding(?) shoot (but maybe it was for PR purposes?). Some guys that looked like they worked there were like, “you here for the winery?” and when I was like, “yes, the winery” (because what else would you go there for?), they pointed me at a building. So in we went.

Also super weird because like. No one greeted us, even though there was someone at the counter polishing wine glasses. We browsed around and picked up two bottles of wine – one was a Pinot Noir and the other was a Japanese grape, the Koshu. I'll be honest in that I don't recall much from either of these bottles – we drank them during the trip and I didn't take notes on them, nor do I have particularly strong memories of them. So they were drinkable and inoffensive, which I personally think is the bare minimum for a bottle of wine. But that means I wouldn't go back, especially with the strange experience. When we went to purchase the wine, the person at the counter didn't notice us (or was ignoring us but giving them the benefit of the doubt here...) for a good minute or two.

So yeah.

Two odd experiences in the same day is not exactly the greatest start to a trip, but hey, at least they were mostly inoffensive!

Anyway, after we got out of that, we went to the Asagiri Kogen Michi no Eki to pick up food for dinner. Michi no Ekis are like a combo farmer's market/tourism office/road and rest stop – I really liked visiting them! We picked up some frozen food made for barbecueing, some breads for breakfasts, and other little things. Actually, when we went to check out, there was an issue with one of our items so our cashier had to call someone over, and then they had to figure out why something wasn't in the system and it was a whole thing. But eventually we managed to pay!

So once we had all that sorted out, we drove to our campsite, Fumotoppara. This is a pretty famous one because a) featured in YuruCamp, b) you can see Mt Fuji from it, and c) huge space for camping wherever you want. We arrived just before sunset and checked in without any issue, especially since I printed out the confirmation and could just hand it over. We paid with card, because we were told that rural areas don't take card ever, and so we wanted to save our cash for when we were there. However, as you will read when I finish writing about my trip, that was actually not the case and we ended up with a surplus of cash by the end of the trip.

We picked up some firewood from the on-site store, and then drove to our camp spot. Since the campground is “free” style, you can roll up to anywhere. We picked a quieter area near the edge, but still with a nice view of Mt Fuji and near a water station.

It was the first time we were setting up camp, but I think it went pretty smoothly. The camper rental came with a bunch of stuff, but one annoying part was how the awning was broken so we had to set up an external canopy thing if we wanted any rain coverage. Luckily, it was looking to be a completely clear night, so we didn't bother! We also had a little folding table, some camp chairs, and various tools like a burner and cutlery.

We also got to bust out our new fire pit, and the bonus is that we could burn all the cardboard and packaging right in it lol.

And of course, dinner was cooked over an open fire, since we could.

Koharu wanted to eat our dinner too.

Anyway, after eating dinner, we finished our bottle of wine (and I only know it was the Koshu because of this photo) and washed up. I remember when Keelan went to the washroom, there was a super weird car that drove around announcing “be careful of fire!” for like 15 min straight. I guess when you're that popular of a campsite, with so many people, you gotta really hammer it in?

Anyway, we went to bed pretty early since, y'know, awake since 3 AM. The metadata on this photo tells me it was taken around 7 PM, which I would believe. I'm pretty sure we fell asleep before 9 PM, haha.

I put most of my photos into this post, but there's a few additional ones in the album. I think I'll just be adding to this album as I write up posts!

#travel #japan2024 #photos

Back in November 2024, my husband and dog and I went on a trip to Japan, which we had originally planned on doing in 2020. Unfortunately, some things happened in 2020 that made it impossible to go, and we only managed to carve out time last year for it!

In 2020, I remember talking about my upcoming trip plans with coworkers at the end of February. They had asked if I was concerned about not being able to go – I flippantly remarked, “Well if I have to cancel my travel plans, there’s something really crazy happening in the world!”

…I guess I was really asking for it.

Anyway, I was wondering how to split out my trip report but I guess the tried and true chronological approach would work best. There’s a lot of pre-trip work that I had put into this too, so this might end up being more of a blog post on the logistics travelling with a dog to Japan, rather than anything about my trip itself!

So first of all, Japan is a rabies free country. As Canada is not a rabies free country, bringing a dog into Japan requires a lot of work before you will be enter without having to quarantine for 180 days. It’s all detailed on a government website so it’s not too difficult – it’s just time consuming.

Essentially, your dog must be microchipped, have a minimum of 2 rabies shots with at least 30 days between the two shots, do a rabies serological test from an approved laboratory, and then wait 180 days. During the waiting period, you must also fill in paperwork to submit to Animal Quarantine Services (AQS) and provide advance notice of your arrival, get paperwork from your own country’s export procedures, as well as everything else one does to go on a trip.

I thought everything was really clearly laid out and I didn’t have any trouble following the instructions. It’s certainly not cheap to do the serological testing though, especially since we had already paid for it in 2020… Contacting AQS with advance notification of my arrival was straightforward, and since you have to send paperwork ahead of time, it helped with catching any mistakes! I made a typo on one of my forms and they caught it before I had gotten it certified by my vet and the exporting agency here, so it also saved me potential re-work in correcting a certified document. I also booked my export appointment at the same time, since I also knew when I’d be leaving the country.

In terms of flying with a dog, we just had to call Air Canada and tell them we’d have a dog in cargo. Then you just show up to the check in counter and pay for the dog’s ticket on the day of departure! After that, it’s just a matter of getting the right crate, water bottle, and etc. Dogs typically must be crated when moving through airports, plus they need to be crated during the flight anyway.

We flew out of Toronto Pearson and got there around 9:30 am for our noonish flight. Check-in was pretty smooth, considering we had the dog with us, and the person who helped us was very helpful. She was friendly and I think she really enjoyed getting a dog onto our flight. It seemed like she always did international flights, so she mentioned that she didn’t often get a chance to deal with pets! There was a lot of paperwork to fill out, but it was all super simple compared to the paperwork I had already done for import/export procedures.

Once all the paperwork was done and our check-in agent had called down to get a loading person to take our dog, we wheeled her over to be x-rayed. Specifically, the crate and anything going with her went through the machine – Koharu stayed outside with us. Keelan actually forgot her treats, which apparently also needed to be x-rayed, so we were there for longer than necessary. But that was okay since by the time we were done and Koharu was loaded back into her crate, the porter was there to take her!

Honestly, I had a lot of anxiety watching her be wheeled away, but now that I’m on the other end of the trip, I know it wasn’t necessary. But watching someone take my dog away from me isn’t particularly easy!

The rest of the airport adventure was as normal as any other trip would be. Security was easy so we had lots of time before boarding. We got Starbucks and sat next to the gate. Keelan bought some sandwiches for the flight, but I didn’t actually end up eating mine until we got to Japan!

While we were waiting, they made announcements about how the flight was overbooked. I think they were offering to fly any volunteers to LA and then put you on the next flight out of LA to Tokyo. Obviously we couldn’t take it haha.

The flight itself was pretty smooth. We flew on Premium Economy and I really liked it. I would definitely do it again! It wasn’t that much more expensive but it’s a really nice experience. Keelan managed to see the farm from his window, which was pretty cool!

We were served a drink and snacks shortly after take off, and I appreciated getting a real glass with my wine. And it’s actually because of this flight that now I eat so many Twigz pretzels! It’s nice to see a Canadian company featured in Air Canada haha.

Dinner was served pretty early – right after we got to cruising altitude. I didn’t think Keelan was expecting it (hence why he bought the sandwiches in the airport). He had the chicken curry shown above, while I had the yuzu salmon below.

Honestly, really tasty for an airplane meal. I also really liked that I had real flatware! According to my notes, we also had a second beverage service with dinner, too.

I’m a nervous flier to destinations (not sure if anxiety or excitement, but if you can’t sleep, does it matter? lol) so didn’t get much rest. I ended up paying for in-flight wifi to poke at things in between nap attempts. We had a snack mid-flight of Lotus biscoff cookies.

Breakfast for me was a chicken yakisoba but I wasn’t very hungry at that point. I think I poked at it before giving it to Keelan to finish! I eventually managed to fall asleep shortly before we landed but obviously that wasn’t enough sleep haha.

After landing, deplaning was super fast since we were near the front. Haneda is super easy to traverse and not that big, so we also got to customs quickly! Being Premium Economy, we also got our bags really quick. Unfortunately, the dog did not come out super quick so we were standing around for a while, wondering where she would pop out.

We wandered around the baggage area for a bit, asked some people, but eventually Keelan stood in front of the oversize baggage area and I stood next to the quarantine counter with our stuff, hoping we’d be able to get her no matter where she came out. Eventually she did come out of oversize baggage and we took her to quarantine.

At the counter, there was just more paperwork! I did 90% of it in Japanese, which was pretty good for me coming off of a long flight with no sleep haha. Luckily it was simple and mostly confirming information they already had on file, and them telling me the info again. They also did a physical inspection of Koharu, which Keelan handled. Essentially they took her into a room, looked at her, then put her back in.

But I was happy that we managed to get the dog into the country without issue!

Koharu seemed pretty stressed out but otherwise fine. The water bottle looked like it leaked because it was completely empty and the bottom of the crate was sopping wet.

Our flight arrived early, and even with the wait for Koharu to come out of the baggage area, we had to wait a while for the camper to be dropped off, so we ended up wandering around to find a spot to let her out and clear out the crate as much as we could. Everyone we passed seemed to think Koharu was super cute though.

We eventually ended up in a corner of the parking lot and I gave Koharu some water while Keelan discreetly drained the crate. We also walked her around a bit to let her stretch her legs. Eventually we managed to get in contact with the camper company and it was them saying they’d arrived.

We met up with the girl dropping it off and went through the regular procedures about how to use the stuff, documenting existing damage, etc. We also paid for them to store the crate for us, but we kept the crate pad since it was kinda gross lol. But at least we were able to get on the road! At that point, though it was like 7:30 PM. The sun went down at 4:30 PM. So we had to drive out of Tokyo in the dark after a 12h flight. Not sure I recommend.

Luckily Keelan was able to sleep on the plane and wasn’t as tired as me, so I navigated while he did the driving. The highways were totally crazy though – multiple levels, underground sections where you were suddenly yeeted above multi-story buildings… But at least highway driving is just following the road! So while visually it was confusing, we just had to keep going straight haha.

Eventually we made it to the Ebina Service Area which was where we were staying that night. I originally wanted to find us a pet friendly hotel near the airport but there was pretty much nothing. Finding accommodations that would take pets was such a struggle! So if we had to rent the camper for a day, we might as well get some distance in and sleep in a parking lot for free. The first night into a trip is never particular comfortable anyway.

We managed to figure out how to set up the sleep configuration in the camper, got a bit of a walk in for the dog, and then picked up dinner. We weren’t super hungry so we just grabbed a couple rice balls from one of the stores inside, especially since we didn’t feel like figuring out how to order from the food court. I didn’t even remember to take a picture of the onigiri because I was so tired haha.

At that point in time, I had no trouble sleeping at all!

#travel #japan2024 #photos

For all the talking I do about the farm, I don't think I actually take that many pictures of the property – I mostly take photos of the dog. But of course, the dog is the best looking anything in the area, wherever she is, so it's hard for me to find the motivation to take pictures of other things.

I'm trying to take more photos in different ways to train that eye and develop a style, though, so we'll see how it goes. I mostly realized this when I was scrolling through the last few blog posts, but I've been taking more varied shots recently, so we're getting there. And of course, now I want to buy a new camera body and lens, even though I'm not even close to running up against the limitations of my current gear.

But that's all more of a side thought for now, since spring is starting up at the farm!

A lot of my fall-planted (or perennials) plants are coming up! This is all my garlic, which seem to be doing quite well. I actually should give them some fertilizer since they're a little paler than I'd like.

My peonies are also starting to come up, as well as the forager favourite, ramps. We're pretty fortunate to have a massive population of ramps, since that means I can sustainably harvest even the bulbs. The ramps aren't quite big enough to dig up yet, but I probably will start in a couple weeks! These ones are actually right on a trail, so if they aren't being harvested for eating, I'll move them off the trail at least, so they don't get run down by the tractor (or humans, I guess, haha).

In the continuing green-ness, here's some moss that's actually right in front of the barn door from the main image.

Also managed to snap a couple surprisingly nice shots of the local squirrels, who were enjoying the bird feeder.

And, it's not a blog post by Iman without a picture of Koharu, so here she is, ready to harass another dog.

A few more pics are available in the gallery if you're interested in such a thing!

#photos #farm

Not much to blog about – I was in the 99% totality zone but we had pretty consistent cloud cover, plus I wasn't actually planning on shooting anything, so my photos aren't super amazing. I literally looked outside and thought, “I bet I could take some photos” when the eclipse started.

It was mostly because the cloud cover diffused the sun enough for me to take photos of even though I don't have the correct filters. I thought about grabbing my tripod and then realized I don't even know where my tripod is right now lol. This was a pretty successful “shoot,” considering my lack of planning and nature's lack of cooperation!

Album here – not that many photos and they're all about the same, but maybe someone is interested! It was actually really cool to see how dark it got. It was kind of dusk-like, or maybe summer thunderstorm-y.

Shortly after I took the header image, the clouds completely covered the sun (right when the moon was supposed to 99% cover the sun, too!), so I don't have any shots of afterwards. And as I type this, it seems like all the clouds are moving out...

#photos

So this past week has been exciting in the sense that I got sick right after Keelan recovered, then when I was kind of recovered, he got food poisoning from some take out, and now we're both in the recovering phase.

To be honest, highly do not recommend.

But I felt well enough to cook two soups this week, as we have some ridiculously warm (for March) days. The header is a winter melon soup, which I made with a winter melon that I grew at the farm! It had pork meat balls, carrots, and vermicelli in it, along with ginger and garlic.

This other soup is houtou, a specially of Yamanashi in Japan. I'd seen it first in YuruCamp, but since I'm planning my trip to Japan and will be going through Yamanashi, I've been seeing it a bit more frequently.

Houtou is a miso soup with wide flat noodles called houtou, and it's similar to udon – but wider and thinner. The noodles actually were quite easy to make by hand since I didn't need too many of them.

Typically houtou is a vegetable only meal, but it's pretty hearty. I used kabocha (also from the farm harvest last year) since it seemed all houtou recipes featured them, and a miso that I fermented myself. There's also carrots, napa cabbage, and enoki mushrooms.

Speaking of my miso though, I am almost out so maybe it is time to start up a new batch. I love the rich flavour of old miso, since my current one is over 2 years old now, but new miso is good too.

#food

Once again, we went up to the farm for Family Day weekend! We were able to drive up to the house, but there was snow on the ground. It was also cold enough that we did not turn on the water. While we were there, we got more snow! Our neighbour actually came over and pre-emptively plowed a path for us to get back out, which was really nice of him.

Actually it's really interesting looking at my post from last year and all the photos – especially the river. While the river's not frozen solid, or even close to it, for many years, we definitely had more ice this year than last!

But I think it overall was a really nice weekend. We went on two long walks through the bush, where snowshoes were definitely required. It was also cold enough that my silly dog, who usually prefers staying out all day, would ask to come back in. Usually she only does that when we're eating dinner haha.

Speaking of dinner, on Sunday night, I cooked up some A5 Miyazaki wagyu – the Japanese butcher near me had a Family Day special so I thought it'd be a nice time to splurge!

We picked up 4 200g tenderloins. I did a reverse sear in the toaster oven and cast iron pan. Originally I was thinking I could grill them up, but it was too dark and cold for me to want to go back outside to prepare dinner lol.

I got them beautifully rare on the inside! I think I might actually prefer wagyu to be closer to medium but they were still really good. We had one spare tenderloin that we took home. I thinly sliced it up and put it onto a bowl of rice, and it was amazing. If I were to do it again, I'd probably make a black pepper sauce for it, but we just wanted a quick dinner.

Anyway, as usual, more photos are available in the gallery! I am trying to do some more artsy shots... or at least non-dog and non-food photos. Not sure if I'm any good at it, but I'm having fun, so that's all that matters!

#photos #farm #food

This post is overdue by many many months, but a lot of things happened that made me delay writing about... mainly in that I wanted to blog about the convention that my friends and I went to, but then none of us really enjoyed the con so it kind of deflated any enthusiasm I had.

But one good thing we did was go out for an omakase dinner at one of the oldest Japanese restaurants in Toronto – Ginko Japanese Restaurant! It was all of our first omakase experience and it was really wonderful.

We booked the tatami room and I had asked if we were allowed to come in cosplay – since we were at a con – and they said it'd be fine! But they're used to Anime North so I imagine they get a lot of cosplayers.

Our omakase menu was already printed and waiting for us after we removed our shoes and entered the tatami room. It was a really nice touch! Our server asked if we wanted any drinks and we picked this sparkling sake. She was like, “this is a great sake for a group of young girls,” which was a nice compliment lol. Sorry, but we're just old(ish) nerds. The main image above is a glass of our sake, and the one below is the bottle, though!

Anyway, we started with hassun 八寸 – a collection of food served in small dishes. It's like an individual appetizer platter.

Front L-R:

• rapini kimisu
• hotate nuta ae
• corn tempura
• buta kakuni

Back L-R:

• hamachi shiokoji yaki
• nasu dengaku foie gras
• mini chawanmushi

One of my friends is picky so she pre-ordered her meal from the regular menu and her appetizer, gyoza, also came at the same time.

The buta kakuni is a braised pork belly.

The nasu dengaku! This time with the cover off, haha. This is a classic Japanese eggplant dish. It's grilled with miso, with a little sliver of foie gras on top. I loved the execution of this – nasu dengaku is something I make at home a lot when eggplants are in season with my own miso, but it's definitely not this elegant.

I don't have close-up shots of the other dishes (or if I do, I didn't like them enough, lol), so here are some brief notes on the other items:

The mini chawanmushi is a steamed egg dish. This version had some uni on top, and inside were a few mushrooms (if I'm remembering correctly). I always love small steamed egg dishes, but I know not everyone does. It's very Asian, and I don't seem to see it in western cuisine, so I think that's probably why?

Hamachi shiokoji yaki was a grilled yellowtail marinated in shiokoji. Actually, shiokoji is pretty trendy in the food scene right now, but this was the first time I'd actually had something marinated in shiokoji. My recollection of this was that it was pretty good but definitely not the standout item for hassun.

That actually goes to the corn tempura! I loved the sweet (and in-season) corn kernels embedded in the light batter. And it was wonderfully non-oily. I actually want to make this myself this year, when my corn is ready to harvest.

The hotate nuta ae was a scallop with miso, and I always like scallops. This was super dainty and elegant, and one scallop was just the right amount.

Finally we have rapini with kimisu, which is an egg yolk and vinegar dressing. Kimisu is actually pretty similar to mayo or hollandaise, but I loved the rich yellow colour. I was actually thinking of making this at home as well, but I'm not sure what I'd serve it with...

Anyway, moving on, the next course was wanmono 椀物, or the soup course. We had an asari miso soup, which was really nice! It was surprisingly rich. I rarely cook clams because the boyfriend doesn't like them, but I do love them in a soup like this.

My friend on the alternate menu had a salad here. She said it was tasty!

For yakimono 焼物, we had lamb yuzumiso yaki. The grilled lamb chops topped with yuzumiso was so good!! I loved this so much that I immediately looked up recipes for yuzumiso haha. My friends also thought it was amazing. I would love to recreate this dish at home but rarely cook lamb. But I have it on the list haha.

We also had a sushi course – shokuji 食事 (which actually is just “meal” and not sushi-specific haha). I'll be honest, I don't remember exactly what everything is, but I'll give it my best guess.

L-R:

• ootoro (fatty tuna)
• hirame?
• salmon with ikura
• tai?
• soft shell crab sushi?

Our server afterwards asked us what our favourite was, and universally we liked the hirame(?) best. I wish I remembered the exact fish because it was so good! Our server was surprised because apparently most people say they like the ootoro best because it's so fatty haha. But I think we all liked the hirame because it was so refreshing and the texture was really different.

While we were eating our lamb and sushi, my friend had the pork katsu and she said it was amazing – crispy and not oily!

Finally we wound down the meal with dessert – amami 甘味. My non-omakase friend got the sakuramochi. Our server said you can eat the oak leaf if you want or not, and it's just up to your preference. I think my friend ate it haha.

For the omakase dessert, we had a glass of fruit kanten with a scoop of ice cream. I got matcha ice cream! The kanten in the light syrup and fresh berries was a really refreshing dessert for summer.

There was also the option of black sesame ice cream.

So while the con was a bit of a bust, we managed to have an amazing time at a fancy restaurant. We made the best of it!

#food #photos #restaurant

Back at the end of October 2023, I had the opportunity to take a 3 day workshop held by my local cooking studio with noted wagashi master, Eijun Mitsubori.

It was a really amazing experience, and I originally wasn't going to do it! I had talked myself out of it when the class was first announced since the price point was a little high. But at the last minute, the studio owner offered me a discount since I'm a regular student at his other classes, and I scrambled to make it happen. I'm just a total sucker for a discount.

But I will say that it was absolutely worth it – I got a great deal but I would've happily paid full price! I'm only now getting to writing the blog post and editing the photos, but I wish I had the time/brainspace earlier since I'm sure I've forgotten a lot.

The wagashi we made over the 3 days is something called kougeigashi or imitation wagashi. That's because it looks like something else. Our class made wagashi that looks like osechi ryori – a traditional new years “bento” or food set. So maybe I'm actually only slightly late for this blog post? Haha.

There were only 3 of us in the course, so it was a very intimate setting. And it was actually really interesting language-wise for me – sensei's interpreter only knew Mandarin and Japanese! The studio owner then re-interpreted it into English (or sometimes Cantonese). One of the other students knew Mandarin and some English, and the other one knew Cantonese, English, and some Mandarin. Then there's me who knows English, some Cantonese, and some Japanese, haha. I actually had a lot of fun seeing how the Japanese got transformed through so much interpretation!

Plus, I got to do some Japanese practice! I understood probably 60-70% of what he said during the course, since luckily he didn't use super complicated grammar. I learned a lot of obscure vocab (when will I use wagashi terms in real life? lol) and managed to hold a few simple conversations with sensei. And at some points, I even did the translation back into Japanese to relay comments from the others to him! One conversation I remember having was about how salmon isn't a traditional sushi item, but how they do have salmonids in Japan in the mountains haha.

Actually, on the third day of the course, I was walking to the studio and ran into sensei and his translator, who were also walking over. We had a conversation about the weather, as one must do in Canada when outside, lol.

We started off day 1 with an introduction to sensei and his wagashi. Once that was done, we got right into it, starting with first with the easiest parts. The lotus root, bamboo shoots, edamame, shiitake, and burdock were all made of nerikiri. We also made the datemaki, scallops, and uni out of nerikiri! Sensei made a single broccoli as well haha.

While all of us students had experience working with nerikiri before, it was interesting to see the ways he showed us to mimic things. We even fried the burdock to get it to be the right colour! The uni was really cool since it wasn't on the original plan but he was just like, “y'all wanna learn how to make uni?” (my own liberal translation haha).

Day 2 was a really long one – Sensei was even like, “we might be here for a while.” We worked on the shrimp shells, which were made out of anpei. Anpei had this texture and workability that made it good for the shells and antennae and leg parts! Once we finished forming them, we let them dry so we could work on them more.

We also made blocks of layered kanten for the salmon and tuna sashimi as well as a thin layer of kanten for the squid sashimi. The kamaboko was made out of awayukikan, and the decorative carrots out of kanten. I didn't realize it until after I'd left the studio for the day, but awayukikan is like the wagashi version of marshmallows!

There is just so much work involved in making a realistic imitation, lol.

When Keelan picked me up, he also brought Koharu, and people thought she was adorable.

The final day was focusing on the finishing touches. We made the ikura, formed the shrimp bodies, painted the shrimps, cut the sashimi, and generally made the pieces look “nice”. And that's in addition to assembling everything!

Shrimp bodies, by the way, were made of uiro – it had the transparency that mimics a real shrimp's flesh. And we piped kanten for the ikura into individual corn starch holes! I was joking with the studio owner that I was expecting to do some molecular gastronomy with spherification in sodium alginate, and he was like, “then it wouldn't be wagashi!” But then sensei said that he did, in fact, make ikura with spherification on TV once because it was faster and looks more impressive on TV!

The kanten for the sashimi was such a pain to cut because we didn't get great adherence between our layers. I was like, “if I were a sushi apprentice, I would've been kicked out already...” lol. There was so much kanten waste because of poorly cut sashimi pieces!

Anyway, at the end of the day, I did manage to make a pretty good looking wagashi osechi ryori. Some other finishing touches we did included making thin leaves from nerikiri, brushing kanten onto pieces to give them a gloss, and building up some height in the boxes with waste pieces and anko haha. I'm actually really proud of my maple leaf shaped wasabi piece! It's definitely not “real” wasabi but it looks enough like a real piece of fake wasabi haha.

I do have a few more pictures in my gallery but most of the photos I took were actually more process-based so I didn't bother editing them. I might add to the gallery later but these were kind of the “best” shots haha.

I had a really good time at the class, and I really hope sensei comes back to Canada again! And I feel really lucky that I live so close to a cooking studio that's willing to bring such a famous wagashi master over to teach us, who was so nice and personable. When I was leaving the studio with my wrapped up box of sweets, as I was saying bye to sensei, he told me, “make sure your dog doesn't eat your wagashi!”

Next time he comes to Canada, I'll be more prepared and won't sign up at the very last minute hahaha.

#food #photos

Shortly after our failed canoe trip, we went on a trip to Quebec for Keelan's mom's 70th birthday. We stopped in Quebec City on our first night, which is where the majority of my photos came from, then headed to the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region for the majority of it. And finally, Keelan and I headed into Montreal for one night to see friends.

It was as nice of a trip as I could've expected.

I actually am really proud of the photos that I snapped in Quebec City, though! Gallery here, with some of my favourites under the cut. And also minor commentary about the trip, haha.

Although Saguenay is known for its fjords, I was more excited for the wild blueberries – the other thing it is known for. And I pretty much ate all of them before taking photos of them.

We did go to a really lovely microbrewery/pub in Alma and I had an amazing beer! They advertised it as being like a lemonade, and it seriously tasted like lemonade in beer form. It wasn't quite like a typical sour, but it was so refreshing to drink while sitting on their patio! I wish I could get it here, but the microbrewery only sells their beers within Quebec. Alas.

I was actually hoping to take more photos in Montreal, but due to the comedy of errors that was driving from Saguenay to Montreal, we only arrived in the city at like 7 PM... we started driving at 9 AM.

We took the longer way back, along the St Lawrence River and through the Charlevoix region, which was amazingly scenic. I wish I took pictures from the car! We wanted to visit various places in Charlevoix, since they are known for their food, but when we stopped by a mushroom farm, we discovered that somehow, it would take us 5 more hours to get to Montreal. The drive time from Saguenay to Montreal through Charlevoix was supposed to be 5h total, and we'd already been on the road for 2! So we nixed all of the planned stops and started driving – it would put us into Montreal for around 5PM, but that would still give us time.

As we drove closer and closer to Montreal, the time estimate... didn't go down. We also ran into the following problems (to arriving on time for dinner with friends):

• people slowing down along a lovely beachy area (which is somewhere I'd wanted to stop, when I thought we had time to do so!)
• following a slow-moving dump truck along twisty hilly roads
• the worst highway design I have ever seen – two highways fed into a small town's red light
• red lights every 100 metres (well, that's what it felt like) along the highway, with no discernible reason as to why they would be so frequent
• seeing a tow truck and ambulance (lights on) pass us – stuck in traffic – along the shoulder
• finding street parking on Montreal streets when half of them were closed (for pedestrian traffic, which I agree with and like, but it made navigating one-way streets much more difficult)

So... we eventually got there, haha. And we eventually checked into our hotel and had a good night's sleep. And then the next day, I got to walk on Mont Royal, which I'd never done before, even though I've been to Montreal a few times! We even got croissants for breakfast and ate them in the park.

#travel #photos