Lumbini Curry House: A Friendly Indian and Nepalese Restaurant

As the numbers of cases of Covid were decreasing, and I already had an appointment at the nearby Nakamura Nisseki Hospital, I decided to have lunch at an Indian and Nepalese Curry restaurant, Lumbini.

Today's lunch menu

The lunch menu consists of several choices and combos, but I love lamb so I went with a mutton curry set. First came the side salad, dressed with a sweet and creamy thousand island-like dressing. Then came a couple pieces of chicken tikka, which was sprinkled generously with cumin. It was salty and although not entirely juicy, it was not dry either. The plain lassi drink was like a thinned out yogurt, great to balance out the bold flavours of the curry and salty chicken tikka. You can't have curry without naan, which was slightly sweet and had kind of a doughy flavour. I always find that naan in Japan is sweet and the size of it is always gigantic (both not a bad thing)! The owner made sure to let me know that the naan was unlimited here. There's no way I can eat 2 of them though!

Lunch menu

Chicken tikka

Lassi

At last, the mutton curry. It had 4 big pieces of mutton and was not that spicy, as I had chose level 1 spiciness when ordering. It actually had some sweetness that would be perfect for the Japanese palate and for kids. I could really taste the cardamon in it.

Mutton curry and naan

Lumbini is a small restaurant with ethnic decorations and music playing in the background. The owner is Nepalese and is very friendly. The shop was not so busy, but then again it was during corona virus times that I visited.

Area: about a 7-min. walk southeast of Nakamura Nisseki Station (Higashiyama Line) 中村日赤駅（東山線）
Restaurant: Lumbini Curry House ルンビニカレーハウス
Map and Info: https://tabelog.com/aichi/A2301/A230113/23054993/
Hours: Lunch 11am-3pm (LO 2:30pm), Dinner 5-10pm (LO 9:30pm), closed for dinner on Mondays

Izakaya Takumi: A Modern Little Restaurant in an Old Part of Town

I actually didn't plan to come to this restaurant, the cafe I intended to visit wasn't open so I kept walking and stumbled upon this place, and I'm glad I did. It used to be a sushi restaurant and the Japanese-style interior does reflect this with its modern wooden counter and tables.

For  lunch there were 5 choices; a sashimi teishoku (set meal), chirashizushi (sashimi on a bed of sushi rice) set, kara-age (fried chicken) teishoku, fish miso katsu (fried cutlet) teishoku, and the fresh pasta set. The pasta of the day was chicken and kabocha (Japanese squash).

 I asked the chef for a recommendation and it was the healthy fish katsu. Normally katsu is done with pork but here it’s done with the fish of the day, which was a flaky white fish. Eating it without the sauce reminded me of a good fish and chips even though it was panko crusted. Perhaps it was made with a batter similar to fish and chips. Although it’s meant to be eaten with the sauce I actually liked the flavour of it on its own. Nagoyans  (my word for people brought up in Nagoya), like bold flavours so this red miso sauce is a popular condiment in this region. It is quite sweet yet full of umami.

The side of hijiki (a type of seaweed) and mountain vegetables nimono (simmer) was seasoned well, not too sweet and with a nice dashi flavour. The egg salad was chunky and seasoned mildly which was a good contrast to the bold miso sauce. The salad of fresh greens was dressed with a Japanese style, soy sauce-based dressing. The miso soup used a mix of red and white miso and to me had a hint of sansho flavour (Japanese pepper), although I have no idea if that is just my imagination!

Soft instrumental jazz music was playing in the background. I could hear the echoes of other customer's voices but it was not loud or crowded so I found it very easy to relax and eat.

Area: about a 5-min walk from exit 2 of Nakamura Nisseki Station 中村日赤駅
Restaurant: Izakaya Takumi 居酒屋たくみ
Map: https://tabelog.com/aichi/A2301/A230113/23065764/dtlmap/

Convenience Store Frozen Pasta, Not So Bad!

Frozen food has come a long way in Japan. In a culture where many people are too busy to cook or find it's not worth the time or effort to cook for oneself, ready-made, instant, and frozen food can be readily found. My image of frozen food growing up was that they were fast and simple, good for when pressed for time, but still tasted like it was frozen. Nowadays frozen food could trick anyone into thinking it was made from fresh ingredients.

Take this pasta for example. It's a product in the "Okaasan no Shokudo" line-up that is found at the Family Mart convenience store, the name owing homage to 'mom's cooking'. The package indicated that the end product is like fresh pasta with shrimp umami and a rich tomato cream sauce. Inside you will find a rock hard solid pack of the frozen sauce and pasta that you just pop into the microwave!

I found the sauce to be really rich in tomato flavour, more than the light orange colour leads to you think. The noodles were a bit softer than al dente, but still had a slight bite. The shrimp was plump, but the downside was that it did have a bit of a fishy flavour giving away the fact that it is not fresh. The broccoli surprisingly had a good texture and wasn't mushy at all. Overall, it was tasty, something you might expect to appear in mom's repertoire of cooking!

Baan Tawan: Authentic Thai Food (Finally, Jasmine Rice in Japan!)

I've found that it is difficult to find places that serve different kinds of rice than Japanese rice. I do like the stickiness and sweetness of short-grained rice, but sometimes I would like basmati with my Indian food, jasmine with my Chinese food, or arborio rice in my risotto.

I finally came across a Thai restaurant that does serve jasmine rice with their meals! Baan Tawan, located not far from Honjin Station, is quite a popular little restaurant with 5 or 6 tables and a few counter seats. The lunch menu consists of green curry, massaman curry, Thai fried chicken, tom yum noodle soup and dorias (baked rice dishes). They also have a plate lunch option where you choose 1 main and 2 sides (880 yen plus tax). All come with jasmine rice except for the noodle dish and the dorias (which use Japanese short-grained rice because they are more suited to this type of dish).

I ordered the plate lunch with green curry as the main. The nice thing is the curries can also be chosen as a side, so I chose massaman curry and a tsubasa (yellowtail) carpaccio. The carpaccio was on a list that changes daily. The green curry main had chicken red pepper, fried kabocha (Japanese squash), bamboo shoots and thai basil. It was mildly spicy and went REALLY well with the jasmine rice. Perhaps it's the combination with the curry but the vegetables were incredibly sweet. The massaman curry had a more peanut flavour with chicken, potato and carrot. I could taste the lemongrass, coconut milk and cardamon in it. The chicken wasn't as soft as that in the green curry, it was kind of a dry chicken breast. I found that the green curry was a bit saltier than the massaman, but wasn't overly done. The tsubasa carpaccio was topped with an Italian dressing flavour. The plate also comes with a salad of purple cabbage, regular cabbage, mizuna and a Japanese style sesame dressing.

Although a packed shop during lunch hours, I was still able to eat my lunch at a relaxing pace. There was American pop music playing in the background but it's not too noisy.

Area: about a 2-min. walk from exit 2 of Honjin Station (Higashiyama line), 本陣駅（東山線）
Restaurant: Baan Tawan バーンタワン
Website and Map: https://www.baantawan.info/shop-info-access
Hours: Lunch 11:30am-2pm (LO 1:30pm), Dinner 6-11pm (LO 10pm), closed Sundays

Haagen Dazs: Rich Pumpkin

This one is an autumn/winter limited edition flavour. Because I'm used to pumpkin flavoured things tasting like pumpkin spice, I don't know if this one really screams pumpkin to me. This ice cream actually uses kabocha which is about the size of, and is eaten more like squash in Japan. This ice cream has swirls of kabocha puree throughout it which add just a hint of extra sweetness and if you really think about it, squash flavour. However I think perphaps if I ate it with my eyes closed it might just pass as plain ice cream.

Cafe & Meal Muji: Not All Muji's Have Cafes, But You Can Visit One in Nagoya

Mujirushi Ryohin, or Muji as it is known in countries outside of Japan is now widely known throughout the world, but did you know that some Muji stores in Japan have cafes?

Before the Covid outbreak, I was able to visit one Muji Cafe at Nagoya Station located in the Meitetsu department store. It is a deli-style cafe where you pick 3 or 4 hot or cold dishes to make up a one-plate meal. I ordered the 4-choice meal (1000 yen) which came with miso soup and a choice of white or 10-grain rice. They used to have bread as an option, but not anymore it seems.

Here are the 4 dishes I chose (starting at the top and going clockwise on the plate):
1. Mayonnaise curry cauliflower and chicken: Large pieces of chicken breast and cauliflower covered in a mild mayonnaise and curry powder sauce. All the components went well together.

2. Chicken and apple cream: I could definitely taste butter and white wine in this dish. It was sweet from the natural flavour of the apples, but this sweetness was a nice change from the other 3 dishes.

3. Liver and konnyaku with a mustard sesame dressing: The often-seen sesame dressing was brought one step up with a touch of mustard. This dish was heavily seasoned, but that made sure the originally flavourless konnyaku absorbed all the flavours.

4. Spicy buri (yellowtail) daikon: The traditional buri daikon dish uses a soy sauce based sweet and savoury broth, so this spicy doubanjiang (Chinese salty broad bean chili sauce) was an interesting change from the normal. I feel like maybe there was some yuzu kosho in this dish, but I could be mistaken. The daikon had some crunch still which is also a change from the usual where it is often very soft.

Although the yellowtail and cream chicken dishes were chosen from the hot deli section, there all seemed the same room temperature to me. The miso soup, being Nagoya, used a red miso, and a niboshi (dried sardines) dashi broth. Abura age, or fried tofu and wakame were also in this soup.

This location is a large open space with a cooking class right next to it, so it's not the quietest place, but the noises are all somehow dampened, perhaps by the low ceiling. There is music, but can't really be heard over the other noises, and the music playing in the cooking class area. There is booth seating in the back, a big communal table in the middle and tables for 2 that can be moved around in case you have a party of 3 or more.

Area: Meitestu Department Store, Men's Wing 6F, Nagoya Station 名駅、名鉄百貨店メンズ館６F
Restaurant: Cafe & Meal Muji  無印良品
Map and Website: https://www.muji.com/jp/ja/shop/detail/045196
Hours: 10am-10pm