KFC(Korean Fried Chicken): The new fad food?

First, the College Kid has graduated and now lives in Stamford, CT and working for a hedge fund. He is very pleased to have found a townhouse with a full kitchen, stainless steel appliances, and roommates that don't cook. He is also pleased to have a nice salary so he can splurge on fancy restaurants. Who needs cars, clothes, and vacations, give me food!

Second, after a long hiatus, I think its time restart posting my culinary adventures. I went into New York City last night to visit a friend and party hard on my last weekend of last summer vacation. EVER. You know its a good night when you eat fried chicken twice while under the spell of drunk munchies. The first time was unremarkable, 11pm chicken fingers at an Irish pub, but after a bit more revelry, it was time for a late night snack, or breakfast for some more conservative folk. We hopped in a cab to Little Korea in NYC and found three Korean chicken chains. BonChan, KyoChan, and Mad For Chicken. Mad for Chicken, on the second floor at 32nd and 5th was the only one open. Cupcakes, move over, a new fad food has taken New York and Colonel Sanders by storm.

We ordered a plate of drumsticks and a plate of wings and were treated to what I believe the most elegant and refined preparation of fried chicken. Elegant? Refined? Fried? No, I am not still feeling the effects of a long night of partying, the Koreans have created a type of fried chicken that belongs in a class apart from "Regular" and "Extra Crispy." The skin was crackly, with all the fat rendered out, like a potato chip. The skin was so thin that it was nearly indistinguishable from the light batter that encased the entire drumstick or wing in a smooth and golden brown crust. There were no stray bits or nibs of batter clinging to the shell, a departure from the KFC we know. Inside the chicken was tender and juicy; these wings and drums were not frozen and not prepared ahead of time. The pieces we lightly sauced with a soy-garlic blend. Not too sweet or sticky, well balanced with the garlic playing the lead with a muted saltiness of the soy sauce behind it. The sauce is mostly absorbed by the translucent skin and batter, bringing the flavor inside of the chicken itself.
Not prepared ahead of time - that means there is a wait for each order, but the resulting golden nugget of fried chicken goodness is well worth it. What is the method to the goodness? Twice frying the chicken. This serves two purposes. First, the skin and batter doesn't burn before the center of the drum or wing is cooked. Second, a rest period and shakedown lets all the fat render out of the skin before the pieces are finished in the fryer. The restaurant was nice enough to keep the libations coming during the wait with complementary shots of apple and red bull flavored sojou.

Ciabatta Bread

"Ciabatta" aka "slipper bread" is one of the more well-known, if not the most well-known form of Italian bread in the states. It is made from a semi-sour dough, care of a preferment known either as a "biga" or "poolish." Ciabatta seems to have taken this country by storm in the past few years, finding its way onto most cafe menus, bookending panini and entering the lexicon of this country's increasing food awareness. Due to the serious metabolic activity and CO2 generation of the yeast during the preferment, the bread has a large, open crumb - perfect for dipping in oils. Although the ingredients or simple, achieving adequate fermentation, gluten development, working and shaping dough are sticky, pun intended. The dough is very wet, reaching as high as 80% hydration (water content is 80% of the flour weight.) I've made a few attempts, but this cook-at-heart is no baker. Luckily, I know a Culinary Institute-trained baker who is willing to share his secret from the inner sanctums of the food world. I left all proportions in their original form - by weight percentage of flour. Professional bakers measure in a different universe than the rest of us, and for good reason: baking is much more precise than cooking. Namely, you can't fix your mistakes. Once the dough is together, its game over. For the best, authentic results, I recommend getting a scale.

Ingredients:
Ciabatta recipe - or rather, formula
100% bread flour - King Arthur is recommended by the professional
75% water
2% yeast
2% salt
5% olive oil

We used 20oz of flour and got two loaves.

Yes, the percentages add to a logical 184%, but this in notation in the professional world. Flour is always given at 100% and each non-flour ingredient is given a percentage of the flour weight. Due to settling, weight is much more accurate than volume.

Method:

Preferment theory:
Why does bakery bread taste so good and our amateur attempts taste so, well, amateur. There is a complexity to bakery bread, call it "bread umami." While the ingredients are simple, real artisan bread has a slight sweetness, despite the absence of sugar. It has earthiness, and something that just grabs you by the tongue and screams "goodness." Time to let the secret out - it comes from a preferment or a starter. Yeast, water, flour go in and then the yeast feast. Flour is a starch, a long complex chain of carbohydrates. Once the yeast start their work, the starch is broken into a variety of smaller molecules, sugars being one of them. A proven starter can feed a bakery's production for eternity, provided the baker keeps adding flour and water. Legend has it that the CIA's sourdough starter is over 100 years old. As a semi-sourdough, Ciabatta needs a good preferment.

The Ciabatta starter is called either a biga or poolish. After measuring your ingredients for the dough as a whole. Take an amount equal to 30% of the flour weight from the dough recipe, and add it to the same amount of water, by weight, again, take from the dough recipe. (eg. if using 20oz of flour for dough, use 6oz of flour for starter and 6oz of water, leaving you with 14oz of flour and 9oz of water to add later to make the dough.) Add a pinch of yeast, mix, and set aside to get bubbly at room temperature for 16-20 hours.

After 18 hours, its ready.

Bringing the dough together:
Place preferment in a large mixing bowl. Add remaining water (room temperature). Mix well. Add remaining flour and yeast. Start mixing, either with a stand mixer on low or wooden spoon. This is not a dough that requires much kneading. After a few mixes, add salt and oil. Mix for about 5 minutes. This dough is very wet! Gluten does not need to develop too much. When you lift the spoon out the dough it shouldn't be very elastic or resilient. Still a bit stringy is fine. See picture.

Set dough aside, covered loosely with plastic wrap to rise for 2 hours, folding at 1 hour mark. To fold the dough, turn it out onto a floured counter. Bring the right side a little past the middle. Bring the left side over the right side. Bring the bottom to the top. Put back in bowl for 1 more hour.

Shaping and Baking:

Oven Setup. 6 unglazed ceramic tiles, about $1 at a home improvement store

Place a pizza stone or baking tiles on an oven rack in the lowest position of the oven. Preheat to 525 F. The oven needs to get HOT. Generously flour a counter or work bench and turn the dough out. If you made dough for more than 1 loaf, cut into pieces. A loaf should be about 12 inches long and 6 inches wide. Shape into these wide loaves handling as little as possible. The dough is soft and should form up easily. Be careful not to pop too many bubbles. Once the dough is shaped, pick up and place gently on a well-floured cookie sheet (no rim on cookie sheet since you'll use this to slide your loaves into the oven.) You can check the consistency of the dough by gently placing your fingertip in the dough. If it quickly springs back 3/4 of the way, you are all set. Dust top of loaves with flour. Cover loaves lightly with plastic wrap and let sit for 10 minutes.

2 Loaves shaped and resting. Dr. Pepper used for scale

Give your cookie sheet a shake to make sure the loaves slide easily. Fill a spray bottle with water. Open your very hot oven, aim for the back of the tile or pizza stone, give your cookie sheet a shake and slide the loaves onto the stones. Immediately, use the spray bottle to spray down the sides and bottom of the oven as well as give the loaves a quick mist. I even unscrew the top and shake a little bit more on the floor of the oven. It's going to steam a ton so watch out. Close the door quickly. You want the steam to remain in the oven. A moist environment is critical to develop crust. Drop oven temperature down to 475 F once you close the door. Bake for 20 minutes. Open the oven after 20 minutes for 30 seconds to let any remaining steam out. Close door and bake for another 10 minutes. To check for doneness, tap the loaves. A finished loaf should sound hollow. Edges should be a rustic brown, top a little lighter. For a thicker, deeper crust, turn off oven, wedge open door with a towel, and let loaves sit for 5 more minutes. Remove loaves carefully and place on a cooling rack for at least 10 minutes. This recipe is labor intensive but its worth it. The steaming, temperature adjustments, and venting are all part of the baking process. A professional oven does it automatically, but for homemade bread, we need to improvise.

While the loaves are cooling, enjoy the beautiful smell of fresh baked bread. Seriously. This is an important step. You just labored for 24 hours and as your reward, produced a loaf or two that looks, smells, and will taste like you picked it up from a bakery.

Insert using cookie sheet. Steam immediately

After 20 minutes, open oven to vent steam. Looking good.

Remove from oven after 10 more minutes. Cool on rack

Bottom got a bit "rustic." Gap in the tiles. No sweat, tastes fine.

Master baker got a little feisty with the tongs getting these loaves out. Crust is crisp, should separate from the inside a little bit due to expansion during baking then contraction during cooling. This is a good thing.

For examination, we sliced open the bread horizontally and opened it like a book. Note bubbles. I should have had a coin in the picture to scale them. Largest ones are about a quarter in diameter.

Check out definition and contrast between crust and inside. A product of the steam and high heat.

There you have them, our Ciabatta. The crust should be rustic, crunchy, something you'll need to work to rip apart. Inside is soft and chewy with huge holes. Outer crust is slightly bitter in the darkest places. Inside is slightly sweet, yeasty, and most certainly real bread.

Studies in Presentation - Gingerbread Pumpkin Mousse Trifle

Happy Thanksgiving - the pagan festival of gluttony followed by an onset of sloth. I love it. It's been a long time since I've put an entry in here...far too long. I need to get myself fired up so I turned to food writing. Today I have a good one, a Gingerbread Pumpkin Mousse Trifle that took first place at the Easton Farmers' Market Pumpkin Bake-Off, co-judged by yours truly. Yet, I was the dissenting opinion out of 5. The trifle is layered pumpkin-spiked, moist, gingerbread, rich pumpkin mousse, and freshly whipped cream. A squash-lover's dessert dream and absoutely delicious. I gave it the highest marks for utilization of pumpkin and overall taste BUT, the woman who made this botched the presentation. I docked her major points and on my scorecard, and a pumpkin pie came out on top. Maybe my expectations were too high for trifles. My Grandma makes a mean one with ladyfingers, vanilla custard, and strawberry preserves. A trifle is a dessert layered in a high-sided glass bowl. Done right, the dessert looks as good as it tastes. However this woman comes in with a simple serving platter filled with one layer of gingerbread, then mousse, then whipped cream. The whipped cream on top was ghastly white, screaming to be topped with pumpkin-friendly items such as cinnamon or toasted walnuts. I was actually angry that it tasted so good, yet looked so bad. Alas, The mousse went on to win because my co-judges were not as particular to presentation as I was. After my anger subsided, I knew I had to get my hands on that recipe so I could do it right for my family on Thanksgiving.

Recipe as follows:
Gingerbread-Pumpkin Mousse Trifle

Gingerbread:

1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup pumpkin
1 cup molasses
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
2 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs, beaten
Combine sugar, salt & spices in a large
bowl. Add oil and molasses and mix until
well combined.
Add baking soda to boiling water then
immediately to sugar/oil/spice mix. Whisk
well to combine.
Add flour in batches, whisking well after
each addition.
Whisk in eggs until combined.
Pour into a greased 13x9 pan and bake at
350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a
knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes in the pan then invert onto
cooling rack. Allow to cool completely then
cut into 1/2 inch thick slices, around 3-4 inches long.

Pumpkin Mousse:

2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
2 tbsp sugar (optional in whipped cream)
a few drops vanilla extract
20oz pumpkin puree (a little more than one small can)
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
1 1/2 cups (1 can) Evaporated Milk
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
(can substitue 1 Tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice for
above spices)

Mix pudding mix and spices in a medium bowl.
Whisk in evaporated milk until mix is well dissolved.
Whisk in pumpkin puree.
Whip heavy cream with sugar (optional) and vanilla extract in a clean bowl
until stiff peaks form. Reserve half of the
whipped cream mixture and set aside.
Fold remaining whipped cream into pumpkin
pudding mixture til just combined being careful not to overmix.

I recommended assembling at least 2 hours before you serve it. It sets nicely in the fridge.
Layering guidelines- Layer as you see fit, just PLEASE make it look nice!!
In a high-sided glass bowl, layer bottom with gingerbread slices. Cover with a layer of mousse. Place some gingerbread slices around the circumference of the bowl, standing upright against the sides, sinking them in the mousse layer slightly. Fill middle with mousse. Top with more gingerbread, lying flat. Top that layer with mousse, then reserved whipped cream. Top whipped cream with cinnamon and toasted walnuts. Refrigerate 2 hours and serve.

First your guests will be in awe at your towering, magnificent tribute to the complementary flavors of pumpkin and spices. Then they'll eat it and shower you with complements on how it tastes even better than it looks (and it looks pretty damn good as a layered dessert.) Mild squash is amplified by the heat of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and gingerbread. Pumpkin pie, move over. Trifle is in town.

Onsen Tamago, Defined in the Kitchen

1.5 weeks after my return from Japan, the recipe for the world's greatest egg, the onsen tamago has been discovered without the use of an immersion circulator. Onsen tamago actually comes in two varieties, distinguised by the texture of the yolk. Variety one, lets call it the "topper" in codespeak, is what you would use to top off a pasta dish, a burger, anything you want a thickened, runny yolk on top of. The egg holds its shape out of shell, and when the yolk is broken, a thick, molten wave of goodness oozes out of it. Number two, lets call it the "spreader." Nicknamed spreader, not because it spreads out, but rather should you want to, you could cut the yolk much like a stick of butter and spread it on your bread. The yolk holds it shape when broken, but is not solid. It's quite amazing. Both of these preparations can be reached pretty easily from the same point. And that point is.

25 mins in a 63-67 degree celcius water bath. How do you get this water bath? Using an electric probe thermometer of course, I heated up a good quantity of water in my cast iron dutch oven. Both water and thick cast iron are excellent for maintaining an even temperature throughout the cooking process. At the same time I turned my oven to the lowest setting (200F) Once it hit 68 degrees, I put the ROOM TEMP LARGE eggs in and waited for the temperature to stabilize once again at around 66/67. At this point I covered the dutch oven and stuck it in the oven. The water temp dropped slowly to 64 degrees, held, then climbed up to 68 right around the 25 minute mark. No adjustments to the oven or eggs were necessary. At this point, all the eggs are "toppers." Place all eggs in an ice bath immediately to get the temperature down. For "spreaders" remove after 1 minute and place in the fridge. The point of the ice bath is to stop the whites from cooking anymore because both the whites of toppers and spreaders are the same consistancy, you just want the yolks of the spreaders to get a little more solid...

Gonpachi - And soba, could this be the best preparation?

A gimmicky but damn good restaurant has stolen my heart - Gonpachi in Roppongi. It was a place Bush senior once ate, a setting for Kill Bill's bloodiest scene, intensely popular with the foreigner population, but its simple, expertly prepared soba, yakitori, tofu, and fish dishes are second to none. After a late concert (Koji had a band performance that went until 9:30) we ran over for some quick soba and appetizers.


Here is my order of Kamo Seiro, cold soba with a soup of sliced duck breast. Duck in Japan is the same cut. A very lean inch and a half wide strip of meat capped with a thin rim of rich duck fat. Whether in soup or salad, always cut the same way. In the back is a dish of sansho - a peppery, tounge-numbing spice to add to the soup.
A good look at the soup. It was rich, but not salty. More flavored by duck and meat than soy sauce. I've had some that were way too soy saucy. The duch had given off its richness and fat. I'm regretting not taking a piece out of the soup and photographing it seperately. What set this heads and shoulders - and duck breast - above other chicken or duck soup preparations with soba was this duck was undeniably roasted and browned and the soup was made from the drippings. Clearly a western influence, but the flavor and umami of true browned meat can't quite be replicated by fermentation of soybeans and the natural MSG found in kelp. This was the bone sucking, finger-licking gravy good of a brown sauce, and everyone at the table, except host father, thought it was the best soup theyve had. Last, but not least, the hand made- although machine cut soba. When you are cranking trhough probably about 300+ guests a night the handcut thing is hard, but they do make their own soba dough in Gonpachi and make it very well. I'd call it a medium bodied soba, not inaka, but not too fine either.

Really an appitizer but I put it after the soba. Zaru, homemade tofu. Soft, creamy as any custard, with a sutble but not overpowering flavor of the beans from which it was made from. You eat this with a little sea salt and wasabi. I wouldn't go a meal without it at gonpachi. Supposedly Matsugen in NYC also has one that rocks.
A gi

Eating my way through Hokkaido

Hokkaido is the wonderful northern island in Japan and I don't think there are many Japanese that will argue against the fact that it is a breadbasket and has some of the best food in the country. Typical Hokkaido food is hearty; quite a bit of meat, butter, and milk from the farmland. Milk...hands down the best and creamiest I've had. From milk you get ice cream. And also from milk you get Nama (Raw) Caramel, a fad food in Japan that seems to have originated in Hokkaido. Can't forget about the crab and seafood too. This is the same water as "Dangerous Catch" and crabs are brought in fresh, not flash frozen, into the ports of this island.
First foodie stop was at the restaurant attached to one of Kirin's beer factories. The beer was unimpressive, but the main dish, lamb, called Ghengis Khan, is a Hokkaido specialty and worth a space on the blog. We order and the lamb comes out like this, in some sort of sweet sauce. Sweetened meat is part of the Japanese palate, and although sometimes gets unbearable, it was tolerable on the lamb. There was also a plate of vegetables that came with the order.

Lamb is cooked at the table, on this special type of plate/ burner. It's grooved and domed, moving the juices from cooking off the center and out to the sides. The shape makes sense...you can load stuff on and not worry about it steaming all that much. What you see in this picture is a piece of lamb fat being used to grease the pan. Fat is fat, no point in discriminating against lard as an ingredient as either software or hardware (this is a hardware application). Now what did bother me about the preparation was the veggies down first then the meat. It contradicted the purpose of the pan. There was hardly any meat-metal contact, hence no browning of the outside. As you can see by the bottom pic, this does not appear to be a really browned or sauteed piece of meat. Even in Hokkaido, the concept of browning really has no place. As for the results, the meat was delicious, very lean. It had a mild lamb flavor and very tender, but I think the lambiness was abated by is freshness or special breed rather than the sauce that it was in. Now because the veggies were on the bottom, and so were the drippings from the sweet sauce, there was a chance for caramelization and deliciousness. But the nearly burnt, bottom portions of the pan had no appeal to the host family, and it was just me scraping off every last scrap as the waitress was going in to change the pan for the next round of lamb...


Hokkaido is famous for ice cream, espcially soft serve. Big flavors are Milk, Vanilla, Lavender, and Melon. I am not sure how the melon got in there, thinking it was a tropical fruit, but Hokkaido grows a variety of canteloupe melon that fetches a pretty high price when brought to Tokyo. I had two flavors at different time, lavender and milk. I had my eye set on the milk flavor for a while, ever since my past ice cream post from Costco (which was vanilla but I looked up the Hokkaido style afterwards) But first we have lavender. It sounded like a brilliant concept, especially since this past summer I ran into a few amazing lavender-scented panna cotta during NY's restaurant week. Other than the purple color, this was week. The lavender just barely came through; you had to try hard to taste it. Lavender honey or any dessert, for example, carried this wonderful purfume, close to rosemary but sweeter and more flowery. Even worse, there was not much richness in this ice cream to back it up. My first experience with "Hokkaido" ice was an incredibly rich, custard-like vanilla that poured out of the dispenser in a firm circle spiraling up the peak, so rich and thick that the center of the ice cream (pour, swirl, not sure of hte name) was hollow becaue the cream had such body. This was nothing like that. So it was kind of disappointing as far as mouthfeel, richness, body (spine of the ice cream perhaps) and flavor (the decorations)
Now this next example is a natural milk flavored soft serve from Otaru. There was also a caramel swirl but I had to go pure for my first taste. Now this was more of what ice cream is about. Still not as incredibly rich as the one sold in Costco (although that may not be a bad thing) this pulled all the richness and flavor of natural milk, added minimal sugar, and came out a the custard-like, almost chewy consitency that make Carvel's career and soft serve so pleasurable to eat. But Carvel can't hand a candle to this. Carvel's vanilla is fun and delicious, but it's got more sugar, probably some stabilizers, and because mass produced from mass produced cows, you lose the association with the milk and cream, and in a sense the ice cream becomes something apart from the dairy that it was born from. Not the case here. I believe drank some of the sweetest, richest, milk in the world at a hotel in Sapporo before coming to Otaru, and this ice cream was clearly made from natural ingredients of that same quality. So what did it taste like? It tasted like milk, and butterfat; flavors in their own that really do not need to be vanillized to sell. If you look at it logically, you shouldnt have to flavor milk/cream. Taking things back, and then wayyy back, the first flavors/foods that we are exposed to in this world milk, milk sugar, and butterfat. Now wayy back - raw milk was one of the basic foods of the first civilizations with the domestication of animals. We are hardwired to love this stuff, and like the Cro-Magnon I am, I loved this.

Next up, Otaru sushi. Otaru is hyped up as one of the best places for sushi in Japan. This above poster is for a type of white, rare salmon, 1 in 10,000 taken from salmon breeding grounds, which is why one piece costs more than a sushi lunch around Waseda university (panic sets in when I realize I haven't blogged about that yet.) No, I did not eat this salmon. So lets see how we compare to Yasuda.
There are sushi restaurants eveywhere, but we are brought to this one, by a horsecab driver that Koji wanted to ride. I'm sceptical because usually there are kickbacks for those things but no use arguing. I would have rather wandered to the place with a line in the front. Can't complain though because I got a free sushi lunch and the guys behind the counter were friendly. Where Yasuda and his accomplices worked with a friendly but mechanical accuracy, these guys seemed to have a little more fun.
Sushi being assmbled. Two guys making it by hand. Counter looked promising (remember I am comparing everything to Yasuda in NYC) Same serving style, on the big leaves. Sushi fish was displayed but not pre-cut. Yasuda does no show his goods.
Here is my sushi plate, later a piece of uni and salmon roe sushi came out. The roe on the far left was disappointing, kind of low quality sushi, but the one next to it is awabi, abalone, one of hte most expensive shells. I'm not going to go piece by piece becaue I dont have pics piece by piece but the fish was extremely fresh. Couldn't argue with that. But it did open my eyes to why some sushi bars are better than others, and why Yasuda is king. It is not about the freshness of the fish because if you live near the water or a big city with a market its easily obtainable for eht right price. It is about much small things, which Yasuda does and no one else can. How you cut the fish, thin, thick, small, hashed, wrapped around the rice ball, etc. It is about how you prepare the rice, and form the ball. How the fish is balanced with the rice and wasabi/other seasonings like soy sauce and sea salt. Because I think I ate at the best sushi restaurant in the world, I'm going to be pretty harsh to say that even these guys in Otaru couldn't match Yasuda. They cut the fish and made the rice balls to big, hard to fit in your mouth. Although fresh, Yasuda's fish just gleamed and sparked the way he cut it. Wasabi was balanced. The definition of zen in food. There to enhance flavor based on the weight of the fish. Here, there were times where the wasabi placed between teh fish and rice overwhelmed the fish. And then finally, the rice balls were a little sloppily made. Irregular, some grains poking out. Guess Yasuda turned me into a snob and I'm waiting for someone to step up in this country at beat him or for me to get back to NY.
Final specialty of Hokkaido was beer, ji-beer to be exact, or microbrew. Sapporo and kirin factories aside, wherever we went there were beer bars and special cans/bottles of the local stuff. This can is one I bought in the Tomamu hotel, the towers. It was a black porter, sweeter than a stout. Sweetness from carmel and toffee notes rather than chocolate as in stouts. Mouthfeel was kind of light, but sticky as carbonation was low. Here are some more examples, ranging from German trippels, American Lager, Pislners, cans, bottles, double fermented liters. Great selection. Too bad I couldn't carry all that much on the plane.


Lots of beer came in 3 can sets. See upper left.

Inaka Soba

As I've been learning more about soba (eating my way through the text book), I came across this odd set of kanji that I didn't realize was the writing of "Inaka" or "country." Now ordinarily this would have no meaning but I read a few months ago that a famous soba restaurant in Tokyo called Matsugen opened up in New York City and their Inaka soba are drawing incredible reviews. Never got the chance to go in NYC, but nothing stopping me from getting Inaka soba in Japan. Turns out the closest soba-ya to my house (30 second walk) is one of the places that has the hand made, hand cut, inaka soba that I've been looking for. (Matsugen in Tokyo isn't as easy to get to but I will be there just for the sake of a NYC comparison)
First time I went, it was 1pm and the hand cut soba was sold out. ANother things I realized is that the hand cut places usually only have the handcut on special order and limited quantity, at least in Tokyo. This place only makes 10 orders a day, after that you get a machine made or god forbid purchased noodles. The places I ate at in Nagano had at least 50 orders of the hand cut stuff, but Nagano seems to be the expert on these things.
So I went back the next week, early. The difference between handcut and not was apparent, as well as inaka and not inaka. Inaka uses a courser milled whole soba flour so the noodles were very dark, with flecks of soba kernels. These were hearty, hearty, noodles. When you bit down there was almost a crunch as you hit the larger pieces. I personally prefer heartier noodles no matter what the culture - I'll take fettucine over spaghetti anyday and I only eat angel hair once a year. There was a sweetness and complexity that machine made or purchased noodles did not have and the big, thick noodles were much more fun to slurp.
Now that I have a little income coming, I can be on the lookout for some more soba places to drop into in addition to Matsugen. I'd love to try the opposite of the Inaka, called Sarashina, which is a very finely milled noodle, as well as various flavors like macha, mugwort, and ume. As they come up I'll post them.
Here's the "special" back page of the menu with the info on the Inaka soba with the picture of the old soba man rolling out the dough in a pain of a process (no gluten in buckwheat). That means like trying to build something without screws or nails - nothing to hold the dough together chemically.
Translation: Inaka soba is stone ground with its with its hull intact, made from 80 percent buckwheat and 20 percent wheat flour. It is a healthy soba made with the hand-cutting technique.