Christmas Cruise

So we boarded a boat. 4 courses, red and white wine options. The meal called for both. First two courses went white, main course went red. Intersting combination of stuff. The first and last dishes were very spring, light, fruity dishes. The second dish was somewhere inbetween, a seafood cake, heavy on the seafood, light on the cake, and sauteed mushrooms. The third dish was definitely wintery, with roasted and stewed items in red wine sauce. The whole meal seemed to have a french influence, the chef probably trained there.

Place settings...they made the napkins look like boots. Pretty sweet. Don't know how they did that but they were wrapped tight and looked like it took a while. We used all the utensils on the table so we did lots of eating. My kind of meal.
Course 1: Cold Plate
Shrimp, scallops, asparagus, prosciutto (parma). The whitish sauce on the top and bottom is a yuzu mayonaise. I don't go for mayo but I loved this one. I don't know if they made it completely in house or not, but the yuzu flavor did not come from a jar. Tasted they used just the skin of the yuzu, no juice in there. Yuzu tastes somewhere between a lemon and grapefruit, tart, definitely not sweet, but also definately not overpowering. Having that in the mayo tempered the nasty, mouth and gut covering flavor subsititue and made a very nice sauce. The yuzu worked with everything but the Prosciutto, that was best left alone. Scallop was raw, a little ginger, and very sweet. Scallops have become my favorite shellfish at this point. Can't wait for hte spring...supposedly they are best then. The dish was light, not wintery at all, but niether was the weather.
Second Course: A seafood cake with sauteed mushrooms, lemony sauce. Seafood cake sounds creepy and probably doesn't do the dish justice but I am translating from Japanese. It was some type of white fish, not caked, more assembled than anything else. There was something holding the chunks of meat together but it was not very bready at all. As for the mushrooms, they were not sauteed in butter which was odd, probably just oil, garlic, lemon. Fish and shrooms aren't a common combination but because both parts of the dish were done well, the dish worked. The menu was clear to point out that these were champagnon mushrooms, which is just your ordinary mushroom so I dont know why they did that. They must have gotten some special ones or used the name to cover up a Japanese variety. Probably sounded great to Japanese to get some french 'shrooms but just about everything is more excitiing than a champagnon.

Main Course: Roasted water fowl, deer meat and potato stuffed onion, some kind of seaweed that was fun to eat.
Second time I ran into this type of bird that I don't know. First time was as an appetizer with the fugu meal. It goes down like steak, all red meat. I would say osterich but they don't have that here. It is very lean all the way through but has about an 8th of an inch uniform fat cap on it. The meat is great, wish I knew what this was. It is not goose, duck, or pheasant...looked all those up.
This was a winner. An onion stuffed with deer meat and potato. Really solid winter dish and I love the idea. I would change up the onion a bit though. Seems like it was boiled or steamed first to get the onion flexible, then wrapped around a seperately cooked meat mixture, then served. I'd find a way to bring the ingredients together more and get some color on that onion. Inside was finely shreaded meat, braised for a while, and a mashed potato mixture. Potato was light on butter and milk, may have just been plain when it was cooked with the deer meat.
Seaweed I think...only way to get those bubbles. I don't think there is an earth plant that grows naturally or that can be prepared in that way. It was bubbly. Flavor was light and clear. Just interesting food item.
Dessert: Vanilla and berry ice cream with a tart cherry sauce. I'm not big on desserts so I don't have much to say. Tart sauce and creamy vanilla worked well. Japanese know balance in their food. I was talking to host sister about different desserts and how the Japanese react to sweet things differently than Americans. Pretty interesting that we have different conceptions of sweet that I don't understand yet. For example, I had my little bro try banana and peanut butter together. He thought it was horrible, too sweet. But this is the same kid that sucks down mochi covered in Sugary syrup and azuki sweet beans. Host sister is the same way, loves anko which is probably the sweetest thing I've ever tasted. Can't stomach it. They also werent big on the pumpkin pie I made with the other host student which wasnt sweet at all. Other than aquired tastes and all that, she explained it in terms of balance. When you eat sweet mochi or anko, you drink a green tea that is slightly bitter. American sweet does not have that balance...like cookies, cake, etc. I still don't get the banana peanut butter aversion since that is the best combination in the world but balance makes sense. Back to dessert, this was balanced.