{"id":34471,"date":"2014-04-01T22:27:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T02:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=34471"},"modified":"2016-05-19T10:28:11","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T14:28:11","slug":"wit-life-266-kajitsu-spring-tasting-reception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/01\/wit-life-266-kajitsu-spring-tasting-reception\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #266: Kajitsu Spring Tasting Reception"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIT Life <\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/a>is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/a><\/strong><\/em>to-ken<\/a> CIR, 2000-<\/strong><\/em>03).\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she sha<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>es some of the interesting tidbits and <\/strong><\/em>t<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>ends along with h<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>er own observations.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>\"\"<\/p>\n

Over the weekend I had the chance to take part in the delectable Spring Tasting Reception held at Kajitsu\/Kokage<\/a>.\u00a0 For those of you who don’t know this spot, it’s about as close as you can get to Japan here in NYC.\u00a0 Last year I celebrated my birthday with a delicious meal at Kajitsu, the restaurant on the upper floor featuring \u7cbe\u9032\u6599\u7406 (shojin ryouri), vegan cuisine devised centuries ago by Buddhist monks <\/span>which was the predecessor to kaiseki .\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

In the first four years of its existence Kajitsu was located in the East Village, but it moved to its midtown location a year ago.\u00a0 Aside from Kajitsu occupying the second floor, Kokage on the first floor serves <\/span>non-vegetarian Japanese food and Ippodo near the entrance sells Japanese tea.\u00a0 There is literally something for everyone, and both restaurants are open for both lunch and dinner.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

This event was celebrating the promotion of the Executive Sous Chef Hiroki Odo to Executive Chef, as current Executive Chef Ryota Ueshima is returning to Japan.\u00a0 The amazing spread featured shojin sushi, vegetarian ramen, vegetarian okonomiyaki, curry-flavored croquettes and a table filled with oishii \u548c\u83d3\u5b50(wagashi<\/em>, or Japanese-style sweets) and other desserts.\u00a0 But for me the hit of the night was the matcha champagne.\u00a0 The matcha was prepared in the same way as you’d see in the tea ceremony, except that before whisking champagne was poured in instead of hot water. \u00a0 The result was a refreshingly bubbly green tea flavored cocktail , the perfect accompaniment to the elegant meal.\u00a0 Iribancha was recommended to go with the dessert, and it was a powerful tea but drew me in once I got used to it.<\/p>\n

There was also a wide selection of sake on the second floor sponsored by Sake Journeys<\/a>, and Sake Samurai Timothy Sullivan was on hand to offer his recommendations (I particularly liked a new Hakkaisan sparkling nigori sake).\u00a0 All in all it was a lovely night in a venue whose simplistic beauty and wood walls transport you back to Japan, even down to its very scent.\u00a0 You will feel \u61d0\u304b\u3057\u3044 (natsukashii<\/em>, or nostalgic) upon entering, even if it is your very first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03).\u00a0 She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations. Over the weekend I had the chance to take part in the delectable Spring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,70,18,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-food-drink","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-8XZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34471"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39788,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34471\/revisions\/39788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}