sake master blog

FINAL DAY - GOOD FOOD & WINE SHOW!

Good Morning,

Today is the final day for GOOD FOOD & WINE SHOW.

Its been very very busy for our SAKE JAPAN stand for last 3 days and we gave away over 5000 sake & plum wine tasting cups already!! (Its over 100L of sake & umeshu!!)

I am so happy to see a lot of people getting into sake this year.

The special price of sake at the show 
KIZAKURA YAMAHAI 720ml - $14
KIZAKURA YAMAHAI 300ml - $7
CHOYA UMESHU (No Plum) - $15
CHOYA UMESHU (With Plum) - $18
KIZAKURA NIGORI SAKE (Cloudy) - $10

You should come around and see Gordon Ramsay and buy some SAKE home today 

 

GOOD FOOD & WINE SHOW MELBOURNE

 This long week end, 5 (Fri) – 8 (Mon) June, annually food & wine exhibition GOOD FOOD & WINE SHOW will be held at Melbourne Exhibition Centre. With a hundreds of exhibitor from all around the world plus special live events & guests such as Gordon Ramsay, the show will be a great opportunity for everyone to find new goodies about food & wine.

http://www.goodfoodshow.com.au/

 This year, same as last year, I team up with Daiwa Food and have a special SAKE & UMESHU booth (#E8) during the show. We mainly introduce KIZAKURA SAKE & CHOYA UMESHU products with a lot of FREE TASTING and SAKE COCKTAIL DEMONSTRATION. And also, at the booth, we will sell some of premium sake such as TATEYAMA, HATSUMAGO & RANMAN so it will be a nice and handy chance for you to purchase these rare premium sakes directly into your shopping bag.

TOSHI MAEDA’S SAKE COCKTAIL DEMONSTRATION (Booth # E8)
SAT 6 JUNE – One session only 13:00 - 14:30
SUN 7 JUNE – 1st session 11:00 – 12:30 & 2nd session 14:00 – 15:30
MON 8 JUNE – 1st session 11:00 – 12:30 & 2nd session 14:00 – 15:30

I will show you how to make SAKE COCKTAIL at home. It’s quite simple once you see and taste it. So please come over and see my demonstration. The recipe will be announced on this blog page instantly after the show.

Hope to see you soon.

KIZAKURA

 Today, we had a very special guest from Kyoto, Japan, Mrs. Matsumoto from KIZAKURA SHUZO. She is a wife of company’s president and she took a time to visit MAEDAYA during her short stay in Melbourne. 

 At MAEDAYA, we have KIZAKURA JUNMAI KURANOUTA, KIZAKURA GOLD FLEAK SAKE and KIZAKURA NIGORI SAKE (cloudy unfiltered sake). Also I use KIZAKURA YAMAHAI for most of my Sake Cocktail recipe so I demonstrated a few sake cocktails using YAMAHAI, GOLD FLEAK & NIGORI. I was a little bit nervous to serve sake cocktail to her but she seemed to enjoy them. 

 Mrs Matsumoto told me that KIZAKURA has limited local beer and it is very interesting to me. I am sure for my next trip to Japan, I will visit Kizakura in Kyoto and try Kizakura beer as well as other freshly brewed sake.

 It was very honor to have her in MAEDAYA. I would like to send a big thank to Mrs Matsumoto for visiting MAEDAYA and Ms Tanigawa to arrange it. Arigatogozaimashita.



Kizakura English Official HP
http://kizakura.co.jp/ja/en/index.html

AWAMORI – OKINAWA ORIGINAL SPIRIT

Yesterday, I had an inquiry about AWAMORI from one of Sake Japan customers. He tried Awamori at a Japanese restaurant recently and he thought it’s a beautiful Japanese spirit. Here I explain a little bit more about AWAMORI.

AWAMORI is the oldest distilled alcohol beverage from the southern island of Japan called OKINAWA. In 15 century, the method of distilling alcohol is introduced in RYUKYU (OKINAWA at present) from SHAM (Thailand at present) through the trading. After a certain period, the quality of AWAMORI had been much more improved and finally AWAMORI became one of the most important trading items to foreign countries. That’s the reason why RYUKYU Government gave only 40 breweries in the island to produce AWAMORI officially.

AWAMORI has strong fragrance of distilled rice wine as well as sweetness & richness. People in Okinawa often drink it mixing with water & ice to smoothen the flavour. It can be drunk during meal or even after meal. Sometimes, AWAMORI is aged in a bottle and after 3 years aged, AWAMORI become Aged AWAMORI and its called KUSU. KUSU has much rounded flavour and richness as you can imagine. AWAMORI is a distilled spirit so you can leave it in a shelf as long as you want even after it’s opened.

At Sake Japan, we have 4 different AWAMORI. They all have different characters so it’s very interesting. My recommended AWAMORI is RYUKYU CLASSIC made by Shinzato Shuzo, the oldest Awamori brewery in Okinawa and the only existing brewery who was officially permitted to make AWAMORI by RYUKYU Government since 1846.

Please try it and feel the history of Japanese spirit.

RYUKYU AWAMORI RYUKYU CLASSIC

               

KIKIZAKE Vol.1 - Premium Sake Tasting Event

KIKIZAKE Vol.1 is the premium sake tasting event we had at Maedaya for the first time ever. This time, all guests were invited only and we had over 20 guests from restaurants & bars in Melbourne to try 10 different premium sakes and some sake cocktails I made. I was quite nervous yesterday but it was good everything went very smoothly without any problem

KIKIZAKE Vol.1. Line Up (Tue 5 May 2009)
1. Tateyama Ginrei Honjozo (Toyama)
2. Tateyama Junmai Ginjo (Toyama)
3. Tosatsuru Ginjo Azure (Kochi)
4. Suishin Junmai Komenokiwami (Hiroshima)
5. Hatsumago Junmai Makiri (Yamagata)
6. Kitanohomare Daiginjo Gokujo (Hokkaido)
7. Ranman Hanaranman Komachi Daiginjo (Akita)
8. Choya Umeshu (Osaka)
9. Tateyama Umeshu (Toyama)
10. Hatsumago Koshusansai (Yamagata / 3 years aged sake)



Toshi Maeda Original Sake Cocktail Line Up & Recipe

1. Melon Sword
Midori – 45ml
Sake (Kizakura Yamahai) – 45ml
Lemon Juice – 15ml
Soda Water – 75ml
Build into a long glass Garnish with a wedge of lime

2. Zen Buddha
Zen Greentea Liquor – 30ml
Sake (Kizakura Yamahai) – 30ml
Choya Umeshu Plum Wine – 30ml
Shake all and pour into a martini glass
Garnishd with ring cut lime if you like.

3. Bridge Connection
Choya Umeshu Plum Wine – 45ml
Paraiso Lychee liquor – 15ml
Grapefruit Juice – 30ml
Shake all and pour into martini glass
Garnish with skewered lychee



I hope everyone enjoyed tasting enough to see more about premium sake & sake cocktail.

I would like to thank for everyone who took time and made a way for KIKIZAKE event yesterday. Special thanks to Daiwa Food to supply us a great range of premium sake, Suntory Melbourne to let us use their high quality liquors and Mr. Andre Bishop from Nihonshu sake bar to help me out all through the event.



I would like to keep up myself and give more opportunity for everyone in Australia to try high quality premium sake. The next sake event I am planning is The Good Food & Wine Show at Melbourne Exhibition Centre from 5 – 8 June. This event is open for all the public.

Hope to see you there!

KAMOSHIBITO KUHEIJI JUNMAI GINJO

 Last night, I was invited to the Sake tasting party at my friend K’s. He prepared a lot of dishes such as Sashimi, roast duck & Japanese hot pot Yosenabe for us to match with Sake. Much appreciated. Another friend H san brought 2 Sake bottles from Japan. One is called KAMOSHIBITO KUHEIJI JUNMAI GINJO from Aichi and the other one is MIKOTSURU JUNMAI from Nagano. Actually I heard good things about KUHEIJI from H san and also I had an inquiry about it from Sake Japan customer before so I was especially excited to try this sake.

 We had a bit of beer and sashimi to start the party and soon after, we opened a cap of KUHEIJI first. H san poured KUHEIJI into my sake tasting cup then I tasted it immediately. The first impact in my mouth was just SENSATIONAL! This sake wasn’t like any traditional sake I have tasted before. It has a bit of pineapple or some sort of sweet citrus fragrance and full of sweetness but not sticky at all. Maybe because of a good amount of acidity, the sweetness is cut off naturally at the end. I tasted it one more time by using a wine glass and I found there was a bit of milky fragrance too maybe made from lactic acid. After 2nd tasting, confidently I thought this Sake is taste like white wine such as aged Riesling without petrol fragrance. H san told me that Sake Artist of this sake, KUHEIJI san visited a lot of French restaurants in Paris by himself to promote his sake. Now a few restaurants in Paris are using this Junmai Ginjo in their restaurants! I can understand his approach of Sake towards the western dishes and I am sure this one may match well with western dishes especially light flavoured seafood dishes. (Indeed it was very well matching with salmon & snapper sashimi!)

 Soon after, H san told us that we should open the other bottle MIKOTSURU as a comparison. MIKOTSURU is more like a traditional style Junmai with light flavour, clean & smooth touch medium dry sake. It was a little bit quiet after sensational KUHEIJI but still MIKOTSURU is very well balanced good sake. We decided to warm up this one to match with Yosenabe hot pot and indeed it worked perfectly together.

 I thanked so much to K san & H san for this great experience and now I thought I must try my hardest to bring KAMOSHIBITO KUHEIJI into Australia to share this feeling with everyone. It was just SENSATIONAL!


http://www.tutitatu.com/sake/kamosibitokuheiji.html

MAEDAYA SAKE OF THE MONTH (APRIL 22 UPDATED)

Hello, all

I have received a couple new sake bottles from Japan recently and introducing them at Maedaya from this week. 2 of them are from IWATE prefecture. IWATE’s own NANBU TOJI (local sake artist group) is very famous as the Japan’s top 3 Sake Artist groups. Now it’s your time to try IWATE’s masterpiece in Melbourne! Don't miss this great oppotunity.

MAEDAYA SAKE OF THE MONTH (APRIL 22 UPDATED)

NIHONSHU (RICE WINE)
ASABIRAKI JUNMAI GINJO (IWATE / 15.5% ALC)
Glass $15 / Bottle (720ml) $88
Medium rich & sweet sake with beautiful fruit fragrance & a light dry finish. This is a perfect sake to start the meal with. You can drink both Cold or Warm.

ASABIRAKI JUNMAI (IWATE / 15.5% ALC)
Glass $12 / Bottle (720ml) $75
Full body tasted sweet JUNMAI. This is a little bit sweeter and earthier sake than JUNMAI GINJO that is on the list just above. Well matching with strong flavoured dishes such as Tofu Steak or Teriyaki Chicken. Drinking cold is better than warm for this one.

SHOCHU (JAPANESE DISTILLED SPIRIT)
IPPONGI HOYATTE (FUKUI / 25%)
Glass $6 / Bottle (1800ml) $100
This RICE SHOCHU is made by Fukui’s very famous brewery IPPONGI SHUZO. This one has very light & smooth flavour and it’s a perfect choice for Shochu beginners. Very reasonable Shochu to try out. 

             

MAEDAYA 1st ANNIVERSARY!

Tomorrow 14 April is my restaurant Sake & Grill MAEDAYA’s 1st Anniversary!

It’s already 1 year since we opened MAEDAYA and I can’t believe how soon it was. I feel like the time goes twice faster since I hit age 30. Anyway, I would like to say a big thank to everyone who supported MAEDAYA for last 12 months including all our friendly staff, suppliers & especially our very important customers. I am sure MAEDAYA isn’t what it is now without your help.

To appreciate your support, we would like to offer you some special service during MAEDAYA 1st ANNIVERSARY WEEK (Tue 14 April to Sat 18 April).

At ground floor Yakitori Izakaya sake bar, I would like to come up to all tables by myself and offer you some free sake that is MAEDAYA 2008’s most popular sake AWA TENSUI HEAVEN’S WATER. (Unfortunately this sake no longer will be imported to Australia.)

Also at upstairs Yakiniku Japanese BBQ restaurant, our famous floor manager HIRO will serve you some free hand made hot desert that is called MITARASHI DANGO, the skewered rice balls grilled over charcoal and dipping into a sweet soy sauce.

Please come and celebrate MAEDAYA 1st ANNIVERSARY with us this week.

Thank you very much again for all your support and hope to see you soon!

MAEDAYA NEW MENU STARTS TODAY!

Good Morning!

 I have a very special announcement today, Mon 6 April. My restaurant Sake & Grill MAEDAYA will start a wider new menu from today!! It’s simply bigger and more items than it used to be for both food & drinks. 

 For food section, we have added extra 30% items on top of our original menu. There are almost 70 dishes including spicy tapas such as Kimchi Tofu & Tan Tan Noodle and new Otsumami dishes such as Takoyaki Gratin & Agedashi Mochi as well as more salad dishes such as Salt & Pepper Squid Salad & Buta Shabu Shabu Salad. Of course, our most signature dishes Tsukune & Yakitori charcoal grill skewers are still strong and there. 

 For drink section, we have added 3 more new sake by the glass ( Suishin Junmai, Tateyama Junmai Ginjo & Kitanohomare Nigori) and more than 20 new sake by the bottle. (Nihonshu total 57 labels!) Also, both SUNTORY MALTS & PREMIUM MALTS are on menu now as standard beer choices (beer total 9 labels) as well as new Shochu bottle such as KUROUMA & TANTAKATAN (Shochu total 25 labels!). The highlight of new drink menu will be my original recipe SAKE COCKTAIL 31. (total 31 types!) There are some classic cocktails mixed with Sake such as DRY SAKETINI & BLOODY SAMURAI (You can imagine its simply tomato juice & Sake!). Also already very popular Choya plum wine cocktails such as GEISHA WHISPER & BRIDGE CONNECTION are there as standard choices for you.

 Please come along and try MAEDAYA new much wider menu today!

Sake & Grill MAEDAYA
400 Bridge Road, Richmond
03-9428-3918
(Tram #75 & 48, Stop 20, from Flinders St City towards Kew & Hawthorn)



*MAEDAYA APRIL CLOSING DAY
Fri 10 – Good Friday
Sun 12 – Easter Sunday
Mon 13 – Easter Monday 
Sat 25 – Anzac Day
Plus every Sundays
 

CHOYA UMESHU BACK IN STOCK!

 I had a visitor from Japan at Maedaya last week, Takahashi san from CHOYA UMESHU. I met him for the first time last year when I had a sake tasting event in Brisbane and it was very great to see him again almost after 5 months. 
 
It was his second visit to Maedaya and this time, I asked him to try some of my new sake cocktails mainly based with CHOYA UMESHU.

1: BRIDGE CONNECTION (Choya + Lychee + Grapefruit)
2: CHERRY BLOSSOM SHOWER (Choya + Gin + Vermouth + Cranberry)
3: GEISHA WHISPER (Choya + Ramune + Lime)

 Takahashi san seemed to enjoy all cocktails but after all I thought I gave him too much UMESHU. (I am sure he wanted to taste something different from CHOYA UMESHU that he drinks all the time.) I got excited too much myself by seeing his face again.
Sorry and thank you for your patient, Takahashi san.

CHOYA UMESHU (Both With Plum & Without Plum) BACK IN STOCK NOW!