Hamamatsu is a Japanese restaurant located in Shinbashi, Minami Ward.Japanese Food Abe (Shinbashi)I don't often venture into Minami Ward, but there are a few shops there that I'm interested in, so I'd like to visit them little by little whenever I have the chance.
This place was originally a famous restaurant specializing in fresh seafood dishes."Fish scraps"It was a branch of the original store,Uoara BranchIt had been operating for a long time as "[name of business]", but on January 11, 2019 (Friday), an auspicious day, the shop changed its name to "[name of business]".Shinbashi AbeThey have made a fresh start with this new approach.
The restaurant has a bright atmosphere and features counter seats where you can see the kitchen, table seats, raised tatami seating, and a private banquet room in the back that can accommodate up to 25 people, making it suitable for meals for Buddhist memorial services and other occasions.
On this day, we sat in the raised tatami seating area. A small television was set up in the corner of the room, and the 24-hour TV charity program was being broadcast. Eating while watching TV created a relaxing atmosphere that made us feel like we were at home, and the restaurant was very pleasant.
This restaurant offers the same menu for both lunch and dinner, including set meals centered around tempura rice bowls, as well as sashimi set meals and eel rice bowls. The menu, which includes pictures, is easy to read and understand at a glance. The "Tempura Rice Bowl" comes with two shrimp, the "Shrimp Tempura Rice Bowl" comes with four shrimp, and the "Premium Tempura Rice Bowl" uses live shrimp, specifically kuruma shrimp.
As soon as the order is placed, you can hear the sound of tempura being fried, and the backs of the parent and child, hunched over, look alike.
A tempura rice bowl set meal, topped with freshly fried tempura, was brought to our table. Actually, since the proprietress changed the name of the restaurant, she has been featured on the local information portal site "Hamazo" atInnkeeper's BlogShe has launched a blog called "[Hamazo Blog]" and writes it with the goal of posting once a day. My husband has been a Hamazo blog user for a long time, so he seemed to notice us right away. In this blog, there isn't much about the menu or the food, but it's mostly about Momo-chan, the family's toy poodle, showing her love for dogs, and occasionally her turtle Mikan-chan makes an appearance. It's like the proprietress's daily musings, so even first-time visitors can get a sense of her personality. When I looked back at her first post from 2019, I found an article about reading, which is one of her hobbies, and she wrote that she likes Miyabe Miyuki and Higashino Keigo, and I felt a sense of kinship because we like the same authors. However, it seems that regulars often ask her to post about the food once in a while (lol).
Usually, we order different dishes and share them, but on this day, we both thought,Tempura rice bowlThat's the mood we were in. We wanted to savor it slowly, but our dog Chocolat's grooming appointment was approaching, so we ate silently, holding our bowls. Originally, the donburi dish is said to have originated from a dish called "Hōmeshi" in the Muromachi period, but the true donburi was born in the Edo period. The Edoite temperament, wanting to quickly gobble down their food, led them to put the side dishes directly on top of the rice, and eventually "tempura" was also put on "rice," giving birth to "tendon." On this day, we hurriedly devoured our "tendon" just like Edoites.
"Tempura rice bowl" 1,540 yen (tax included)
The ingredients in the "Tempura Donburi" are generous, including two shrimp, two slices of pumpkin, sliced eggplant, bell pepper, burdock root cut lengthwise, and plumply fried black sea bream. The tempura batter is crisp and crunchy where it's not coated in sauce, and moist where it is, with the sweet sauce, which has been continuously replenished to maintain its unchanging taste, applied in just the right balance.
Served in a set meal style, it's a hearty meal with a rice bowl, two small side dishes, soup, and pickles. Looking at it from above, you'll notice that the two small side dishes are all different: "boiled whitebait with grated daikon radish," "simmered hijiki seaweed," "kinpira burdock root," and "okara (soy pulp)"—all delightful side dishes that are good for your body.
Small dish: "Boiled whitebait with grated daikon radish"
Small side dish: "Simmered hijiki seaweed"
"Miso soup with clams from Lake Hamana"
This miso soup, generously filled with clams from Lake Hamana, is a Hamamatsu specialty, as the clams, though small, are infused with the delicious flavor of the clam broth.
Pickles: "Takuan pickles and daikon pickles"
Have you ever wondered about the difference between two types of pickled radish? Why is daikon white, but takuan yellow? It's because when daikon is salted and pickled, the pungent components it contains break down and gradually turn yellow as they combine with other components, resulting in a natural yellow color during the pickling process. Since takuan has long been associated with the color yellow, some products even use natural colorings such as turmeric and gardenia to maintain the image of takuan pickles. The daikon that turns yellow as fermentation and the breakdown of pungent components progress, and the daikon that remains white—it's an interesting combination.
The proprietress offered us a bite-sized dessert as a complimentary treat, saying, "Please have some Mizu Manju♪" The Mizu Manju had a chewy, jiggly texture, and was filled with plenty of beautiful light purple sweet potato paste. It was a heartwarming and unexpected dessert after the meal. It reminded me of how my mother used to hand out ice cream and sweets at my family's Japanese restaurant, saying, "This is on the house♪" I think it's the proprietress's kindness and thoughtfulness, which is the face of the restaurant, that keeps the regular customers coming back.
"Tengyoku"
After paying at the register, I noticed a sign on the counter that read, "Tempura Eggs - Please help yourself," and saw a mountain of tempura eggs packed tightly into small bags. Apparently, these are the tempura eggs that are left over when making tempura in the restaurant, and they are given to customers as a service. At Abeya, they always put tempura eggs in their yakisoba, and if you float them on plain udon, it transforms into a delicious tempura udon. Furthermore, regular customers apparently share all sorts of ways to use these tempura eggs, and it's common to put them in noodles and takoyaki, but they also add them to rice with raw egg or cold tofu, use them instead of fried tofu in miso soup, or stir-fry them with radish leaves in a sweet and spicy sauce to make a furikake (rice seasoning). Every lady is full of ideas and seems to be enjoying arranging them in all sorts of ways. If just one tempura egg can generate so many delicious conversations, then there's nothing more to say!
Japanese Food Abe (Shinbashi)
Address: 995 Shinbashi-cho, Minami-ku, Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture
TEL: 053-447-0654
Opening hours: Lunch 11:30-14:00, Dinner 17:00-20:00 (Last order 30 minutes before closing)
Closed on Tuesdays. *The first week of the month is closed on Monday and Tuesday.
Parking: 14 spaces available next to the store.
https://nippasiabe.hamazo.tv/
