It’s surprising just how many bread shops there are in Japan. Yokohama is considered the birthplace of European bread in Japan with the first bread shop established in 1861 near Nihon-ōdōri street in the old foreigners settlement. Small, Japanese, family-owned bread shops baking their own unique style of breads later flourished during the 1920s and 30s. Along the old shopping street near Higashi-Hakuraku Station, you may stumble upon Rosenborg, one of those unique, early bread shops still in existence today. Founded by the Takasaki family in 1937 and originally located near Tanmachi Station, the bakery was first named “Napoleon Bakery”.…
Author: Seasider
German Tea Born in Yokohama Ronnefeldt Tea Company is one of the oldest tea companies in the world, established by Johann Tobias Ronnefeldt in Frankfurt, Germany in 1823. In this month’s issue we introduce the sole distributor of Ronnefeldt Tea in Japan, Mr. Marcel Niederhauser, who was born in Yokohama and is the president of Otti Boeki. YSM: Please provide us some background on how you got into the tea business. Niederhauser: It fell into my lap one afternoon in 1999. I was not quite happy with my job at the time working for a Swiss company and one day…
Indecisive? You crave beef, but lamb looks good, too. Oh, pork as well! Ah, fried chicken! Wait–shrimp, too? Smoked salmon? Why not just try them all? Problem solved: Juicy Things, specializing in small portions of fried chicken and sliders–miniature hamburgers just 6cm across. With a choice of five fillings (plus a weekly special), you needn’t limit yourself to one slider; three or four will make a meal. Order the meat alone on a tiny bun (“Original”) or add lettuce, tomato, and onion (“Classic”). Prices are also diminutive, from ¥300 to ¥400. Fried chicken (original, cacciatore, or Cajun) costs ¥200 to…
We have some exciting news: the Yokohama Seasider is becoming an official non-profit organization! This has been in the works for several months and will likely become a reality shortly after you read this. We at Bright Wave Media, Inc. have been producing the magazine since March 2009, but feel it◇s time to fully transition it to a community publication. We will still be intimately involved and are proud to be working with Joseph Amato (the director to-be) on this exciting, new project. Stay tuned…
Summer has begun. Most associate summer with the great outdoors–with adventure and freedom. While we love Yokohama and try to promote its attractions, it never hurts to get away from the city to enjoy more natural scenery. There are so many day trips one can experience from Yokohama. The city is one of Japan’s more underrated transportation hubs. Take advantage! We’re also excited about big changes coming to the Yokohama Seasider this summer. We’re about to evolve. Stay tuned…
spring cabbage ½ head (sliced in fine threads) red cabbage ¼ head (coarsely chopped) early red onion ¼ bulb (coarsely chopped) carrot 1(coarsely chopped) Dressing mayonnaise 60g plain yogurt 50g maple syrup 20g yuzu juice 20g (apple cider vinegar can be used as a substitute) yellow mustard 10g celery seed to taste salt and pepper to taste Mix dressing ingredients in a bowl. Add all vegetables to the dressing and mix well. Season with salt, pepper, and celery seeds as desired. Let sit in refrigerator for an hour and it’s ready to serve
In YSM #152, we spoke with Masaki Izumi, the Deputy Director of Yokohama International Education Academy (YIEA), about the challenges her language school has faced during the pandemic. But another problem people don’t realize is that many students have had difficulty entering Japan during COVID. In this interview, we seek to shed light on why these students are so valuable to Japan. YSM: Why are foreign students important to Japan? Izumi: All countries say they need international students in order to have more people in the world understand their country. This is also true of Japan. In the case of…
Namiya sits on a quiet backstreet near the intersection of the Yamate shopping street and Honmoku-dori. In the late afternoon sunlight softly streams in through the long front windows. A large wooden table extends across the single-room restaurant. At its center sits a pot simmering over charcoal. Namiya serves biodynamic wine and craft beer with dishes made from natural cheese and naturally farmed vegetables. The menu changes weekly, incorporating those seasonal vegetables, and the dishes are designed around macrobiotics. First we tried the vegetable terrine burrata (¥1500 with crackers). The vegetable of the week in the terrine was Brussels sprouts,…
Yoshimi and Shoki Matsuzaka are the founders of kitafuku Co (lowercase intentional), a start-up that recycles spent grains from breweries to create paper products, though they were originally system engineers working for the same company. The two met when they joined the company futsal team. Yoshimi is from Hokkaido while husband Shoki hails from Fukuoka. The company name is derived from the first kanji of their respective home prefectures. When they started their company in 2019, they initially worked as contract engineers. In their company’s second year they sought to add to that the creation of in-house products and services.…
Folks, we’d like to introduce our new writer, Glenn Scoggins. If you didn’t notice his work last issue, you definitely will this issue, as he has contributed both the feature and another good bar review (he’s a well-known beer lover). Scoggins has lived in Yokohama since his arrival in Japan in August 1977, and he’s been a history teacher and college counselor at Saint Maur International School for the past 45 years. What an amazing legacy! And what a great person to be writing for the Yokohama Seasider. Welcome aboard, Glenn.