Japanese Tempura from the Farm to the Table

00:01 John Daub: Greetings! We're in Miyazaki. This is Kobayashi City, and we're here to eat some tempura. I'm at Kajinami Farm.

00:10 John Daub: I'm here joined with Kanae. She's going to be here eating some tempura. We're going to pick some food, and we're going to go to the fields.

00:19 John Daub: This is the owner here, Kajinami-san.

00:22 Kajinami-san: Hi, yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

00:25 John Daub: And we're in Kobayashi City, and this is where we're going to be making tempura.

00:28 John Daub: Eventually, we're going to make some tempura in this oil.

00:30 John Daub: But first, we have to go and find the vegetables.

00:35 John Daub: Kobayashi is known for a very natural place in Miyazaki. It's a place where the vegetables here are organic. We're going to be able to pick what we want to make.

00:44 John Daub: I've never done this before. From the farm to the oil, and then to our mouths. Let's go make some tempura!

00:50 John Daub: Ja, ikimashou!

00:51 John Daub: Ikimashou. Yes, I'm pretty excited about this.

00:54 John Daub: Ikimashou! Ikitikimasu!

01:02 John Daub: Alright, it's a little bit windy out here and kind of chilly, but that won't stop us. As you can see, Miyazaki is completely different from Tokyo — there's no buildings at all.

01:15 John Daub: Oh, we already just started! Well, kore wa nan desu ka?

01:27 John Daub: Kanae's going to try this out. Alright, what does it taste like?

01:36 John Daub: This is daikon, desho? This is... spicy! Yeah, it kind of has the same taste as daikon. So we're going to tempura-ize these. I guess anything you tempura-ize, you could call it "temporized." It's a new word. It's got that slight spiciness of daikon, which is really good.

01:52 John Daub: Because you're literally picking it up — look, it's right off the roadside. Kanae's just picking this to make tempura, which is crazy. In a good way. Alright, we're continuing. Sorry about the wind noise, I'm trying very hard to keep this off the mic, but...

02:28 John Daub: We're deep in Miyazaki Prefecture now. How do you do, everybody? Welcome aboard this livestream! As we go and pick our own vegetables to make tempura.

03:02 John Daub: Vegetables for tempura! In about five minutes, we're going to deep-fry all this stuff. But we get a chance to try the vegetables before we make it into tempura. Kind of cool — this is pretty neat. I've never done anything like this. But in Kobayashi, this is one of the reasons why you come to the countryside. You have opportunities like this where you can harvest fresh stuff.

03:40 John Daub: Toby! Thank you! Shrimp would be good right now. They're going to go and harvest — can I harvesting this? What is this? I can eat a flower! I feel bad, so this...

04:53 John Daub: I'm officially a flower killer now. I'm going to roy tō.

05:04 John Daub: Shungiku! Alright, we're now picking this shungiku. Not sure what this is in English. What do you call this in English?

05:19 John Daub: Shungiku is shungiku. Japanese spinach. Interesting. Wow, that's going to be delicious. That looks really good as tempura.

05:40 John Daub: I'm already in my mind imagining everything deep-fried. Alright, now we're going down.

05:59 John Daub: And we're going to find more stuff on the farm. Sorry about the wind, I cannot control that. Oh!

06:22 John Daub: Hey, check this out! Here's the traffic in downtown Kobayashi. Oh no, Kanae, wait up! Watch out for the heavy!

06:36 John Daub: Shiitake? Did she say shiitake? Are there snakes? Look at the neko! Neko-chan! Were there snakes here? Eh, there's no snake here, right? I wonder who is saying that. The internet is giving us these ideas of instant snake bites that will just happen by stepping in the wrong place. I don't think we're going to get hit by snakes.

07:13 John Daub: Wow! Shiitake! Sumimasen! I ate a spider web! Sumimasen! I said it the wrong way. Wow, that's fresh shiitake! It's a little dry. It's not raining, but we can eat this. Can I take it? Yeah, take it. Wow! It's a little expensive. Maybe three? And then over there. All right, watch out for the... Oh, Kanae! Sorry to swing you guys, I'm sorry, Kanae bumped. It's her fault.

08:04 John Daub: Can we eat these flowers? No, you can't eat these! Yes, I've already eaten one flower. Why not eat another one? All right, you can laugh at that all you want. It's true.

08:32 John Daub: What's next on our tempura hit list? Oh, wasabi! There's no need to remove the wax from the wasabi — wait, you don't need to remove the wax? Show me the wax! Oh, wasabi! So this is kind of... take it off. It's going to break. Like this? There's a part that's going to break, a soft part, and then you just take it off. Oh! Three, two, one — wonderful! Okay, then just wash it, and then deep-fry it. I just like saying deep-fry. Pick it and deep-fry it!

09:21 John Daub: That's not asparagus, is it? It's not asparagus. It kind of looks like asparagus.

09:29 John Daub: Hey guys, so for those joining us, we're picking our own organic vegetables off a farm, and then we're going to deep-fry everything that we pick. I say that with an evil face, and Kanae is helping me out. Kanae is going to cut this. It's called yukinoshita. Yeah, it's for tempura. I'm going to cut it into two pieces. It looks a little bit cut. Then show it to the camera. So we're going to eat this as tempura. Thank you! Okay, put it in the tempura deep-frying pot. Next up!

10:10 John Daub: I didn't know we were going to do this when I woke up this morning. Totally spontaneous. Absolutely awesome. We're walking through someone's farm picking stuff to eat.

10:34 John Daub: They said there's no snakes. What are these holes — snakes? They could be gophers. Mulberry! Oh, mulberry! The mulberry bush. Here we go around the mulberry bush — junberry! Too bad it's not early in the morning. I might not be able to eat it. I can't eat it. Junberry is the juniper, right? The white flowers turn red in June. These are junberries, but they're still white, and in June they'll become berries, but right now they're not berry delicious.

11:21 John Daub: Where's the kabosu? Kabosu! Hey there, Mr. Taxic! It's kabosu. It's still there. Not yet. The biwa! So these you can also eat, but not yet. A lot of stuff is new to me. I'm not even sure what we're eating here. All I know is that we're going to deep-fry it, and anything deep-fried is good.

11:50 John Daub: It's biwa. Do you know biwa? Biwako? No, biwa is like a small mango. It's orange — tempura! You're going to deep-fry it. I like it. It's got the new hapa — hapa is leaf in Japanese — and you can see how green it is. And the older ones are a little bit darker, but they look very good. I like it. Oh, the scenery here is just so good. Look at how beautiful this is. This is the surrounding area of Kobayashi. Oh man.

12:44 John Daub: We can get some vegetables in this truck. They have about 30 kinds of vegetables on the farm. Ah, there's 30 kinds of vegetables! They have about 30 kinds of vegetables on the farm. What are you holding in your hand? Scissors for cutting. Careful, don't run with those scissors. I'm going to show other vegetables there. Let's take a look at some more vegetables before we get in the tempura.

13:15 John Daub: Basically, we can pick anything that we want that's available on the farm. And so far... oh! It's mitsuba! Mitsuba — red mitsuba. Can we eat it in tempura? Wow — maybe? Maybe? Maybe. No, no, it's mitsuba. Mitsuba. It smells so good. Relaxing. Oh, it smells like a maple, like a leaf. This is just exciting. I love just picking stuff and saying "This is our lunch." That's our lunch.

14:00 John Daub: So that's... time to make tempura! Oh, now we're going to... oh, wow! So I thought when they said vegetables, I thought it was like carrots and renkon. We basically just picked leaves. Hey, Queen of Tacos, thank you! Negi bozu! Whoa, negi bozu! I love negi! Wow. Let's go. I love negi right on the truck. Look at this. These are like onions, but you can see the negi. Oh man, I could eat that raw.

15:05 John Daub: So now we're going to wash the vegetables that we picked. And we have a pretty good selection here. Yeah, that looks like a garden in there. There's a little bug in there. It's alright — a kumo (spider)? We don't want to eat the spider! Tempura kumo! We're going to put the spider back.

15:43 John Daub: Yeah, so Kobayashi is very famous for being a natural area of Miyazaki Prefecture. And they take a lot of pride in the fact that everything is very organic and clean. The rivers here are so clean that this is the place where they started the Japanese caviar industry here. And the reason why was because the waters were just so perfect for breeding the sturgeon. So I was talking with — I'm here actually scouting. I was talking with the city hall officials, and they said that they have 400 foreigners now living in Kobayashi — in the middle of Kyushu, kind of far away from everything. And that's kind of a testament to — like, people are looking for this kind of natural lifestyle. This is a way of living.

16:29 John Daub: That's your dinner! You've never eaten this healthy, have you?

16:33 John Daub: Well, that's not true — actually, she cooked a lot of really good food. Joking! Hey, Randall, thank you!

16:51 John Daub: You can see it is a little bit windy here in Miyazaki today. We had beautiful blue skies this morning. And then — oh, could I take a picture? What? We're going to do tempura with all this stuff in her hands. All right, let's go inside!

17:17 John Daub: Oh, wow! Everything's set up. So they're going to lay it out and kind of dry it, dry the water off. We just rinsed off the vegetables. We're going to dry it off on some of the towels here, and then it's time to put it in this deep-fried oil, which smells really good. Just on its own — I could drink that oil. I'm so hungry. It's probably not good for my cholesterol, but I do it.

18:02 John Daub: Look at these leaves! I know — the colors of it are so like HDR popping. Good. Oh, I can hear some of the traffic coming from Miyazaki. This is Kobayashi traffic. Very cool. Hey, caught on camera! Yeah, this is going to be really yummy. It's a little bit chilly. I'm really happy to be standing next to this hot oil because it's warm. Everybody, gather around the oil! Oh, there's the batter. There's the batter. We're going to put it all in.

19:03 John Daub: Wow, this is really beautiful. Can I just picking it out? Just doing some last cleaning here. It's beautiful-looking vegetables. Are you excited? Yes, of course! You hungry? Yes. Good — most important thing is hungry. That shiitake looks good! We just picked that shiitake. Let's go! He's chef for tempura. Thank you, chef! Master of tempura! Hey, Joanne, I'm sorry...

20:21 John Daub: I'm sorry. Thank you. It looks yummy. It's going to look even yummier after we batter it and deep-fry it. Look, OK, now we're putting some of the panko — ah! Komugi! Komugi! Komugi is a different kind of flour. This is all going to be...

20:56 John Daub: Who's the lady in the back? That's Furukawa-san! You have been noticed! Put it into the oil because we're giving respect to the vegetables. This is a new rule that I just made up right now. Hey, Goku 95a, thank you! It's nice to see you too. Almost looks like a Caesar salad, but that's some monkey coats — it's like barley flour! Barley flour is used for tempura! Everybody's really quiet — oh, that's the test. Ah, it looks ready to me. Yes, that looks ready to me. Now added some of the vegetables in to the batter. It's such a thing of beauty! Wow, that's just like a tempura leaf — it looks so good! Oh, there's the flower! Go, flower, go! The flower didn't think it would be tempura this morning, did you?

23:51 John Daub: There's no sauce for this, everybody. We're just going to eat this with shio — shio is salt. So just a little bit of salt, and boom, there it is. Yeah, you can see on the plate here is some salt, and you eat this with salt. Oh, there's the one with the flour. Oh, that looks so beautiful! Oh, look at that — beautiful, it is! Wow, so we're going to be eating this tempura and we just picked it like five minutes ago. That's right. Oh, okay, here's some chopsticks. All right, do this with one hand — open the chopsticks. And what do we say, everybody? Itadakimasu! Yeah, itadakimasu! All right, Kanae, you can go first — she gets ladies first. You can go in there. Are you going to go for the flour first? Here, actually show the camera.

25:21 John Daub: Alright, show it to the camera. This is so amazing! Can you turn it around? Show the flower side. Yeah! Oh, look how the flower does not look like... hold it still, don't move it too much. That's not how the flower looked like five minutes ago. Wow! Alright, try it! So I put some salt. Good.

25:59 John Daub: Alright, we've got confirmation — it's good!

26:20 John Daub: That's really good. I think anything that's been deep-fried is really good. So any edible herbs that you find on the roadside here in Kobayashi, you can eat.

26:36 John Daub: Oh, that's the Japanese... what is this? Mitsuba. This is shungiku. This one is shungiku. And this one is mitsuba — red mitsuba. That's the red leaf that we picked last. And that's the Japanese asparagus. Oh, it's bozu negi. Oh, negi bozu — from the Japanese leeks, the green onions. Yeah, oh wow. And guys, we still got a little ways to go. There's some other stuff, including the curly stuff that looks like asparagus, but it's not.

27:25 John Daub: That's our audience. Alright, let's try this. I'm going to go for these little daikon... I'll try zenmai desu. This is a little... oni warabi. This is a little daikon bud, or like seed. It's got a really kind of daikon spiciness to it. There's a little bit of a twinge. And you're going to go for that? Oni warabi. Oh, oni meaning the devil? No. Oni is demon. Oni no oni desu ka? No. Oni no oni da iu. Oni no oni desu ka desu ka? They said maybe. I like the definitive answers. Did you see warabi in America? I've never seen warabi before in America. It could be wrong. Only in Japan? That's the name of the show! He doesn't get it.

28:40 John Daub: Wow, it's good, isn't it? It's good, it's delicious! This is what I'm talking about! We just picked this off the farm like 10 minutes ago, and it's already a meal. It's so crunchy. This is what I'm talking about!

29:05 John Daub: When you eat tempura, it has to be fresh because it still has the essence of the vegetable that was fresh just a moment ago. If you eat it and it's been sitting around too long or the vegetables aren't fresh, you start to lose the essence of the vegetable. That's why you have to do it very quickly like this — just pick it and deep-fry it, then you preserve that natural taste to it. So good.

29:37 John Daub: This would go really good with sake, nihonshu, biru, anything. Oishii wa. Mitsuba. Yeah. I'm over there but I'm driving — I'm driving. Red mitsuba? It does really look cool, doesn't it? Oishii. I'll check this out here. Mitsuba. Ah, I lost it. I lost it. Okay, it's okay. That's what the color is here. Sanbyou ruru, mou jubyou. Sorry — the three-second rule. Anything you drop is still edible after three seconds. I play the three-second rule. Yeah.

30:27 John Daub: So it's really basically like a really fresh vegetable chip, like a potato chip. But it's fresh vegetables — there's still vitamins, right? There's a lot of vitamins, there's a lot of nutrients. Shungiku? Japanese spinach. Yeah. Negi. I love negi. I really love negi.

31:15 John Daub: You getting full? No. No. No. You're so full. No, it's... really? All right. This is also pretty beautiful here. Check this out on this side. Right off of... we picked this. Yukinoshita. If you remember back from the beginning of the video, we just picked this and look at this. Now we've made it into food. Amazing! If you want to see more, hit the like button. Do it!

31:55 John Daub: If we can get the 250 likes, we're going to do the shiitake. All right, hit the like button — 250 likes, we'll do shiitake, which is mushrooms, kind of off of a piece of wood that we picked on the back. Oh man. Oh man. Really? It's good. Oh, this one was good? Warabi. Oni warabi. This is oni warabi — which could be from the oni meaning demon. It was kind of all curled up. You see this part here? This part was all curled up when we picked it fresh, and now it looks like this. It looks better deep-fried. I don't know. I'm just saying.

32:49 John Daub: Oishi. I can — my body is getting all so energized from the vegetables. All right. We didn't get the 250 likes, but the chef put it in there anyways. Can't control. But there's two pieces of shiitake that we just picked off of a log in the back. This is so cool. I usually get it at the supermarket, but to see it in its natural habitat — on a log — it's pretty cool. Hey, Navin, thanks — nice to see you.

33:48 John Daub: For those of you watching, we just picked this tempura off the farm. I'm so looking forward to that shiitake. But the other ones look so good. The concentration... Segwaishichu shiteru. Deep, deep concentration. That's the way we do it. Look at the drool on her. It's a drool — saw the drool from the delicious food that's about to hit your mouth. We're pretty much right off the roadside here. Kobayashi — maybe a couple of kilometers from the center of town. But I'll put a link in the description if you want to learn more about where we are.

35:00 John Daub: Ah, satsumaimo! Ah, from the potatoes. I don't remember picking the potatoes. Did we pick potatoes? We didn't pick potatoes. That looks like the satsumaimo. Kore desho, satsumaimo. Okay, that's what this is right here. All right, this is basically where we are. For those of you who are wondering where we are — we're right here. And this is the nature, like right off the roadside. I can't believe we just picked the vegetables right off the roadside. We're just eating this tempura. This is awesome.

36:18 John Daub: Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Of course! Thank you for the food! Did you eat it with salt? It's delicious!

37:07 John Daub: Shochu!

37:20 John Daub: Did you make it here? We made it at home. It's a sweet potato.

37:42 John Daub: Kyushu is the island in the south. It's famous for Miyazaki city. And I'm looking at the shochu. Oh man. Oh man. I totally would love to have this as a drink. This is the homemade, made here, shochu. This is crazy. Oh man, 25% booze though — I can't drink this. Why did I drive? Kanae doesn't have a drive. I don't have a driver's license. Kanae should be driving. I want to drink this. Look at this — it's all made right here. Oh, this is a big bottle. Kanae, can you drive? One day. One day. But not now. Uber? No, there's no Uber here. Why would we take a taxi? We drove here. I don't know. I'll come back again for the booze. But yeah, the tempura is pretty good.

38:48 John Daub: What about the bamboo shoots? Bamboo shoots? Ah, no. Why is the tempura here? Is this a restaurant? No, no. Oh, no? Yeah. What should I say? Homemade kitchen. Pick your own vegetables kitchen. You can taste the vegetables — just the tasting of the vegetables, fresh vegetables. There's also ishigama over there. Oh, wow! This is made out of rock, this stove. Wow. What are you making there? Bread? Um, meat and grill. Ah, meat! John, John, listen. They made this. They made it by hand? Yeah, by hand. They didn't buy this on Amazon. No, he made it. They made this. Wow — you made it! Very cool. And you can use this to grill meat and vegetables and grill all sorts of stuff. It's made out of rock, so it's got to have a really good taste. And I think everyone should have this in the middle of their house. This is so cool.

40:10 John Daub: Pizza? Well, you had me at pizza. And cake. And... oh, man, I'm just so hungry. Hold on, we got some oil on you. You want some oil? Yeah. I'm so upset. There you go. You look good now. Potato? Potato? Are you... okay. You already ate? Yeah. Yeah. Me? Delicious. That's good. It's so sweet. There's this kind of sweetness to the satsuma imo. We've had yakimo. Yakimo. It's tempura. It's got that oil, it's got another complexity to it with that crunchy skin that you deep-fried and battered up and put in the oil, and that crunchiness just added in with that sweetness of the potato, which is basically a sweet potato. Oh man.

41:29 John Daub: But that's okay. There is more. Oh, do not do that. Do not do that. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm good. I'm okay. Okay. I quit. But... it's okay. It's okay. They're actually going to make more. Wow. But I think this is one of the attractions of Kobayashi. I just wanted to get a chance to show you because we're going to be here tonight and tomorrow night, just scouting around this area. It's a very, very natural place. The water here is so good. This is the birthplace of Japanese caviar. This is a place where more and more Westerners, foreign people are coming to live here. And I'm trying to wrap my head around why, and I'm investigating this.

42:14 John Daub: So I'm going to be doing three or four more livestreams from this city, Kobayashi. So I hope you tune in for some more of these. I'll put a link in the description for some more, and look for the notifications. Make sure you click that notification bell because we could go live at any time — like today! To ida tempura! Which is totally unexpected. I did not know we were going to do this this morning, but we did. And I brought Kanae with me to help me, because I always go on these trips and I never bring her, and she was always jealous, so I said I'll bring you on this one. And I'm glad that I did.

42:44 John Daub: Alright, so everybody, thanks so much for watching. I'll see you in the next livestream. Furukawa-san also says goodbye. Now you're part of the show! So thank you everybody. Arigatou gozaimasu. Oishikatta gochisousama deshita. Thank you so much for being a part of the stream. And we're going to eat this tempura by ourselves from now. So if you do come to Kobayashi, just keep in mind everything's fresh here.

43:14 John Daub: Ko-hi nomimasu ka? Arigatou gozaimasu. I'm going to eat this tempura by myself. I kinda wanted the shochu, but that's okay. I had to eat that. But when you come to Kobayashi, make sure you have some of the fresh vegetables. Hey, you know what? He's a coffee shop owner. A coffee shop owner? So now he's going to make coffee for us. This livestream just got interesting. We have a tempura chef and a coffee chef — tempura chef and a coffee chef. What? What? Look at this, look at this! We get — they can do anything in this kitchen.

43:46 John Daub: Yeah, Vern, okay, if we can get to 300 likes in like 30 seconds, I would consider keeping this livestream going. But we have to get to 300 likes in like 20 seconds. I don't think we're going to do it. Oh, look. Wow. That smells so good. Oh man. I could use a coffee. I've been up a long time. I drove — I drove, it was over an hour. I've never driven that long before. Usually in the last episode, Dean was helping me out with the driving. This time I'm driving. It's pretty crazy. But it's easy here in Miyazaki. Rent-a-car is actually a really good way to get around this area of Japan, Kyushu, because there is not a lot of heavy traffic. It's pretty relaxed and the lanes are bigger. You cannot compare Tokyo for rent-a-car. This is the perfect place for it. And we got a pretty good view. I'm going to make a deal on a Toyota — I'll show you later on another livestream. But all right, good. We didn't get to 300 likes. Three, two, one — oh, 299! What do I do? What do I do? We... oh, okay. 302! All right! I'll extend the livestream by a couple more minutes. It's a victory for all of us then. I was gonna end it. Oh, is that coffee? It's coffee. It smells so good. Is it Miyazaki coffee? Kanae's coffee. Oh, Kanae's coffee. I thought that was yours. Did you make this? Oh, it smells so good. It's... Oh. Oh, that's good. Cups here. My cup. Oh, your cup. Oh, the big one. Big one. Is it your cup? No, it's not. It's not? No. He's doing it right.

46:29 John Daub: I don't know what's so special about this coffee. It's special because we're drinking it right now, after eating an amazing tempura meal. We do still have some tempura left. I was going to use this for the thumbnail — make a better thumbnail. Just sharing a little bit of extra time with you guys. It's totally worth it. That actually does look like really good coffee. Look at that. Hand drip is the best way to do it too. So I'm going to put this down here. Well, double drip. I thought I was going to do double. Double. It's spicy. It's spicy. It's perfectly filtered. But Ben Cool has it right — perfectly filtered. Bonus footage because we got over 300 likes. All 431 people watching get a cup. Are you a dog? Dog? Dog? I was like, is that a dog I hear in the background barking? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. That's how I drink it — black. Is it good? Nice. Is it good? It's good. Is it good? It went down the wrong way. No, seriously. Relax. Okay, relax. It's not strong. It's not weak. It's like perfect. It's very well balanced. I think if you don't drink your coffee with milk, you don't want it too acidic. There's a pretty good balance. It's not too thick but it's definitely not weak. You have a very robust taste with it. So it's quite a good cup of coffee, for someone who drinks a lot of coffee. This is good coffee. I'm not just saying that. I would tell you if it wasn't. I wouldn't.

50:04 John Daub: Alright. Thanks everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed coffee time. It's coffee time. Thank you. I'm just going around saying hello. Bye bye. Adios.