00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Aomori City once again. This behind me is Kaisengumi, an izakaya (pub) that serves a lot of different kinds of foods here in Aomori. But one food in particular is oden, which has a very unique taste here in Aomori. They add ginger to the miso. That ginger gives it an extra kick, which helps you get through the really cold winter nights. And we're going to be taking you inside this restaurant. Oh, there goes Shacho.

00:00:31 John Daub: But first, Shacho, who means the president of the company, wants to take us to the second story of his izakaya. And we want to show you the refrigerator that goes to minus 80 degrees. So we're going to go together here. There's a lot of snow you can see outside here and it is a pretty cold night. I'm looking forward to eating some of this ginger miso oden. Let's go up to the second floor and take a look at this amazing freezer that goes up to minus 80 degrees. Oh, this is awesome.

00:01:35 John Daub: Now, it's minus 79 degrees Celsius. Whoa. This is a tuna. Wow. I can see the temperature is written right there. That's amazing. It's cold. It's like Hokkaido. That's interesting. So this Kaisengumi is famous for maguro (tuna), but they also have oden here, too. All right, let's go back. Thank you very much. That was interesting.

00:02:32 John Daub: I wanted to see what a freezer that goes down to minus 80 degrees is like and then he told me, just come on up. I'll show you inside the freezer. I thought maybe it was like a walk-in freezer or something. All right, let's go inside. This is a kaya (shellfish). Have some oden and maybe we'll get some maguro as well. You can see the streets of Aomori are pretty quiet right now. I got to actually head back to Tokyo today, too. So we have to catch the Shinkansen. Oden is something that's really special. I've never featured oden on an Only in Japan episode. So I'm pretty excited about this. Let's go inside where it's nice and warm.

00:03:23 John Daub: The city of Aomori has the most snow of any city in the entire world. Just putting that out there. All right. Welcome to Kaisengumi. There are so many menus. These are all the menu items up here, which is amazing. There's a lot more than just oden on the menu. And this place came highly recommended. I know about this place because it came so highly recommended by everybody that we talked to because it just has such a very long history. And the Shacho here is an oden master. He's a Aomori Oden Kai no Kai, which means like super master of oden. This is serious. This is oden.

00:04:30 John Daub: So without further ado, we have to heat up this thing and get it up to standards because the oden needs to be warmed up. That's right. Everybody around the world is watching. Where are you watching from? If you want to shock the Shacho, let me know where you're watching from. I'm going to tell him where you all are in the world. This is going to be fun.

00:05:11 John Daub: London, Russia, Germany, Australia, Canada, Finland, Algeria, Dallas, Aloha Hawaii, California, India, Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, Scotland, Malaysia, UAE, Minnesota, Guam, Switzerland, New Zealand, Kansas, Texas, Saudi Arabia, Western Australia. This changes everything. Bring out the good stuff. They also seem to have some pretty good sake in here. I was looking at the freezers down there. So they got some good stuff here.

00:06:26 John Daub: That's the oden. Oden. It's the oden of the Aomori Oden Kai. What's so special about Aomori oden? Just the miso? The miso itself. They've developed the miso itself. They've made a new miso, something different from the usual miso. It's a different Aomori-specific miso. Ah, so it's an original thing. They've made the original miso and made it into something you can eat. So they make it from freshly made miso. But it's a very Aomori kind of miso. So why did you add ginger? Yeah, ginger miso. You added ginger. It's cold, so ginger will warm you up. In Japanese cuisine, ginger is added especially in winter cuisines because it helps you warm up a little bit, which is important in chilly Tohoku.

00:07:48 John Daub: Let me tell you this. It's a staffanine [?]. Oh, wow. It's a big tuna. Oh, a big tuna. It's a half-cooked tuna. Wow. Can I have this? Oh, really? Thank you. You're welcome. This is Oma maguro, which is the very famous tuna of Japan. And they say most experts say that the best maguro comes from Oma, which is here in Aomori Prefecture, just to the north of here. Maybe it's like a couple hours drive, but on the Tsugaru Straits between Hokkaido and Aomori, the maguro make their way across the straits. And then the fishermen, they still use not net fishing, but by line and hook. And they catch the maguro one by one like this to prevent overfishing. But Oma maguro is some of the best in the world.

00:09:02 John Daub: And you can see the picture up here. Let me take off my shoes. Oh, that's so nice. This is the Shacho, the president right here of this izakaya. He's standing next to a 220-kilogram maguro, a tuna fish. Check that out. This is a hon maguro. And I guess it looks like a bluefin, right? And you can see that symbol on its fin there means Oma maguro, which means Oma tuna. And that's the brand of this. So that makes it probably a little more expensive too.

00:09:44 John Daub: Welcome, everybody. We're just moments away from the oden. It's being heated up. Actually, to take the thumbnail, they brought it out and they showed it to me. And it was steaming. But then we had to wait because we also wanted to clean up the izakaya. So we have everything ready. Again, today it's closed. It's special just for us. So maybe a couple of customers might be walking in, but it's just us today. This is the kind of stuff that I'd like to do more of where we kind of just get a chance to go inside some of the really unique restaurants and show the different kinds of cuisine, different kinds of history and the purpose behind the foods. Because everything that we eat, if you know the story behind it, gets a little bit more oishi (delicious), a little bit more delicious. But sometimes if you know the story, it can also get a little bit more not so oishi too. Sometimes knowing the story is not the best thing.

00:10:56 John Daub: Go for the oden. Oh, check it out. Oh, did they put the miso on there already? Oh, my gosh. I have not had ginger miso from Aomori before. This is going to be a super treat. Is that for one person? That's for two people, right, President? Two people. This oden. That's a big bowl of oden. Amazing. There's no sauce. Let's try to explain what is this. Egg. Okay. Let's just wait a moment because I'm so excited.

00:11:38 John Daub: Daikon (Japanese radish). Kamaboko (fish cake). Takenoko (bamboo shoots). Egg. This is tsubugai (sea snail). And this is shoga miso (ginger miso), which is on there too. Kamaboko is fish cake. Ryoricho (chef). Now you got it. We gotta try this here. Let's get a good look at this. Because with the light, it brings out the miso. You can see it glistening. Where is the shoga miso? Do you make shoga miso here? Do you have it? I have it. Is there anything else you can add? Yeah, you can see it just on here. Just a little bit on the egg. This flavor is specific just to Aomori. So that's what makes it pretty special. It's the fine details that make every meal important.

00:14:21 John Daub: Alright. Let's try this here. Itadakimasu. I don't think I can eat all this myself. Let's go in for the daikon, or the Japanese radish first. Because it has a lot of this miso on there. It's salty, it's oden, it's like hot radish. That miso is the secret ingredient. Oh my gosh. I just want to buy this miso. I want this miso so I can just put it on everything.

00:15:26 John Daub: Eh, kono shoga miso supa de kaimasu ka? Aomori dake? Aomori supa dake aru. Tokyo nai yo ne. So can you buy this ginger miso at the supermarket? And he goes, yeah, in Aomori. You can't get this in other places. The shoga, or the ginger in Japanese, it has a bite to it. And the miso has this really good umami. Miso's like a fermented bean paste that's a little bit salty, but it's just so good and a lot better than it sounds. But when you add the ginger in it, like, I've never had it outside of Aomori. In fact, I've never had it ever before. Cause I'm in Aomori now. Alright, let's try the fish cakes here. These look gargantuan.

00:16:36 John Daub: There's a shock that it's livestreamed. This is all live. Here you go. Oh! There's something inside there. Oh! Hotate haitta ne (scallop inside). This is a scallop inside of here. Oma hotate [?]? Hahaha! This is a scallop and it's really good. Here, maybe we need the light. This is a scallop, probably coming from like up in Hokkaido, but gosh, with the secret is one, it's hot, and two, it's got that spicy miso, that ginger miso. Wow! Let me show you the consistency of this here. You see, it's a fish cake, but it's really meaty, and in the middle of it, you can see the pieces of the scallop in there. Oh my gosh! This is such a satisfying meal, just oden.

00:18:13 John Daub: It's a shame most people just eat it in the winter. Now, oden was this meal that you would find at the convenience stores, simmering in the front of the 7-Eleven by the counter, and you would just tell the clerk, I want this, this, this. They put it into a cup, and you could take it home and eat it. It was perfect in the winter. But now, because it wasn't very sanitary to do that by the counter where people are paying at the register, all the convenience stores stopped selling oden in front of the register. So if you haven't been to Japan in the last five, ten years, you're gonna find that oden is no longer there. But it's also hard to find oden restaurants. Back in the olden days, mukashi mukashi, they used to have oden stands, like a yatai (street food stall). But it's really getting hard to find any kind of yatai, whether it's ramen or takoyaki at festivals.

00:19:19 John Daub: President, this oden is now in izakaya, but mukashi mukashi, like everyone used to eat oden outside, right? Yatai. Yeah. Now you can eat it in a restaurant, but back in the day, they used to have it in a yatai, like soba. Back in the day. What happened? They started to eat it indoors. Back in the day, they used to eat it at a standing table, standing up. That was more of a culture back then, to stand and eat the food, and now we don't have that as much. Most people are just going to the restaurants. And in Aomori, it's a little bit different than Tokyo. It's not so crowded. There's a lot of open space. People don't want to eat outside as much.

00:20:29 John Daub: But I do know that by the history that I read of this Aomori oden, in front of the ferry terminal, there's a ferry that goes back and forth between Hakodate in Hokkaido and Aomori, which is just a couple of kilometers away from here. They would sell the Aomori oden with the ginger miso at stands. But I did some research on it, and this is one of the few places that still exist. There aren't a lot of Aomori oden places still available, and it's harder and harder to find. So I'm really happy that the Shacho of Kaisengumi here still makes it and puts it on the menu. Let me try one more thing here. This is the shellfish.

00:21:35 John Daub: Check this out here. I wanna show you this shellfish. This is from the sea. Wow. So this sea slug [?]. That's not what it is. I forget what they call it. It's got a little bit of that miso baked into it. Joy wouldn't eat this. Alright, let's give it a try. That's good. It's got a real sea taste to it, like a metallic shell bitterness to it. It hits you on the side of the mouth. Springy consistency because it's the boiled seafood. You can eat everything except for the stub here. Again, it's the star of this, not just the food that's been simmering in the oden. It's that ginger miso for sure. Wow.

00:23:19 John Daub: And then last but not least, this is a bamboo sprout with some of the shoga miso on it. Takenoko. Very nice. I can't imagine winter without this.

00:24:03 John Daub: Thanks so much for watching here. I'm done with the introduction. Oh, really? We have a special treat today. This is a fish swimming. They're gonna give me some maguro. What's the price? Okay, one. How many people's portion? I am so full. I've eaten so much over the last 10 days. It's incredible. But it's so darn good. I mean, like, if you were gonna come to Japan, you're coming here not just to see the history and geisha watching all this. Never mind that. You're coming here also for the food. You're coming here for ramen. You're coming here for wagyu. You're coming here for oden. You're coming here to try some of the most amazing food. You're coming here for sake.

00:25:00 John Daub: Never mind. Okay, maybe you're coming here for the Tokyo Skytree too, okay? But the food is a star here. That's why you see a lot of food videos because it is just such a part of food culture. Japan is a culture of food just because of the ingredients, the seasonality of Japan. We got four seasons in Japan. Winter, spring, summer, fall. Same as everywhere else. But each season has a very unique cuisine attached to it because the ingredients are different. Certain vegetables grow in certain seasons, therefore creating certain kinds of cuisines because you want everything fresh. That's what makes eating in Japan so amazing and why you should come to Japan four times a year. This is why I live here. My ranting is done now.

00:25:43 John Daub: Alright, now I'm waiting to see what happens next because I have no idea. Anything could happen here. Oh, sugoi (amazing). That is some really good looking akami (lean tuna). This is Oma hon maguro akami. Wow. I'm gonna get the light on this so you can really see the color. I love akami. Chutoro and otoro are really good but I love akami because the otoro just has too much fat in it. You really can't eat more than a couple of pieces. Akami, I could eat a ton of that. And there's a load of akami inside each maguro. So this is gonna be a delight to eat.

00:26:56 John Daub: Is this for one person? Really? That's for one person? Because I'm full. We say betsubara (second stomach), right? Do you have space for anything more? I got a betsubara for ice cream and maguro, maybe. So let's give this a try. Akami? This is so good. We have here the soy sauce. Some people say you're not supposed to do that. I do it anyways. Just eat it the way you want to eat it. I got a little bit of wasabi in my soy sauce. Oh, look at this. Piece of maguro. Dip it in there a little bit. It's more fun when it's live, isn't it? Itadakimasu.

00:28:10 John Daub: Maguro just is a satisfying meaty taste. Chilled, probably from that minus 80 degree Celsius refrigerator. Chilled. Alright, I'm gonna have another piece here. Dip it in the soy sauce, a little bit of wasabi. I'm the only person in the world that does a wasabi chaser after eating sashimi. I almost always do a wasabi chaser. That was good. Gochisousama deshita.

00:29:16 John Daub: So for this livestream, that's about it because I'm not gonna just stay here for an hour and continue where you can watch me eat. Because that's not interesting, is it? How many ways can I eat maguro? Do you have any questions for the next 30 seconds? I'll take some of your questions. We have lots of different items on the menu here, but about oden and about maguro here in Aomori Prefecture, maguro is very famous here just because of Oma, because it has the three seas around Aomori. It's got the Tsugaru Straits on the top that separates Hokkaido and Aomori. Then you have the Pacific Ocean, and then you have the Sea of Japan. And no other place has this kind of a situation. So seafood is really big here, but also I found that there's not anything bad in Aomori to eat, except perhaps hoya (sea squirt), which is good.

00:30:35 John Daub: President? Do you have hoya? There's no hoya today. Aomori is very famous for hoya, which is a sea squirt. It looks like a heart, and it tastes like poison. But everybody says it's better here, so I'll try to get that next time I'm here. What sake are you drinking? Nothing, right now. We're gonna have to skip the sake, I think, because I'm never gonna make it home. I think Shinkansen's like in 45 minutes or something like that.

00:31:15 John Daub: Alright, one more question. What's the best apple food you've eaten in Aomori? Probably apple wine with apple pie, and just a plain apple. What made you fall in love with Japan? It's my home. I think that it was a place where I came here to teach children how to speak English for the first seven years, and I wasn't sure I was gonna stay. In 2003, I hitchhiked from Wakkanai in the very north through Aomori to Kagoshima in the south, and on the course of that trip, I fell in love with Japan because of the people who picked me up. I got to meet the real people of the country and see what the heart of the country was like, not just in one area, but the whole country. And after I hitchhiked, I really fell in love with the country, and then in 2003, I said I'm just going to stay. I started my own company here, and the rest is history. You all know that.

00:32:20 John Daub: Alright, gochisousama deshita. Thanks so much for watching. Again, if you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments below. I want to say thanks to everybody for clicking that like button as well. Tomorrow, I'll be back in Tokyo, but there'll be another livestream where I'll take you to another area of Japan. Bye from Aomori. See you, everybody.