Kouan (幸庵) is located in the small town of Fujisawa (藤沢), approximately an hour's drive from Hakone. It's part of the Shonan area that faces Sagami Bay of the Pacific Ocean.
Like most kaiseki restaurants we've visited on this trip, Kouan is a quiet 20-seater on a side street in the middle of a residential area.
There are a few private dining areas available in the premise for parties of four or more.
But we ended up picking the counter area to give ourselves some distance from the crowd.
There are 2 prix fixe dinner menu (¥11,000 and ¥14,000) available with the number of courses being the only difference between the two. We went for the shorter course and had it pre-ordered during our booking.
Dinner quietly started with a small cup of fried rice, salt and water.
Then a little sake as a toast to good health and fortune.
The highly anticipated meal began with a small box of scallops, seaweed, vinegar jelly and Japanese wild vegetables. The scallops were very sweet and the vinegar jelly was a surprisingly good match for the sweetness of these scallops (7/10).
This was followed by a crab fish cake with sweet potato in a clear broth (6/10).
Sashimi bowl was next and tonight, we were having squid and flounder sashimi with radish and plum leaf. It was served with two different types of sauce - soy and wasabi or plum sauce. This was so much better than the sashimi bowl we had at Kaiseki Kadan (強羅花壇) last night but still nowhere near the best we've had in the past (5/10).
Our grilled dish was a Japanese mackerel fish served with small Japanese potatoes, vinegared carrots and minced carrot leaves (5/10).
Just when we were enjoying our fish course, a basket of autumn leaves suddenly arrived! We were told these autumn leaves were hand picked by head chef Iizima Yukinori at Mount Fuji over the weekend.
But when we slowly removed the leaves, a beautifully presented platter of small bites appeared right before our eyes and the first dish we noticed was a Japanese duck with salmon turnip sandwich.
Followed by some fish liver.....
.....and spinach, mushroom and fried tofu.
Last but not least, fresh oysters in sake.
All in all, an interesting mix of small bites but not overly impressive (4/10).
Steamed fish with spinach, turnip, wasabi and steamed egg white was decent but uninspiring (4.5/10).
As always, a rice dish with pickled vegetables arrived as the final savory dish of a
kaiseki meal.
The plain rice has excellent texture.
A separate bowl of fresh salmon roes and dark miso soup rounded out this final dish (5/10).
Dessert was a traditional Japanese homemade dessert - chestnut cake with Japanese sugar (6/10).
Green tea as palate cleanser?
Finally, a fruit platter with blueberry, grape, pear and Japanese persimmon to wrap up this interesting kaiseki dinner.
Apart from the 3 stars, we didn't find any significant difference between this meal and our previous kaiseki experience at Kaiseki Kadan (強羅花壇). Although I am no expert in kaiseki cuisine, this is probably not up to par with some of top kaiseki restaurants in Japan so think twice before making a special trip to Fujisawa for this one.
Food Rating: 6.7/10
Price: ¥¥¥
Address: 251-0023 藤沢市鵠沼花沢町2-8 ルート鵠沼
Tel: +81 466-50-6226
Website: www.kouan.info
Tokyo, Fujisawa, Japan, 幸庵日本料理, kaiseki, Michelin, 3, star, restaurant, fine dining
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