Hanami 1st day with take out sashimi 花見1日目、テイクアウト刺身

The winter was very cold and long. In addition, Easter came really late this year. At times, it seemed that spring would never come. Because of the cold weather, our plum tree did not blossom until the 1st week of April. Cherry blossoms were also late and finally reached full bloom this weekend (2nd weekend of April) in our backyard (as well as at the tidal basin which was actually 1-2 days ahead of us. Usually we are about 2 weeks behind the tidal basin but everything is happening at once this year). If asked earlier in the week, we would have said that the trees in our backyard probably would not be in full bloom by the weekend. But we woke up on Saturday and they had bloomed overnight, (the old wild cherry tree also in our backyard, however, was still only in 30-40% in bloom).



Like Christmas, cherry blossoms come only once a year and we look forward and enjoy "Hanami" 花見 every year.



The first day of hanami, we started our evening with a glass of Cabernet but quickly switched to cold sake. This time, we opened "Dassai 50". This junmai daiginjo is from Yamaguchi prefecture and the flavor profile is similar to our house sake "Mu" 無.




To start with sake, we had garlic chive and egg drop soup, which was followed by this assorted sashimi. We got this sashimi take-out from Kanpai sushi. I divided one order into two servings and added Japanese cucumber with moromi miso or "morokyu" もろきゅう, daikon namasu 大根なますwith salmon roe.



The sashimi included flounder, salmon, hamachi, tuna, octopus and imitation crab. This time I also served "real" wasabi which was just thawed. It also contained mixed seaweed salad (next to the pickled ginger).