The Mysterious Restaurant of the Food God and Music of Aimer

February 9, 2017 Category - Food, Music, Trend & Event

Collaboration of Japanese food and IT.
This is certainly very unique exhibition.
Actually I couldn’t imagine what it is just from the name.
So I checked information about this “The Mysterious Restaurant of the Food God”.
Let’s solve the mystery of it.

What is The Mysterious Restaurant of the Food God

This show is held at abandoned building in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.
Inside there is a fox called Uka and it takes you to the mysterious adventure.
But how digital comes in there?
The digital is used to express the food and surrounding atmosphere.
For example, the growth of rice is shown from its origin rice plant by light.
You can understand how the rice plant becomes rice and how it changes to Japanese food Washoku in the end.
The space made by digital is also beautiful and if you touch something the thing changes the color.
If you touch the ground of Autumn, Japanese mushroom comes up.
For spring in which Sakura petals swirl in the breeze, edible wild greens come up from the ground.
You can also touch heaps of rice and there is also trick of digital when you touch it.
Here in this building what you can do is not only see but touch, listen, smell, taste.
Here is the place you enjoy with your five senses.

Digital Art Group Moment Factory

This digital art is made by Moment Factory.
Moment Factory is a multi media entertainment company in Montreal, Canada.
It is one of the world’s leading digital art group that created performance of Madonna, projection mapping of Sagrada Familia, Circue-du-Soleil, etc in the past using images, lighting, architecture, sound and special effects.
The technique of projection mapping of Moment Factory is said to be top in the world.
Projection mapping is a technique that projects images on space or object and gives various visual effects to the overlapped images.
Here you can enjoy state-of-the-art technology.
Now the stage is all over the world and this is the first work of Moment Factory here in Japan.

Main Chef Hiashi Nakahigashi

Not only seeing but also tasting you can enjoy for Japanese food that is made by first-class chef and cooks.
Hisashi Nakahigashi is the chef of this mysterious restaurant.
He has an international background.
He had studied hotel management at university in US and France.
In France he had also worked as a service stuff at some restaurants.
After coming back to Japan at the age of 24, he starts work as a cook at Ryoutei or high class Japanese restaurant.
And when he was at the age of 26, he took the Fourth at a Ryokan-style restaurant Miyamasou.
The beautiful appearance and the appeal to five senses get the reputation of mastery cuisine.
You can also enjoy foods of top-class cooks of Yoshihiro Murata and Joel Robuchon for a limited period.
They are also famous top-class chefs that own restaurant.

Food O-inari-san and traditional Japanese foods

Followings are the Japanese foods you can enjoy.
Only O-inari-san is included in the ticket price.

O-inari-san
O-inari-san has two meaning, one is a name of Japanese deity for a good harvest and the other is a name of food itself.
Fox is regarded as a messenger of the deity and this fox’s favorite is considered to be a deep-fried Tofu.
The food O-inari-san is a food that wrapped vinegared rice in a deep-fried rice.
I think most people from child to elderly like it.
But the O-inara-san you can taste here is not ordinary one but quality O-inari-san because it is made by top-class chef.
Three kinds of Miso Soup
I think Miso Soup is now famous worldwide.
It is made of soybeans.
Here you can try 3 kinds.
They are white miso and kelp stock, local miso and dried sardines broth, Red Miso and dried bonitos broth.
This deep and delicate taste of stock from kelp or fish in which you can enjoy Umami is unique to Japan.
Inaniwa Udon
Udon is also now famous worldwide as Udon.
It is a thick Japanese noodle made of wheat.
This Inaniwa is counted as one of the top three Udons in Japan.
The characteristic of this Inaniwa Udon is that it is hand-stretched noodles.
You can enjoy unique texture different from ordinary Udon.
Japanese Omelette
Japanese Omelette is favorite of child.
It is made using soup stock and egg.
The taste is different depends on the area such as Tokyo or Osaka, etc.
Some area also use sugar that it is sweet taste while others are salty taste.
It was shocking when I first ate salty Japanese omelette as what I always had until then was only sweet taste and I never thought there were salty Japanese omelette.
Here what you can enjoy is made using chicken broth.
Chikuzenni
Chikuzenni is a typical home cooking in Japan.
It is a kind of stew using taro, carrot, chicken, burdock, etc.
It is healthy food with many vegetables in it.
The base of taste is soy sauce and soup stock.
This in one of my favorite Japanese home cooking.

Voice Cast Sayuri Matsumura and Yumi Wakatsuki

This mysterious restaurant has a guide of fox that is a messenger of the gods.
Sayuri Matsumura and Yumi Wakatsuki supply the voice for Uka.
They are the ones among popular Japanese idol group Nogizaka 46.
If you know AKB48, I think this group is also very popular now among young people like AKB48.
Uka supports your food travel in this restaurant.

Image Song Kachoufuugetsu by Aimer

Aimer is a Japanese singer song writer who made music Kachoufuugetsu under the concept of digital art for this exhibition.
She starts to play the piano when she was an elementary school student.
And she was attracted to Avril Lavigne and starts to play the guitar when she was a junior high school student.
But when she was 15 she injures her vocal chord and had to stop singing for about 6 months.
And the way she sing and her unique voice was made after this injury.
She has not been recovered from the injury perfectly as the doctor told her she can not sing a song in the voice she has now if she had recovered it.
So she keeps the condition of half-recovery on purpose.
Her song was used such as a theme song of Gundam UC, Fate/stay night, Natsuyuki Rendezvous, etc.
I like her songs as it is soothing music.
My recommendation is following songs.
Even though the songs are almost Japanese I think you can enjoy it.

StarRingChild (Theme song of Gundam UC)

Brave Shine (Theme song of Fate/stay night)

Anatani Deawanakereba (Theme song of Natsuyuki Rendezvous)

Summary

This is very interesting and unique exhibition as we can enjoy it with our five senses.
It is held for a limited period but if you happen to come visit Tokyo in this period I really recommend it as it will be rare and unique experience in Japan.
Check the details from the following official site if you are interested in.

The Mysterious Restaurant of the Food God
When : 28 January to 21 May 2017
Where : 2-1, Nakase, Mihama-ku, Chiba-city, Chiba 103-0025
Nearest Station : Kayaba-cyo
Ticket Price : Adult : 2000 yen(About $18), Middle and high-school students : 1000 yen(About $9)
Website : https://tabegamisama.com/