Stamina Taro Restaurant

This blog post is pending for a very long time. On 29th March, hubby and I had lunch at a restaurant named Stamina Taro in Akita City. Stamina Taro is a buffet style family restaurant. It is actually a chain restaurant with 129 stores spread across entire Japan. The restaurant chain was established in 1978 and is a 90 minutes all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. The restaurant offers an extensive menu of over 130 varieties of high quality food items. The restaurant is well known for having tasty food that can be had in a fun environment.

Hubby and I went during lunch time to Stamina Taro Restaurant. At the payment counter of the restaurant, we were given two coupons for two adults, each worth 1523 Yen (including tax). A restaurant staff seated us at a table and explained to us the rules of the 90 minutes all-you-can-eat buffet lunch. After sitting down, we noted that the inside of the restaurant is huge and very clean. The menu is exhaustive with over 130 varieties of food items. The main dishes are meats for Yakiniku grilled at our table by ourselves. About 20 varieties of colorful meats of pork, beef, and chicken are offered. The meat is manually cut at the restaurant and fresh ingredients are offered to the customers. There is also up to 20 varieties of fresh and seasonal Sushi available. Salmon, tuna, eel, and shrimp Sushi are available on a regular basis. The fishes are cut at the restaurant and Sushi with only very fresh fish is offered to the customers. Side dishes consisting of fried foods like chicken Karaage, chicken nuggets, fried potatoes, as well as Takoyaki, Yakisoba, curry, Oden, and apple pie are just a few of the extended list of side dishes. Salad bar consisting of a variety of salads is very popular with women. Rice, pasta, breads, noodles and many different kinds of soups are also available. In fact there is a dedicated section for do-it-yourself noodles where we can cook our own Ramen, Udon, and Soba. In addition, more than 50 varieties of desserts are available such as cakes, ice creams, soft serves, cotton candy, and fruits. Eight flavors of scoop-style ice creams, a crepe/pancake do-it-yourself station, four types of cakes, and a do-it-yourself cotton candy machine makes the place so perfect. Seasonal fruits including grapefruits, oranges, litchis and pineapples are very popular. Cold drinks, water, tea, and many other drinks are available in plenty. We had a lot of grilled Yakiniku meat that we cooked at our table. We also had a few kinds of Sushi, fried potatoes, Karaage, Yakisoba, fried rice, Takoyaki, and breads. Hubby had Udon that he cooked himself. He also made a bowl of soft serve as well as cotton candy at do-it-yourself machines, and we both enjoyed having them immensely.

Various kinds of food on our table

Cooking Yakiniku meat at our table

Sushi

Karaage, fried potatoes, and Yakisoba

Takoyaki, fried rice, and bread pieces

Hubby eating

And he is eating more

I am eating

And I am eating more

Hubby cooking Udon noodles by himself

Cooking Udon noodles

Hubby making soft serve using a soft serve ice cream maker

Hubby making cotton candy using a cotton candy machine

We overate and had way too much food. The food at Stamina Taro Restaurant is really delicious, filling, satisfying, and worth the money paid.

Indian restaurant Khana Khana

Six years ago today (21st August) I wrote the first post in this blog. It is hard to believe how fast six years have gone by. To celebrate the sixth anniversary of this blog, I will write about our visit to an Indian restaurant named Khana Khana. It is a small restaurant located in a place called Hiroomote Hirune along Highway 28 in Akita City.

Hubby and I had lunch at Khana Khana restaurant on 2nd August. The restaurant is located about 50 kilometers away from our home and it took us about an hour to reach there by our car. On reaching the restaurant area, we realized that they do not have a parking lot. But a supermarket named Itoku, located diagonally opposite the restaurant, has a huge parking lot that was almost empty at that time. So we parked our car at the supermarket parking lot.

On entering Khana Khana restaurant we realized that it is a very small restaurant with four tables and only ten customers can eat at a time. But it is a cute and extremely clean restaurant managed by Japanese staff. The restaurant serves authentic Indian food cooked by a Japanese chef and his assistants.

We ordered two types of Thali lunch set. Both the set menu lunch were priced at 850 Yen. I ordered red chicken curry (chicken vindaloo) Thali set and hubby ordered shrimp coconut curry (Goan prawn curry) Thali set. In addition to the chicken curry or the shrimp curry, each lunch set consisted of a dry curry, rice, salad, Papad, and mango pickle. Chicken curry and shrimp curry had a lot of curry sauce. The dry curry of that day was potato and cauliflower cooked in curry paste. The vegetable salad was made of shredded cabbage, tomato and crushed Papad, and was topped with a special curry dressing. The rice used was Indica rice grown in Niigata prefecture. Hubby and I shared our food so that we could taste both the lunch sets. The red chicken curry was hot and spicy while the shrimp curry was mild. The taste of the curries was balanced with the right consistency and went fairly well with Indica rice. We relished eating different curries with various levels of spiciness. All the curry dishes of the lunch sets were served in small steel bowls on a round steel main tray, and it was fun to eat from such cute little bowls. We enjoyed eating Thali lunch sets.

Hubby’s Thali lunch set

Dry curry, salad, and shrimp coconut curry (left to right) in hubby’s lunch set

Hubby having lunch

My Thali lunch set

Dry curry, salad, and red chicken curry (left to right) in my lunch set

I am having lunch

Hubby had Lassi and I had Mango Lassi along with the meal. Both the Lassi were so delicious and went quite well with the spicy meal.

Lassi (left) and Mango Lassi (right)

Hubby having Lassi

Hubby and I enjoyed having lunch at Khana Khana restaurant in Akita City. It was the most delicious Indian food we have had in Akita prefecture.

Indian restaurant Lakshmi

On 21st March, hubby and I went for lunch at an Indian restaurant. We tried a new place named Lakshmi located in Akita city. The restaurant was about 50 km away from our home and it took us one hour to reach there by our car.

Indian restaurant Lakshmi

The restaurant was very clean and had eight table seats. The restaurant serves authentic Indian food cooked by an Indian chef and his assistants. There was a semi-open cooking area and we could watch the chef make hot naan breads. There were several choices for lunch and it was challenging for us to decide what to order off the menu as everything sounded good. Finally, hubby ordered a set menu named ‘Lakshmi tandoori lunch set’. I ordered a set menu named ‘A-lunch set’ having chicken curry and saffron rice. We also ordered masala chai. Hubby and I shared our food so that we could taste both the lunch sets.

Lunch menu

Both the lunch sets had salad of shredded cabbage. Chicken curry of ‘A-lunch set’ was delicious and it was fun to eat spicy hot curry. The combination of saffron rice and chicken curry was perfect. I relished eating the food very much. Hubby also tasted it and liked the spiciness of the curry.

Shredded cabbage salad

Chicken curry

Chicken curry and saffron rice set

Hubby tasting chicken curry

The dishes of ‘Lakshmi tandoori lunch set’ were served in small bowls on a round steel main tray. On the main tray there was naan bread, rice, and a piece of tandoori chicken. Palak-paneer (spinach-cheese) and daal (a pulse preparation) curries along with yoghurt were served in smaller bowls. The taste of the curries was balanced with the right consistency and went fairly well with both rice and naan. Naan was soft, chewy, and flavorful. Tandoori chicken and palak-paneer were delicious. Although I am not sure the type of pulse used for making daal curry, a special feature of this daal recipe was that it had asafetida as one of the spice ingredients. Asafetida has a distinctive pungent aroma, which may be unpleasant to some people. It was the first time that hubby had daal curry with asafetida in it and he was rather shocked by the aroma as he is not used to very strong spicy aromatic flavors. So it was very amusing to see his shocked facial expression when he tasted daal curry. Later I ate his entire bowl of daal curry, and found it to be very flavorful and delicious. We finished the meal with a bowl of plain yoghurt topped with mango sauce. Yoghurt is considered to aid in digestion of hot and spicy Indian food.

Lakshmi tandoori lunch set

Hubby about to eat a piece of naan bread

Hubby busy eating

After the meal, hubby and I had a cup of masala chai. It was sweet milky tea with lot of spices, and a great after-lunch treat.

Masala chai

Hubby enjoying masala chai

Hubby and I enjoyed eating hot and spicy lunch at Indian restaurant Lakshmi. The quality of food at this restaurant was very high. Aroma of various spices and warm rich flavorful Indian food usually lifts my spirit up.