I shared previously about visiting a beef farm in Japan. Over the past few days, I’ve enjoyed some great food, visited more farms and warehouses, traveled from the south end of Japan on the Shinkansen, and now I’m in Tokyo as part of the Governor’s Trade Mission. 

I always look forward to riding the Shinkansen. Comfortable, easy to navigate through the train stations, and it travels 320 km/hour (200 mph) so I can get where I need to go easily and quickly.

I ate at a “Korean BBQ” restaurant. One of my favorites! The table has a grill in the middle, and the meat comes out raw so that you cook it one piece at a time. The pictures below are all Wagyu beef. Presentation is important here in Japan as you can see. 

The next day, I was taken to dinner at a restaurant owned by one of my customers. It’s “French inspired” he says. It was underground, very cozy, and I loved the deer head on the wall! 

This customer was 3rd generation to run his feed business. He began to import feed from other countries 7 years ago (including grass straw from us!), and also added 4 restaurants to their company. Soon he will be adding a cheese-making factory and I’m excited for him and can’t wait to visit it. 

You might be asking why the restaurants and why the cheese factory… that maybe it doesn’t make sense with the animal feed company. Well, he sells feed to local beef and dairy farms and then purchases the beef to use in the restaurants and purchases the cream from the dairy for his cheese factory! Literally “farm to fork” as we would say in America. Although here in Japan, it’s chopsticks! 

After dinner, we visited an amazing place called Wine and Sweets where his cheese was already being used in the best soufflé I’d ever eaten – hand made in front of me by the owner and baked while I was enjoying a Riesling. Yummmm! 

And yes, they have forks as well. Cheers!