MIYAZAKI

Tried to get a tour to visit the wagyu beef farm, sturgeon caviar facility and mango orchards, but they have no such thing.  So the next best thing is to send you to some of my earlier visits to Miyazaki.  As for example, this was in 2015:     

GAWA Day #7:  Miyazaki Wagyu Beef--THE BEST STEAK IN THE WORLD

Miyazaki Wagyu has won various awards from the industry, including the most honoured "National Wagyu Award" by the Wagyu Registry Association in Japan. The award, also known as the "Wagyu's Academy Award", is given to the best cattle once every five years. Each time, more than 400 wagyu from some 30 places of origin would compete in the event which is attended by imperial family members. The beef are judged by their colour, fat distribution, meat fibres and taste. The National Wagyu Award has now gone to Miyazaki Wagyu two consecutive times meaning it has held the reigns for ten years! With its outstanding meat quality and breeding ability, the Miyazaki Wagyu won the "Prime Minister Award" in 2007. They also beat the beef from Kobe and Matsuzaka and became the overall winner - winning seven out of the nine contests - at the event. Miyazaki Wagyu has been called "Japan's Number One Beef" ever since. 

Also stopped by Miyazaki in 2016.  This was at Florante Miyazaki:

The beer and steak cost me $16.  This was an ideal late lunch, for I have a 9PM dinner at the Sheraton teppanyaki restaurant where Miyazaki Wagyu Beef is featured.

Also, I posted in 2016:

     IS MIYAZAKI BECOMING THE EPICUREAN CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.

I wrote about how Miyazaki is now producing caviar, which sells for $225/12 gram.

A third of a century ago--this was in 1983, thus the brand name--the Soviet Union gifted the bester sturgeon to Miyazaki Prefecture as a symbol of friendship.  The Miyazaki Prefectural Fisheries Research Institute located in Kobayashi experimented with the production of caviar.  Eight years later, in 1991, they succeeded in crossbreeding beluga and Acipenser ruthenus. In 2004 they completed the life cycle of white sturgeon from North America, and this became the fish of choice:  Russia zero - America one.  In nature, they can get very large, the biggest ever caught, from Fraser River in British Columbia, weighed in at 1,100 pounds, measuring 12 feet 4 inches:

We all know that the egg is caviar, but most are not familiar with the flesh of the males or females after they are finished with egg-laying.  In Europe, it is known as Royal Fish, and in China, Emperor Fish.  As sturgeon can live for a hundred years, there is also the potential of immortality when you consume this delicacy.  This fish is high in carnosine, said to be effective for preventing dementia.

It takes eight years before a five-foot white sturgeon produces roe, with one laying worth $30,000.  The world caviar industry has mostly crumbled.  Miyazaki could well become the Iran and Russia of the world in the future of high quality caviar.  As recently as 2014 the total production was 132 pounds.  This will increase to 661 pounds this year.  Says Motoo Nakamoto of their caviar cooperative:

Our caviar tastes milder than imported eggs, and their texture is more smooth, like cream. If you have them with sake, it will be perfect.

I earlier mentioned that the Miyazaki mango has gained a special threshold in Japan;

• First grown in 1980, Miyazaki mangoes  are really Irwin mangoes from Florida.

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  However, grown in this area, and only in covered greenhouses, the fruit attains a distinctly different taste depending on how they were harvested.
• They purposely remove 80% of the budding fruits to encourage larger size growth.
• When still small, each fruit is wrapped carefully with a net and attached to an overhead wire suspended from the top of the greenhouse.

• 
  The fruit thus turns a deep red, which is consistent throughout the skin, for reflectors are placed to insure that the sunlight strikes the entire fruit.
• The mango is not picked.  They are ready when they fall off the tree, with the net cushioning the fall.
• Peak harvest is between April and August.
• They sell for $50/mango, but at some auctions, a single fruit has fetched $2000.

As far as I know, Miyazaki still has no goose farms for foie gras, nor is there any attempt being made to cultivate truffles.  They have ideal weather conditions to do both.  I should talk to their mayor, who is Tomonori Kiyoyama.

Back to the present, we walked all day, first inside the hotel.  Click on THIS to learn more about the Sheraton Grand Ocean Resort.

Outside the hotel was some kind of major festival of food and entertainment.

BBQing of wagyu,

Ume

Baked yam.

Baked yam line.

Okonomiyaki line.

Across the street was Florante Miyazaki, a spacious botanical park.

Fall colors?

Guess what plant this is?

Broccoli.

As you can see from the photos above, there are these tiny lights everywhere, which means the whole park gets lit up at night.  However, it closes at 5PM.  Huh?  I'm missing something here.

So of course we had to have Miyazaki caviar, wagyu and mango, so we went to Fukami.

Started with a beef broth.

Then 1983 premium Miyazaki caviar.

I ordered abalone.

She had lobster.

Garlic for the steak and end rice dish.

My wagyu meal.

Three endings.  First a cheese sandwich.  Yes, cheese sandwich.  Never saw this before in a teppanyaki.

Then the standard garlic rice with miso soup and tsukemono, with hot brown tea.

Dessert of chocolate cheesecake and Miyazaki mangoes plus musk melon,

Our chefs.

Certainly one of our three finest meals of this Japan adventure.  Fireworks over the Tom Watson golf course to end the night with cognac.  I walked 15,913 steps today, my most ever on this trip.

Tomorrow, off for the Ritz Carlton Fukuoka.  The hotel only opened six months ago, and is rumored to have had start-up problems.  Surely, those days must now be over.

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