A healthy Japanese set meal at Yamakusuri, Hakone, Japan

I had this meal in the middle of the day between business meetings, and it really made me pause, breathe, and enjoy my meal and day. I was at Hakone, which is a suburb area near Tokyo. Hakone has mountains, and beautiful air and water. There are not too many lunch options once you get out from Yumoto station area, but there is Yamakusuri, a shop situated right next to a national road. Once you enter this “hut,” the stairways lead you downstairs, where there is an open space of kitchen and dining.

I ordered their lunch set, which was this:

From the top left, that is a hot (almost sizzling) pan of Japanese yam with topping of seaweed, green scallion, and wasabi. To the right of that is deep fried fish patties with freshly grated ginger. Top right is miso flavored steak. Towards me in the photo, in the middle is yam that has been grated. Did you know grated yam gets sticky and matches perfectly with rice? So the empty blue bowl to the right of the yam bowl is where I put my barley and rye rice that came in a wooden container (see two photos below). I added seaweed, green scallion toppings on my rice. To the very right in a black container was miso soup.

This is what I call a healthy meal. If I had some more vegetables, that would have made it even more perfect but I had no complaints with just the above.

Yamakusuri website: http://xn--7ck2d4a4828b8lu.com