On October 2024, 10, we visited "ROKU", a Mount Fuji slow food restaurant that opened on the second floor of FUJI Cross Gate in Fujiyoshida City.

From the entrance, you would never imagine that the restaurant would be so spacious with its large windows. There is also a private room in the back that can seat about 10 people, and it is equipped with kids' chairs, so it is safe for families with children.

The restaurant operates on a mobile ordering system, and the menu is made up of original dishes that use plenty of carefully selected, safe and secure ingredients from Yamanashi Prefecture! The taste is guaranteed, as it is supervised by Chef Maruhara, who worked on the popular restaurant "Braccelli Arotondo" in Hiroo.
You can enjoy new styles that combine tradition and innovation, such as "Pasta Hoto," which is Yamanashi's soul food, houtou, made to resemble pasta.

Today, we have the most popular dish, Miso Bolognese. With its strong miso flavor, this is not "Italian" but truly "Japanese"! The meaty Bolognese, with a few chunks left, mixes well with the thick noodles. It's easy to see why it is so popular with people of all ages and genders.

A variation of pasta hoto is here, with sake lees and pumpkin cream sauce. After one bite, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the taste, which goes against your expectations.
Speaking of hoto, pumpkin comes to mind, but this dish is a completely different combination; on the contrary, this is not "Japanese" but "Western"! The cream sauce, which has a gentle flavor from the sake lees, is made even more delicious by the sweetness of the pumpkin.

While we were there, we also tried out the "grilled lava rock bomb shabu-shabu"! Yes, this is a menu that comes with a food performance and can be "experienced". We poured the soup stock into a piping hot iron pot containing lava rocks from Mt. Fuji that had been baked in a 250 degree oven! Steam rose up, and the "bomb shabu-shabu" time literally began.

Beautiful and lustrous Shingen chicken breast meat is shabu-shabued and served rare.
Normally, chicken should be cooked thoroughly, but the fact that it can be enjoyed so rare is only possible because of the extremely fresh Shingen chicken.

The moist, juicy, finely textured meat dances softly in your mouth. It's so delicious! Because it's breast meat, it's light and refreshing, and you can eat as much as you want.

The lineup of sweets changes depending on the day, but on the day of our visit there was a dried fruit pound cake! It was topped with sake lees gelato instead of fresh cream, and we enjoyed it with the coffee that came with the drink set as a reward for our after-meal sweet treat.

The pound cake, sprinkled with a generous amount of dried fruits such as Shine Muscat grapes and berries, is moist and firm, just the way I like it. The sake lees gelato gives it a rich, adult taste, similar to rum raisins. I'm hooked.
The menu is set to expand in the future, including opening at night, so stay tuned!