NEWSLETTER MIYABI - NOVEMBER 11, 2026

What a beautiful date we have today – 11/11. All ones. Beautiful! And it is St. Martin’s Day. In restaurants, geese are being roasted in great numbers in his honour, and a pleasant overeating awaits us. And yet it is said that overeating is not healthy. St. Martin knew that. He was apparently a very moderate and even ascetic person. It is good to remind ourselves from time to time that moderation in the Christian tradition is counted among the four Cardinal Virtues, on which other moral qualities of a person are based. And so the question is: to overeat or not to overeat? In Japan they have the proverb Hara Hachi Bu, advising us to fill the stomach only to eighty percent, and also Taishoku Tanmei, which directly says: Big eating, short life. Tai means big and Tan means small. The word shoku means to eat, and perhaps you even know its character – 食. I like that character and I like food, and I like it when sometimes I overdo the eating a little, just like the Miyabi guests who yesterday were enjoying the excellent sushi offer at our Tabehoudai evening. That directly means Eat as much as you want, and exceptionally you may even go beyond the limit. The key word is probably exceptionally. Even the people of Okinawa, where there are many people who continue to live an active working life well beyond the age of one hundred, have holidays when they overeat. And even with meat. Perhaps they also follow another Japanese proverb, which says: Warau kado niwa fuku kitaru. Fuku can mean clothing, but in this case it means happiness, and the whole phrase can be translated as: Happiness comes where joy reigns. (I am drawing from Alice Kramerová’s book, Kotowaza.) Life is about joy, and joy needs to be cared for. Holidays can serve us in this effort to find joy.

CHILDREN’S OBENTO WITH A WISH THAT CHILDREN STAY HEALTHY AND GROW WELL
For example, there is the Japanese festival 7-5-3. It is a festival when people, especially parents and grandparents, pray for the health and long life of their children. The numbers are read Shichi Go San, and usually it is for three-year-old and seven-year-old girls and five-year-old boys. The festival falls on November 15, and in the days around this date you can see families at shrines all over Japan with their children dressed in festive clothes – boys in hakama and haori, and girls in brightly coloured kimonos with long sleeves and beautifully tied obi belts. With decorations in their hair. For the children it is something new; usually they have never before been dressed in such beautiful clothes. You can see the joy on their little faces. We at Miyabi also want to think about the health and joy of children and their loved ones, and that is why we have prepared cute children’s obento for the coming Saturday and Sunday, 14 and 15. I will also prepare several cotton yukata kimonos, and perhaps some little girl or boy will want – just for a moment and for the joy of it – to put on a kimono.
 

KIMONO DAY – KIMONO USAGI
November 15 is also Kimono Day, perhaps because in Japan, in connection with Shichi Go San, you will see more people dressed in kimonos than on other days. Perhaps the only exception is the New Year period. Kimono is a beautiful garment, and I am happy that here in the Czech Republic there are quite a few women and men who love kimonos, and we even come together in a lovely group called Kimono Usagi. Our next meeting will be in the Miyabi Zen house at the end of November, and if you are interested, let us know and join us.

WAGYU DAYS AT MIYABI – 27, 28, 29
It is quite fashionable to dedicate days of the year to certain themes. In October, for example, there was World Smile Day (October 5) or World Nutrition Day (October 9), and in November we can look forward, for example, to World Hello Day (November 21). And in Japan, for example, they celebrate Good Meat Day – Ii Niku no Hi – even though it is a country where meat was hardly eaten until the end of the 19th century. It is always on the twenty-ninth day of every month. We at Miyabi took inspiration from this, and for the November days 27, 28 and 29 we have prepared Wagyu Days for you. Good wagyu. Ii wagyu. We are following the trend! Celebrations are simply meant to be celebrated. What will we prepare for you? Definitely real wagyu from Japan, prepared by our master Noritada Saito in the same way as we served it yesterday at Tabehoudai. It was excellent! There will also be steak, prepared by our meat master Jára Štěpánek. We will also have a more affordable offer of beef from wagyu cattle bred on Mr. Muller’s farm near Pardubice. That is excellent too. Wagyu Days at Miyabi are not our first wagyu celebration. We are repeating them because our guests have always been delighted and it has always been full.
So make your reservation soon. You can find our Wagyu Days offer HERE.

CALLIGRAPHY EXHIBITION BY PETRA VITÁSKOVÁ
At the time when we will be having Wagyu Days, a new decoration will be waiting for you at Miyabi. An exhibition. From November 15 already. I will be putting Izan Ogawa’s calligraphies back into their boxes, and Petra Vitásková will be unpacking her calligraphic works. It is this already her third exhibition. Recently, you can see her works in many places, and perhaps you will want to buy one – for yourself or as a gift for someone you care about.

CHRISTMAS OBENTO AND CHRISTMAS SUSHI ROLL
Yes, while we are celebrating, November will pass and Advent will arrive with all its pre-Christmas joys. And worries too, but there are fewer of those, and joy wins in the end. I know, sometimes we have to help that joy along – perhaps by sitting down in peace with friends. And that is a good opportunity to visit Miyabi. As every year, we will prepare a Christmas obento for you throughout December, and of course it will include potato salad with wasabi and some sea fish, and the whole thing will have a lovely Christmas feel. New this year, we will also have a special December Christmas sushi roll. It was created by our chef Kim Tran, who has developed amazingly over his years at Miyabi. We held a competition among our chefs, and his roll won by a clear margin. We are curious to hear what you think of it too. December is a month when Miyabi has many reservations, including larger events – both corporate and family gatherings. If you are planning a get-together, or even if you simply want to come on your own, please make your reservation in good time. And do not forget – from December 1.

WAGASHI WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 6
When you come to Miyabi for a meal, ask about our Japanese sweets, wagashi. We make homemade mochi with walnuts. They are very popular. But we also have little wagashi that are like small works of art. They are made from nerikiri, which we prepare ourselves from white beans. If you ever try making this mixture yourself, starting from the beans, you will discover just how long and demanding the process is. And then you appreciate it all the more. And even more so, it is great to see what can be created from nerikiri. Some of you may already have seen such artistic nerikiri at Japanese events. A single piece can cost even CZK 250. If you would like to try making nerikiri like this yourself, take an interest in our wagashi workshops. We hold them every month, and each month we create different nerikiri shapes according to the symbols of that particular month. Last time, it was a ginkgo leaf and a sazanka flower. At the beginning of December, we will have another wagashi workshop with Ms. Mei, and this time we will create a Christmas tree and a snowflake. Write it in your calendar – the workshop will take place on December 6 from 6:00 p.m. You can secure your ticket HERE.

HOW ABOUT A DAIKON RADISH DAY?
I am thinking about what other kind of “Day of Something” we could come up with. Do you have any ideas? How about a Daikon Radish Day? We could celebrate daikon and enjoy a selection of small dishes in which this radish is not simply present, but actually sets the tone of the flavours. You would be surprised how many different Japanese dishes can be made from an ordinary radish – when it is a good one. And I think that now, at the beginning of winter, daikon is at exactly the right stage to show what it can do.

AUTUMN KAISEKI ONLY UNTIL THE END OF NOVEMBER
But before you enter winter and the season of Christmas feasting, come to Miyabi for our autumn kaiseki menu. We will serve it until the end of November. If you have not tried it yet, do not miss it. Come and say goodbye to autumn, and make it a festive occasion. A Day of autumn coming to an end. I have created, and will continue to create, beautiful ikebana flower arrangements for you to go with it. Autumn arrangements. It is beautiful here at Miyabi!

I began this letter with the question: “To overeat or not to overeat.” It is not a well-asked question. It is actually a wrong question. Because it is not about yes or no. Each time, we are in a different situation. And so celebrate the holidays as they come to you and as they capture your interest, and remember that moderation, even in food, does not mean the violence of self-denial or starving, but the joy of knowing that you are wise. Joy comes from moderation, and moderation comes from joy, and if in that joy you sometimes have a slightly larger portion of goose, then perhaps it matters less than it might seem. Pavel Maurer would say to you: “Don’t eat stupidly.” I say: “Eat with joy and wisely.”

Yours, Miyabi Darja

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