Takayama and Kanazawa

Until this trip I really had no idea how mountainous and heavily forested Japan is. I read in my guidebook during planning that part of the reason that the cities are so big and dense is because 3/4 of the country has so many mountains and woods that the land is essentially unusable. I got a big glimpse of this when heading to Matsumoto. Not even 40 minutes outside of Tokyo on the train, and we were already in mountainous country. It was the same thing on the way to Takayama. I had to switch trains in Nagoya, but after doing that and leaving Nagoya for Takayama, the mountains got big and woodsy really fast. It was an exceptionally beautiful part of the country. The icing on the cake is that up in the mountains the autumn colors had started to set in on the trees.

Takayama was a very appealing city. It's an attractive place and is much smaller and more livable that Tokyo. It's also got some historic sections that are very quaint, traditional, and filled up with sake breweries. Probably the very best thing about the town, though, was the beef. Takayama is in the Hida region, renowned for its Hida wagyu beef. It's basically the same stuff as the better-known (at least in the States) Kobe beef. It's nosebleed-expensive, but man is it ever good. I've had some domestic wagyu beef before, but it didn't compare to how tender and rich this stuff was. The preferred way to eat it was as yakiniku, which is a Japanese version of Korean-style barbecue. For anyone not familiar with Korean barbecue, they just drop a big pot of burning charcoal in a hole in the middle of your table, cover it with a grate, and then you DIY grill it right there, along with some vegetables and other accompaniments. Being Japanese instead of Korean, you accessorize it differently and there are different condiments (no kimchi, use soy sauce and things like wasabi and sansho pepper, etc.). My preference was with just a touch of soy and wasabi. The beef was so incredibly rich it really didn't need much of anything. It's a good thing that it's so rich, though, as I can’t afford very much. It seems that the going rate for the stuff seemed to be about 1400 yen per 100 grams for what I think was meat from what we would call the rib eye (that works out to roughly $60 per lb, BTW).

Along with the beef, the mountain apples were also really good. They’re almost too big to eat easily out of hand, many being the size of a softball, but they were very good. This is a puzzling thing I’ve noticed about Japan—most things are modestly proportioned, be it meal portions, people, bars, restaurants, or houses, but all the fruit here is absolutely enormous. The apples are gigantic, I’ve seen Asian pears (much more flavorful, tender, and juicy than the sad Asian pears we get in the states, BTW) the size of 16-inch softballs, grapes are typically larger than ping-pong balls, and the figs look like they weigh about a quarter lb each.

After Takayama I hit Kanazawa. I promptly went from eating beef at nearly every meal to living off of nothing by fish. Kanazawa is supposedly a great place for seafood, so I was taking every opportunity to indulge in the local specialties. I had set myself up with a hotel right across the street from the city market, which was a great move. There was one sushi place there that opens very early which I was able to hit for breakfast on both days. The first day I got a spectacular-looking sushi bowl, which was basically a big pile of sashimi on a bowl of rice. All the fish was incredibly fresh, and the presentation was certainly top-notch, including a couple head-on raw shrimp and a scallop shell, but while good it didn't wow me and certainly didn't rate up to my market sushi experience in Tokyo. Wondering if it was the preparation, I got the sushi plate the next day, where they fully prep everything as nigiri sushi. It was again a nice meal, but I similarly wasn't wowed. I actually thought the chef put way too much wasabi in each piece. Still for the measly $28 I spent on the plate, it was quite a satisfying breakfast.

The better sushi I had in Kanazawa was for lunch on the 2nd day, where I went to a more widely-lauded sushi place. This was definitely a step up from the breakfast crowd, and excellent sushi, but it nevertheless didn't quite meet expectations. Granted, my expectations were probably too high. I went in expecting to have my mind blown, and while it was a great sushi meal, and a fantastic value, the mind was still unblown at the end of the meal.

Having come here, I’ve got a much better appreciation for the artistry in making sushi. At both of these places in Kanazawa, the fish was extraordinarily fresh and of good quality, but the end product, while very good, wasn’t phenomenal, and didn’t have the little touches that really put the sushi at Tsukiji market in Tokyo over the top. One other thing I’d note is that I’m feeling pretty good about the domestic sushi we can get. If you go to a top-tier place in the States, I feel the sushi is every bit as good as most everything I’ve gotten here at restaurants that are highly-regarded by the locals. Granted, for comparable quality I think we need to pay 2-3 times as much, but if you’re a sushi freak, you can take solace in the notion that you really can get the good stuff in the States.

Kanazawa was also a great little city. People were, again, extraordinarily friendly, and I had a fantastic time at the izakaya I went to my first night there. I’m noticing a recurring pattern at all these little izakaya I go to. The initial reception I get can come off as being a little bit cool and that it appears that they may not be excited about the idea of having a lone, overgrown (by their standards) gaijin in the place. They usually warm up pretty quickly, though. My best guess is that once I’m able to demonstrate that I know how to use chopsticks properly, have a basic understanding of Japanese dining etiquette, and know at least a little Japanese, they know they’re not going to be stuck with someone who is going to ruin the vibe of the place.

The market in Kanazawa was amazing. I think I spent at least 6 hours there over my two days walking around and talking to vendors, sampling stuff, eating grilled scallops and sea snails right out of the shell, and taking photos. The most dramatic thing in the market was the freakishly large crabs and maitake mushrooms they had everywhere. Seeing this I’m thinking, “MMmmmmm, good soup”, so I figured I needed to go out of oden my 2nd night there. You can think of oden as basically a Japanese take on pot au feu where all kinds of proteins, starches, and veggies are boiled together and you’re served a plate of the pickings you want with some of the broth and a hit of outrageously spicy Chinese mustard. I went to the highly-recommended oden place in town, though, and no crabs or maitakes to be seen. The white-shelled sea snails (baigai) and other shellfish seemed to be the big thing, but no crabs. Granted, the fact that the 2 foot long crabs I saw in the market were being sold for between $60 to $100 each might have priced them out for such a simple dish like oden. Ditto for the maitakes, which you can think of as a Japanese equivalent to porcinis, and are priced accordingly. In retrospect, I think I needed to find a place that was serving nabemono (Japanese hot pot) rather than oden, but at the time I really didn’t understand the difference.


At the market I encountered quite a few things that were challenging even for my palette. One or two of these was even included in the omakase meal I got at the izakaya my first night there. There’s one set of vendors in particular that sells all these strange-looking vats of soupy seafood stuff at the market. I’m not sure what you’d call this stuff collectively, so I simply refer to it henceforth as the “freaky shit” (FS). A lot of it appears to be uncooked squid or cuttlefish products. The most common are these tiny little whole, uncooked baby squid which I’m guessing have just been marinated in soy sauce for a while. I think the salt in the soy draws out their own juices, so what you’re left with is this dark brown semi-gelatinous, mucousy soup of little baby squids. I had gotten a small plate of this at the izakaya the night before, and I must admit I was choking it down. Ryan no likey. I think I do prefer it to the other signature product at the FS table, though. It was difficult to understand the full explanation as the FS guy’s English was pretty lousy and we were mostly communicating with sign language, but my best understanding on this one is that it’s long, cut-up pieces of raw squid (they kind of resemble short, fat noodles) marinated in a reddish-pink sauce that I believe is all the guts, brains, and contents of the digestive tracks of the squid, presumably minus the ink sacks (otherwise it would be black). Again, Ryan no likely.

There were many other additional vats of gooey, soupy things at the FS table, but the lone other thing I could identify was some kind of raw squid product where the squid were marinated in their own ink. “Aha! This is for me”, I thought, as I love cooking with cuttlefish ink and I’m perfectly fine with raw squid, so long as it’s not swimming around in a soupy mass of its own entrails. They guy gave me a sample, and while I wasn’t choking it down like the baby squid marinated in its own bodily mucous, I didn’t exactly ask for seconds.

Tokyo, Nikko, Matsumoto, and Kamakura

Tokyo was fantastic. Much of the city is exactly as I expected: flashing lights everywhere, hordes of people every waking hour of the day, and a constant hum of activity. And the food is absolutely awesome. All of it. I had pretty high expectations coming in, and it’s easily met them, and then some. The food scene got off to a good start when I went to the Tsukiji fish market my first day in. I wasn’t planning on this, as I thought I’d need to rest up for a couple days after my extremely long flight. Tsukiji is a wholesale fish market, not a consumer market, so all the action happens when most normal people are sleeping. The main event at the market is the tuna auction that occurs every morning where they auction off all the 800 lb fish they caught the previous day for tens of thousands of dollars each. The rub here is that the auction starts at 5:30, they only allow 120 people to attend each day, and it’s first-come-first-serve for tickets. I didn’t expect to be able to drag myself out of bed in time my first day there for this. My jet lag was a lot more severe than I expected, though, and I found myself awake and staring at the ceiling at 3:00 AM that first morning after just 4 hours of sleep, so I figured I might was well get out of bed and try to hit the tuna auction the first day. After cleaning up and catching a $40 taxi to the market, I was able to arrive at 4:30, at which point I was told all the tickets had sold out 15 minutes ago.

At first I wasn’t sure what they hell I’d do for the next 4½ hours until the main part of the market opened up to the public for browsing (tourists aren’t allowed in until 9:00 AM). However, I quickly realized that if I wanted to enjoy the other quintessential Tokyo experience the market had to offer, getting outrageously fresh sushi from one of the two hot sushi bars located inside the market, I’d have to get my ass in line. I found my way over to the two places with some new friends I met that also couldn’t get in to the tuna auction, and we queued up. It actually appeared like the timing would work out well, as we were told it would be a 3-hour wait to get into the 12-seat place we wanted.

Normally, even my own patience and desire for great sushi would be put to the test by a wait that long, but since I had nothing else to do I figured, why  not? It actually ended up being a great experience. I got in a few great conversations with an interesting and international crowd (made new friends from Singapore, Taiwan, Colombia, Portland, and LA in that time), and the sushi was definitely some of the best I’ve ever had. It was certainly the freshest, all of it having been hauled out of the water in the past 24 hours. One piece, the red clam I got, was actually still alive and moving around on its little brick of nigiri rice when I ate him.

In addition to my early-morning sushi breakfast I got at the market, I was also able to score the high-end sushi blow-out I was hoping to do in Tokyo. I was able to grab a reservation at a two-star Michelin joint in the fancy Rippongi Hills district. Granted, it was at noon on a Sunday, but beggars can’t be choosers. I think we can call this the gaijin seating, as everyone there was a foreigner. My overall reaction: meh. It was awfully good, but relative to the substantial amount of money I dropped, I was underwhelmed. It was also extremely rushed. The entire meal lasted for only 36 minutes. I could understand that if I were at the dive at the market with a line of people around the corner waiting to get in, but I certainly don’t expect that from a place with two Michelin stars. I think I’d rather get back in line at the market if I wanted more sushi.

I actually realized on the train out of town that in the 8 nights and 7 days I spent in Tokyo, those were the only two times I had a sushi meal. Yes, there’s a lot more to Japanese cuisine than just sushi. (There were a couple other times where a single serving of sushi was a part of a much larger meal, but those really don’t count.) One of the more notable things I was eating instead of sushi was the ramen. I had three different bowls of ramen I can remember, all of which were great. No, these are not the sad, little re-heated bricks of plastic you ate when you were in college. Real ramen has hand-made, fresh egg noodles, and is basically a noodle soup with an incredibly rich broth, usually made with a combination of meat (often pork) and seafood, and has all kinds of extra goodies in there like some veg, mushrooms, big chunks of pork, eggs that were hard-boiled in the broth (much better than you think), etc.

Speaking of noodles, I also had an udon meal and soba noodles a couple of times, as well. These are fine, but definitely don’t turn my crank like the ramen does. I think I have to try udon a few more times, though. Part of the problem with udon may be that I’m not sufficiently skilled at accessorizing the noodles and applying condiments. Another honorable-mention, something that is good, but doesn’t keep me up at night thinking about my next score, is the tonkatsu. This is a pork-cutlet that’s breaded with panko and deed-fried, and then served with a pile of crispy cabbage. Definitely a very satisfying meal, but not something I get massive cravings for.

What was hands-down the greatest meal I had, though, and was quite possibly one of the best vacation experiences in general that I’ve ever had, was the yakitori place I went to that was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”. I had already been to one yakitori place (that’s grilled chicken on skewers, BTW), which was very tasty and a lot of fun, but I wanted to see how good this stuff could get, so I hunted down this place from the show. It took a lot of research and some hoofing, as it’s not even in Tokyo proper. I actually had to take the subway to transfer to a private rail line to get way out in the suburbs to find this place. But man, was it ever worth it. The chef breaks down whole chickens grilling them right to order. The chicken is incredibly fresh, which it better be, because some of the items are served medium rare, rare, or even just seared with the entire interior completely raw much like you would do with a high-quality tuna steak. Yes, we’re talking about chicken here. Unlike most yakitori places, he also uses no sauce whatsoever. It’s just chicken, a little salt, and the grill. And holy crap, was it fantastic. I got the omakase, which included skewers of your standard breast with Japanese leeks (like a scallion), skin, medium-rare thigh, and if I recall correctly, cartilage. He also threw in a liver for me since I was asking him about it when I saw him cooking one. The best part was the experience, though. I had called ahead for a reservation, and he sat me right in front of where he was cooking so I could watch the artist in action. Bear in mind, this is a guy that is 68 years old, and has done absolutely nothing aside from grill chicken for the past 40 years. He doesn’t cook steaks, he doesn’t make soups, he doesn’t prepare vegetables. He grills chickens, full stop. Given the focus, I think he’s achieved chicken-grilling perfection. The guy is an outright artist at breaking down his birds, and it was a lot of fun to watch. He’s also one of the friendliest guys I’ve ever met, and was talking and joking around with me all night. The tiny little place became an outright party pretty early into the evening. After 3 bottles of sake, 5 plum wine and brandy cocktails, a lb of chicken, and another lb of grill smoke absorbed into my clothes, I realized I had been there 4 ½ hours and that the train system was going to be shutting down in 15 minutes. I paid the bill, staggered to the station, and somehow was able to catch a train back into the city, making what I think was likely the very last connection to get me home. Good times. After making it back to the hotel, I collapsed on the bed, and woke up 5 hours later, still partially drunk, all the lights on, in my clothes and with my contacts in, still reeking of that delicious chicken. I realized then just how bad my jet leg still was at that moment when after a night like that I still couldn’t sleep past 6:00 in the morning despite having been in the country for a full 6 days.

One other night I was able to grab something closely related to yakitori called horimonyaki. This time you’re grilling beef organs instead of chicken parts. Reading the menu was certainly entertaining. There were things on the menu such as cervical canal, stomach, testicles (of course), several different types of intestine (upper, lower, etc.), rectum (!!!!!), and spinal cord. Pretty tasty. I didn’t ask if they had any rectum in that night, though.

In my estimation I think Japan has supplanted Italy as the best single place in the world to eat. What puts them over the top is the bento boxes. These are essentially pre-prepared, cold box lunches. It’s unbelievable how good some of these $10 take-out boxes can be. The very best ones are available in department stores or other high-end markets near the train station. I’ve never actually looked forward to the opportunity to get a boxed lunch before. When it comes to food, the Japanese simply do not screw around.

A couple other interesting things about Japan. First, there are no trash cans. Actually, it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say there are none, but suffice it to say they are pretty thin on the ground. Even in places like train stations and public parks I’m often completely unable to find a trash can anywhere. This apparently isn’t a problem, though, because there is also no trash. None. Anywhere. Ever. Apparently the system works, although sometimes it’s annoying to have to carry my trash around with me for 2 hours until I get back to the hotel and can dump it in the trash can in my room.

People are also extremely friendly here. I’ve never been anywhere where the locals were so open to striking up a conversation with a lone traveler, often a lengthy one where we end up hanging out and drinking for an hour or two. The highlight here was the gang I met at the first yakitori place I went to. We chatted through our chicken, sharing food and drinks. Afterwards, they (a group of office workers consisting of two women and one guy) invited me out to a “gay bar”. We went, and the gay bar turned out to be one of the minuscule little Tokyo bars that only seat 4-6 people in total, we were the only guests (no more would fit), and what made it gay was the fact that that the hostess was an aging drag-queen that had been on Japanese television back in the 60s.

Yes, the toilets are all as fancy and elaborate as the stereotype. At the hotel I was staying at in Tokyo I popped into one of the nicer, more expensive empty rooms which was left open one day, and the toilet looked more like an interstellar spacecraft than something you take a piss in. It also had a stainless-steel mounted wall panel with more controls on it than a Boeing 777. The toilet in my room is a little more basic, although I do have to say the heated seat is a nice touch. Even public toilets in restaurants and parks even have extra bells and whistles. You do find some squatty-pottys at dive restaurants and junkier some public locations, though, which I find kind of amusing. You either get a fancy toilet with at least some extra functions, or have to squat—you never get the in-between, i.e. just a regular walking-around typical North American toilet.

While the Japanese are huge into the toilet technology, the same cannot be said for the hand-drying tech. Many, many places, even in fairly decent restaurants, provide nothing for you to dry your hands. No paper towels, no hand dryers, nothing. It’s a little strange to go to a bathroom that has a bunch of fancy toilets and stalls but then leaves you drying your hand on your pants as you walk out.

While in Tokyo I made a couple side trips. I’m doing many day-trips because the train system is so fantastic that it makes is very easy to visit other cities from a central home base. The first was to Nikko. I checked out some temples, did some hiking, was interviewed by a Japanese television crew, and generally spent the day getting rained on. What made the day, though, was that I was able to score an old-school kaiseki meal when I was there. The so-called restaurant was in the middle of this perfect little Japanese garden, and it was precisely the kind of meal I really wanted to have at least one of, but wasn’t sure I’d be able to get while here. The meal also allowed me to scratch off a couple additional things off my must-eat list, including matsutake mushrooms and fugu (pufferfish). Another side trip was to Matsumoto where I checked out the castle, but was annoyed because I didn’t plan correctly and wasn’t sufficiently well-fed. The last big side trip was to Kamakura where I spent the day checking out temples (and also got a good meal out of it).