Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
By Adam Waxman
Pack up your chopsticks! The culinary map of Japan is a carnival of flavour-forward specialties spanning every prefecture with unique ingredients, dishes, and experiences that await at every turn.
When visiting Tokyo or Osaka, classes in making sushi, soba, gyoza and ramen are plentiful, but to really sink your teeth into Japanese foodie culture, here are some extraordinary experiences – featuring both regionality and seasonality – that are worth venturing out beyond the big cities.
Hot spring hot pot in Oita
Beppu, Oita, on the beautiful southern island of Kyushu, is serene and inviting and bursting with 2,900 vents of steam gushing 130,000 tons of water each day. This is a hot spring heaven known for its Hells of bubbling ponds. Locals use the hot steam to cook their food.
One renowned restaurant, Jigoku Mushi Kobo Kannawa, invites diners to fill baskets with three colanders of ingredients, lower them into a pit of sulfuric steam. This process elicits softness and sweetness that yields the most glorious fiery orange eggs, the most perfectly crunchy sweet vegetables, like pumpkin, and a seafood medley of shrimp, scallops, squid and oysters steamed to their optimum integrity and flavour.
Dive into delicious seafood in Mie
The renowned Ama divers of Ise Shima bay in Mie dive into frigid water and return with buckets full of oysters, abalone, turbon shell, sea urchin and seaweed. The Ama Hut Experience in Osatsu Town, invites guests to look out over the ocean, while one by one the Ama divers file in—this mysterious band of women with cherubic smiles—carrying with them baskets of today’s catch. Sipping miso soup and indulging in sea urchin and rice, watch in amazement as they grill their treasures and serve their sampling of the sea.
Surf and turf by the sea in Ishikawa
The Omicho Fish Market is known as “Kanazawa’s Kitchen,” because there is so much to eat and enjoy there that represents the bounty of Japan’s cuisine from seafood to grilled meats, but at the nearby Noto Shokusai Market you can actually grill your own meats on the spot. Built on a wharf by the sea, market ingredients are the freshest shellfish and deep-sea fish freshly-caught in the morning, as well as a bounty of picture-perfect vegetables and succulent meats from across the Noto Peninsula. This gourmet experience is as market-fresh as you can get.
In Osaka you can take your fish-dish one step further at Zauo Namba Honten fishing restaurant where, once seated at your table, you cast a line to catch your own fish. Red Snapper and flounder swim in the water below. If you catch it, reel it in, present it to the staff, and order how you would like it prepared: sashimi, sushi, grilled, broiled or tempura-fried.
Ramen-tic udon in Kagawa
Kagawa is Japan’s capital of udon noodles, and is renowned for its Sanuki Udon, flat-sided noodles. There are four ingredients: wheat for the noodles, salt, soy sauce and dried sardines for the broth. Upon arrival at the airport, let an Udon Taxi, driven by an udon specialist, whisk you directly to select udon restaurants. Along with his driver’s license, your guide has passed a handmade-udon test.
A gourmet guide for Canadians
As tantalizing as the dishes and experiences featured above are, they are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploring Japan’s stunning culinary diversity. Japan National Tourist Organization has prepared a comprehensive and helpful guide to specialty cuisines across all of Japan’s prefectures, complete with rich infographics and sample itineraries for foodies. It’s an easy and engaging tool that makes the flavours of Japan more accessible than ever.
You can take full advantage of this new resource here. A survey and giveaway contest on regional dishes is slated for late October: keep your eyes peeled for more details and to enter.
This post appeared first on DINE and Destinations Magazine.