Lake Hamana is one of the most famous eel-farming areas in all of Japan. Thanks to that, Hamamatsu is lined with well-known unagi (freshwater eel) specialists. Plenty of places outside Hamamatsu build their business on Lake Hamana eel as well, and Urawa in Saitama is probably the most famous of them. On this particular day there was a festival dedicated to that Lake Hamana eel, so off I went.
The weather
Blazing. It was held at a place called Garden Park, and it was a little hot. Global warming really does seem to be a problem these days. Maybe that is why people are worrying about eel stocks too. If warming keeps shrinking the eel population, the hit to the industry will be huge.
Catching eels
This is an event where you get to grab a live eel, but they are so slippery that you can hardly hold on. There is also a plan where they cook the eel you catch and serve it to you.
The dancers
They danced really well. I like the way dance schools and local festivals get connected like this. There was K-pop choreography in there too.
The unagi bento menu
You can queue up and buy an unagi bento, but by the time I got there only two places were left, Kanazawa and Matsuichi. Everything else had already sold out. So I bought one of each. If you look closely, Hamanako Tsuruya, a favourite of mine, is on the board too. I think I underestimated how passionate Japanese people are about bento, and I should have come earlier.
Unagi bento
This is not a bento brought over from a restaurant, but one they grill for you right there on the spot. It looked like a company that had come down from Saitama was running it. Being grilled fresh, it might even taste better, but honestly, they are all delicious.
The mood of the place
Apparently a near-typhoon wind the day before blew several of the tents away. So the whole thing suddenly shrank a great deal. It felt a bit small for a festival, but a natural disaster is a natural disaster.
A local idol called Sakumaru.
It was an incredibly energetic set. Being an idol is clearly not a job just anyone can do. On top of that her songs are themed around eel, which makes her about the ideal idol to have at an event like this. Sakumaru’s song “Dengeki kawaii SHOCK!” is on Spotify if you want to give it a listen.
The festival’s opening address
Everyone from the mayor of Hamamatsu to well-known politicians had turned out. I suppose that is what happens when eel is a major industry.
The eel sushi roll rolling event
Apparently they were making an absurdly long eel sushi roll, several tens of metres of it, or so it sounded. It looks fun as an event, but I just checked out what it was and headed back.
Garden Park
It is a park with an enormous car park, so a lot of people come out here at weekends.
Kanazawa’s unadon
Kanazawa is a washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine) restaurant rather than a dedicated unagi specialist, and I suspect that is why it was still unsold right to the end. But the rice in this bento was glowing. The eel being good goes without saying, but this rice was genuinely special. Every grain stood up on its own, and the sauce, with the aroma and flavour of charcoal grilling melted into it, made a complete meal without needing a single side dish. Slow-ageing diets and all the rest of it can wait, because when it is time to eat, you eat.
Matsuichi’s unadon
The point of a bento really is that it still tastes good once it has cooled. The charcoal aroma and the flavour of the eel flesh inevitably fall short of something straight off the grill, but the sauce seems to come through even better. Each place must have its own know-how.
This year’s unagi matsuri was spoiled by the typhoon so I could not enjoy it properly, but I will look forward to next year. Next time I want to get there a bit earlier and try bento from some of the other specialists as well.
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