You can’t come to Kumamoto and not try horse sashimi. I went into Suganoya, which has a good reputation around here and sits right in the middle of the downtown area, but they said there were no seats, so I walked back out. Sigh. That’s the sorrow of Golden Week… It was a trip without a fixed schedule, so I couldn’t book ahead either. So I had a bowl of ramen, wandered around, and gave it another shot around 11. No matter how many tourists were crowding in, by then a seat had opened up at the counter.
The restaurant entrance
It’s in the basement. The interior was clean and spacious. Apart from about six counter seats, everything was the sit-on-the-tatami kind of setup. This is by no means a cheap place, and yet business was booming like this. Is there really a recession?
Otoshi
In Korean(?) we’d also call it tsukidashi… it’s the snack that comes out for you to nibble on when you order drinks. The idea is that you drink with this before the proper dishes arrive. It tasted clean and was pretty good.
Today’s drink, Mori Izo
It’s the imo (sweet potato) shochu they call the legend of Satsuma. You get one go (180 ml) for 1,500 yen, which is an incredibly cheap price. If you actually bought it at a shop, you’d have to pay around 3,000 yen for that much. The glass next to it is for drinking it on the rocks, but they don’t top up the ice, so that was a bit awkward. Once shochu reaches Mori Izo’s level, you can’t say it falls short of a fine whisky. That fruity aroma and the smooth way it goes down… it doesn’t get better. I did think ordering it mizuwari (with water) might have been better, but it’s not as if there was a bartender around ^_^ A guy drinking alone should be happy with this much.
Horse liver sashimi (reba-sashi)
This is raw liver. It’s one of the house signature dishes, and it’s really delicious. Strangely, even though it’s liver, there’s a firm chewiness inside the tenderness. Maybe because it’s a specialist, I also liked that there was no off taste at all.
Jo-zushi (premium sushi)
Just look at the gleaming color of that sushi… It lacks a bit of the way otoro melts softly at room temperature, but the chewy texture makes up for it. A lump of fat like otoro gets too rich after one bite and I can’t eat more, but this could go down endlessly, so you could say it’s actually better. Of course, it’s priced like otoro, so eating it that way isn’t really realistic. There was also a gokujo (top-grade) above this, but I held back on this trip for budget reasons. On a trip where a guy is wandering around alone, top-grade is out of the question… Next time someone offers to treat me, I’ll order it.
Assorted sashimi (sashimi moriawase)
It came out looking like slices of fish, and in fact the kitchen here was not much different from a sushi restaurant. I thought that since it was horse meat it would have a grill-house vibe, but there weren’t even the usual skewer items. Not that I have any big complaint about that… The white piece in the middle is fat. Strangely, it was chewy inside. The other cuts were good too. Since there’s none of the fishy smell of seafood, I think it went even better with the fragrant shochu.
Negitoro
I had actually planned to finish with just the sashimi and sushi, but there was drink left over! I couldn’t leave this precious, delicious shochu behind, so I ordered one more simple snack. It’s horse meat and scallion rolled in nori, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s better than regular negitoro, it was definitely better as something to go with a drink.
All this came to a little over 5,000 yen, so it’s by no means a cheap place, but if you go all the way to Kumamoto and want something delicious, I highly recommend it.