The shopping mall in Karuizawa has been redone, and a lot of good places to eat have moved in. Coming back to Karuizawa after a long time, there was shopping, there was good food, the scenery was lovely and so was the weather — it was so perfect that I’ll have to come again..

Aji no Machi, the Karuizawa food street

It’s where all the good restaurants are gathered, and with so many people around, a line does form now and then. Best to dodge the lunch rush a little..

Meijitei

A place famous for sauce katsudon. Sauce katsudon, in case you’re wondering, is B-grade gourmet: a tonkatsu cutlet that arrives with the sauce already poured over it.

Inside

They put it together very neatly. You can go into the restaurant and eat there, but the weather was so nice that we had it boxed up and ate outside.

The menu

As you can see if you look closely.. the prices aren’t cheap. Still, we’d come all the way to Karuizawa, so we had to order the local specialty.

This is the sauce katsudon

And it is so, so good. For a start, the pork in the tonkatsu is top grade. It’s fried up extra crisp so it can take the sauce, and the sauce itself clings to your mouth just right (there seems to be a little miso in it). And eaten together with the cabbage and the rice, that flavor.. if you go to Karuizawa, do drop by..

한국어로 읽기日本語で読む