Nikko is a tourist town, so there isn’t really much good food to be had. There’s yuba cuisine, but however you look at it, I can’t call it tasty for the price. It was a spur-of-the-moment trip with no preparation at all, so I hadn’t planned on eating anything special anyway. Right after arriving in Nikko, I parked in the lot of a souvenir shop in the tourist area and, in place of a parking fee, bought the cheesecake that’s supposedly a Nikko specialty, but apart from being a castella that tastes of cheese, there was nothing special about it.
While I was waiting at Tobu-Nikko Station for the bus to Oku-Nikko, I spotted an ad saying they sold the bento that won the Grand Prix at a national ekiben (station bento) competition.
The shop inside the station
It was the off-season, so hardly any restaurants were open, and the ones that were only had soba, udon or curry. With nothing much else to eat, how could I pass up something like this?
The bento that supposedly won the Grand Prix.
A 750-yen onigiri set. The portion isn’t big.
It comes wrapped in bamboo leaves.
Here’s what it looks like opened.
There are three kinds, but I only managed to photograph one. It has masu trout in it, salty and nutty, and it was really tasty. Even I, who don’t much like cold food, had to admit this one was good. The portion is small, just right for a light meal. I had it as a snack, though ^_^
The “ultimate curry bread” sold at a teahouse near a waterfall in Oku-Nikko
A curry bread a whole 27 cm long. The taste was so-so and it was dripping with oil, but after struggling outside in the cold, it tasted like heaven. The saying that the best way to enjoy food is to eat it when you’re hungry really hit home.
I wondered what to have for dinner, and figured that since I was on a trip anyway, I should eat somewhere famous, so I drove about 30 km to Utsunomiya. Just as Fukuoka is famous for tonkotsu ramen and Takamatsu for sanuki udon, Utsunomiya is famous for its gyoza shops. It seemed like the perfect way to wrap up the trip.
A view of Utsunomiya Station.
It turned out to be a pretty big city. I parked somewhere and set out to find a good gyoza place. When I asked people around, they said there were quite a lot of gyoza shops near the station. Of those, I went to Minmin, which is said to be the most popular.
The Minmin sign
We ordered one serving each of pan-fried gyoza and boiled gyoza per person. 220 yen a serving. Considering prices in Japan, that’s incredibly cheap.
Pan-fried gyoza
Tasty and really cheap too. No wonder it’s popular. But it’s not worth making a special trip from far away, the way sanuki udon is.
Boiled gyoza
Pretty good. They didn’t sell them in a soup, like Korean mandu-guk. I think they’d be nice that way too, though.
Before heading home, I stopped at one more place: Utsunomiya Gyozakan.
The parking lot was huge. Pretty amazing that a place selling nothing but gyoza does this well.
Assorted plate of 12 kinds of gyoza
Not especially cheap, but it tastes good. The skins are soft and the filling is full of juice. Not as good as Minmin, but with that big parking lot it’s a handy place to drop by when you’re passing through. If I’d had more time I’d have liked to try a few more, but I called it a day there and headed back. All in all, a fairly satisfying trip ^_^