This post was written in 2007. Shop details and prices may have changed since then.
I couldn’t find any restaurant in Hagi in the guidebooks that looked especially good (cheap and tasty), so I booked a ryokan that serves meals. Even where I live, the cheap, tasty places rarely make it into the guidebooks.. I guess the idea is that outsiders, since they’ve come all this way anyway, should splash their money around.. Mid-range ryokan of this type, the kind that serve dinner or breakfast, usually have ordinary facilities and aren’t all that cheap, but they compete on good food. Anywhere you go in Japan, you can count on the meals at a ryokan or minshuku being better than average.
An aerial shot of the 2,100-yen set dinner
It’s not quite a Korean hanjeongsik spread, but the tray comes out generously loaded.
Maybe because the harbor is right nearby, everything is very fresh.
There was hamo (pike conger) too.
There’s no fixed menu; they just serve whatever fish is best that season.
Simmered fish
Dessert
The fruit was nice and fresh too.
Clear soup
The broth was light and tasty ^_^ The round white dumpling on top, made from fish paste and shaped like a rice cake, had a lovely texture too.
Well.. the meal isn’t cheap, but it was worth the price. The ryokan’s facilities, though, hadn’t moved on much since the ’70s. The most absurd thing was the air conditioner: 100 yen for 3 hours -_-;; Going from cold to hot and back -_- meant I never really got rested. I probably won’t be staying here again or recommending it to anyone.