I spent the morning at Naritasan Shinsoji Temple…a place I highly recommend…the grounds are beautiful, it’s still a working temple with active services (I partook in service while I was here), offers temple charms at fraction of Sensoji in Tokyo, and is less crowded than Tokyo temples. It’s fairly close to the airport, so it’s a cool place to spend some time if you have a later flight out.
Narita is famous for unagi. I soon realized this after seeing unagi on the menu at every restaurant on the street.
I found Kawatoyo in the Omotesando running along outside the temple. On a Thursday morning, it was the only restaurant on the street with active unagi butchers out front filleting fresh unagi from bins filled with fish.
This has been long one of my Japan travel bucket list items. To have freshly butchered unagi…to see it butchered live…how fun!
When I ordered from their iPad menu, it was labeled as unagi sashimi, but their website say it’s carp. So whatever this was, it was served with a sesame-heavy dipping sauce or a make-it-yourself sauce of shoyu and grated ginger. The flesh was pretty firm and had tiny bones adding to the texture. If I was going to compare it to anything, it was just a firm whitefish with a little snap when you bite down. I’m glad I had it once and not enthusiastic to try it, again.
Since the sashimi portion was pretty generous, I wasn’t feeling an entire box of unagi. I got a small grilled portion with a side of rice. It also came with some pickles and soup…so it’s pretty generous and filling. This was just lovely! Lightly sauced and smoky from the charcoal grill, it was also unctuous as the fat slowly melted and melded with the flesh. Never having it fresh before felt luxurious. I’d gladly eat this again.
Worth noting that almost every restaurant on the Omotesando had unagi on their menus. But this might have been the only one butchering live. Many of the restaurants have unagi grills window-side so you’ll see them cooking it as you walk by.
Side note:
I saw one lone Vietnamese restaurant on the street. I stopped in just to have a snack for funsies. The owner is Vietnamese and the menu is super diverse: pho, bun bo hue, hu tieu, drinking food (fried chicken wings and grilled meats), vermicelli and rice bowls.
Closed out my snacking with some Hokkaido soft serve garnished with a fried sweet potato chip.
There’s quite a bit to see and buy along the omotesando. I picked up snacks to bring home as gifts and there was fresh-roasted chestnut vendor that was also great.
