Our reporter was craving some grilled eel, however ended up with one thing much more scrumptious!
Our reporter Takamichi Furusawa has been craving a selected dish just lately, significantly throughout these summer season months. For him, nothing beats chowing down on some eel on a scorching summer season’s day, specifically unagi no kabayaki — grilled eel on rice served in a field.
Japan is thought all through the world for its wonderful seafood, so discovering some respectable grilled eel would possibly look like a easy activity. However Takamichi is a resident of Gunma Prefecture, one in all Japan’s few landlocked prefectures; whereas Gunma is legendary for konjac and manju, it’s probably not related to scrumptious seafood like eel.
So Takamichi was thrilled when he got here throughout Kawatomi, an area restaurant with nice critiques on-line, in addition to some footage of delicious-looking grilled eel. Together with his coronary heart filled with hope and a abdomen able to be filled with scrumptious eel, he hopped on a practice and headed to Gunma’s Ota Metropolis.
Takamichi arrived at Sanmaibashi station, and from there it was a 20-minute stroll to the restaurant.
Whereas Gunma is fairly near Tokyo, it’s considerably extra rural; there have been no buses or public transport to take him to his vacation spot, so Takamichi started to walk via the countryside within the blazing warmth.
Based on Google Maps, the restaurant was alleged to be someplace on this space, however Takamichi couldn’t see something that seemed like a restaurant… until…. behind these bushes…?
He had arrived at Kawatomi, and it actually wasn’t what he had been anticipating. There have been bushes rising on the aspect of the constructing, and the intense inexperienced and yellow partitions didn’t look like something you’d discover in Japan. It was like Takamichi had traveled to a special nation referred to as ‘Gumna’.
The restaurant menu was posted on one of many brightly colored partitions. There have been a complete bunch of delicious-looking meals, like yakisoba and deep-fried apple, however Takamichi had travelled to those distant lands to strive one factor and one factor solely — his beloved grilled eel.
However as he took a better take a look at the menu, he seen one thing was barely off. The place he had been anticipating to see ‘unagi no kabayaki’ (grilled eel), as a substitute was ‘nasu no kabayaki’ (grilled eggplant).
The photographs of the grilled eel that he’d seen on-line, the dish that had gotten so many rave critiques — really wasn’t grilled eel in any respect, and had been grilled eggplant all alongside!
Unagi no kabayaki might have been off the menu, however Takamichi hadn’t come all this fashion simply to go residence empty bellied. In addition to, the grilled eggplant have to be fairly good to have gathered so many optimistic critiques on-line, so he put in an order for some nasu no kabayaki.
The restaurant requires you to position your order from outdoors, regardless if you happen to’re consuming in or taking your meal to-go, so Takamichi did simply that.
Order positioned, Takamichi ventured into the restaurant, which compared to the intense colors outdoors appeared fairly calm and stylish, with considerably much less greenery rising on the partitions. Takamichi took a seat and waited for his meal, enveloped within the engaging aroma of grilled eggplant; clearly somebody had already ordered some earlier than him.
After simply ten minutes, his meal was prepared, so he went to seize it from the counter. The meal included some miso soup and pickles, price 1,110 yen (US$8.14) and got here in a field identical to unagi no kabayaki.
When Takamichi opened the lid, he needed to do a double take…
▼ … as a result of what was inside seemed identical to grilled eel!
Takamichi couldn’t imagine it. The color, the feel — all the things seemed identical to unagi no kabayaki! And now that the lid was off, a candy and bitter aroma — not not like grilled eel — began wafting in direction of Takamichi’s nostrils.
If he didn’t already know otherwise, Takamichi would have sworn blind that he’d simply been served some unagi no kabayaki. The way it seemed, the way it smelled… was this actually eggplant? There was just one technique to discover out, so Takamichi grabbed his chopsticks and bought caught in.
However as he lifted one of many eggplant layers, he seen one thing uncommon beneath…
▼ Beneath the eggplant layers was some roast rooster!
Whereas regular unagi no kabayaki comes served on a mattress of rice, this eggplant model got here with a layer of roast rooster, in addition to thinly shredded seaweed on high of the rice.
However was the eggplant an appropriate substitute for eel? Based on Takamichi, completely sure. It was grilled to perfection, and actually introduced out the eggplant’s flavour. With every comfortable, tender chunk, Takamichi was reminded of the scene in Spirited Away, the place Chihiro’s dad was eating meat.
▼ Possibly Chihiro’s mother and father had been really consuming eggplant all alongside.
The sauce that the eggplant was marinated in was scrumptious, and the rooster, rice and seaweed additionally ended up getting soaked in it too. Takamichi felt himself falling in love with the meal increasingly with every chunk — who knew that eggplant may very well be so scrumptious?
By the top of the meal, Takamichi’s thoughts was blown by the deliciousness of eggplant masquerading as eel. He concluded that he really most popular grilled eggplant to grilled eel, and absolutely understood why there had been so many glowing critiques on the Web.
Takamichi is unquestionably planning to return again and eat right here once more, however for these of us not fortunate sufficient to reside in Gunma Prefecture like Takamichi, the grilled eggplant dish will be ordered from Kawatomi’s web site. Simply you should definitely get pleasure from your grilled eggplant with some fresh eel cola to ensure that the total ‘mind-blown’ expertise!
Restaurant data
かわとみ Kawatomi
Gunma, Ota-shi, Gokudo-cho 178-2
群馬県太田市強戸町178-2
Open 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (for eat in prospects, final order is 2:00 p.m.)
Closed Wednesdays and Thursdays
Website
Photographs ©SoraNews24 until in any other case acknowledged
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