My friend TaShin invited me to come to Utsunomia for “the best eel of my life”. That’s an offer that’s hard to refuse so I hopped on the bullet train from Tokyo to give him a visit. I have to admit the eel was amazing, but that was not the highlight of the trip for me. He took me to the most amazing place I went to while in Japan.

We drove out to the countryside in Utsunomia, and left the freeway in a rural area by a river. We drove down a bumpy dirt road for a mile or two until a little bamboo shack by a stream appeared. It had been raining all day so we had the place to ourselves, but he assured me that it is usually packed. This was a great thing for us, because Japan is full of tobacco smokers, which neither of us partake in. The owners of the shack had built a (once bamboo, but now metal) trap in the stream, right over a tiny waterfall. This catches any fish that is of a certain size.

With this trap they catch ayu and unagi. Both of these are skewered and grilled over a massive fire pit. After a brief interaction with the staff, who were pretty interested in me and my tattoos (certainly one of the few, if not the only foreigner to ever come to this place). I let TaShin do the ordering, and he chose a few of the skewered ayu with salt and miso coatings.

The pit there were cooking in was huge, at least 8 feet long and 3 feet wide. It appeared to have been in use for decades at the least. I can imagine that not much has changed here from day one, other than updating their trap to metal from bamboo. Our fish arrived and were so tender you could eat the bones and head. I devoured the whole things, tail and all. Of the two, I preferred the salt to miso flavor, which overpowered the fish a little bit. Our bbq eel also came up, and true to his word, it was the best eel I have eaten to date.

What I did not know, or notice while ordering, was that TaShin also got to very special items for me to try. He also ordered ayu sake and ayu sashimi. When they brought the order to the table, TaShin (formerly a sushi cheff) told me that usually freshwater fish are never eaten as sashimi. They have to be supremely fresh, and also run through an ice bath while still alive, just to be safe to eat. You can tell by looking at the fish that they are no strangers to preparing ayu sashimi. Also at the table was ayu sake, it was warm, and I could see bits of oil from the fat floating at the top. It was so savory and comforting. I had already had a few beers and this was the perfect end of the meal.

This alone was well worth the trip. Thank you very much for showing me Utsunomia TaShin-san!

July 8th, 2009 by John (Cho-Tabetai)