Okayama, city of Italian restaurants
Last night, after a side trip to Kurashiki on the way back from Matsue, we had our first stay in a Western hotel since leaving Tokyo. Frankly, our Fodor bible on Japan doesn’t even have an entry for this small city. Still, since it was a useful hub for jumping around I thought we should at least stop here once. No regrets.
This morning we visited the Korakuen Gardens, our second of the three top gardens in Japan, and the grounds of the Okayama castle (a 1966 reconstruction since the castle was wiped out in WWII. Afterwards, we set about finding brunch before our train ride to Himeji. Within 3 blocks of the hotel there were 7 restaurants proudly flying the Italian flag. It’s weird seeing plastic dishes of pizza, pasta, salad and other western dishes. Other foreign cuisines included French, Hawaiian, Korean, and the ubiquitous Chinese. From the Japanese spectrum we also saw plenty of advertisements for okonomiyaki. Some compare this dish to pizza while others compare it an omelet. Since instead of eggs it relies on cabbage, flour and water for its base, I think it’s closer to a scrambled crepe or mixed hash browns.
In the end we settled on a fusion Asian-Italian restaurant. With a decent view of the main drag, lounge music and great interior décor it was one of the least Japanese looking places we’ve eaten at. By the end though we were both sold. I’d love to have places like this throughout Seattle. We each we had:
- Half a cup of potato cream soup
- A small lettuce salad
- Three amuses-gueules: tofu, bruschetta and some cake
- An entrée of either fish or chicken breast
- A plate of pasta mixed with olive oil, strips of crispy Japanese yam and grilled eggplant
- Shaved peach ice with crumbs of frozen raspberries
- A drink: orange juice
At ¥980 (~9 USD) that’s still more than the Korean dishes we ate yesterday evening (¥750 and ¥850). It’s also more than the ramen we could have had next door (starting at ¥450).
Food in Japan is priced very differently than in North-America. Although we haven’t verified, we think Japan doesn’t import much fruits or vegetables. Grape sells for twice the price it does at QFC. An apple or pear might fetch 2.50 USD. As a result, fruit juices (a big part of my nutrition) are expensive. Moreover, although the land is covered with paddies, rice is still at a premium. Finally, as we’ve learned, sushi is as much a luxury here as it is in Seattle. Our average sushi dinner in a neighborhood shop in Hiroshima was an expensive ¥6000 for two.
If your index is vending machine prices, you’ll be interested to know that a bottle of water (or coke) sells for ¥130. The price is the same for the ice cream cones from the machines outside of Himeji castle. More expensive sodas are ¥150. These prices are generally identical throughout the sites we’ve visited. Given the current exchange rate, they’re only slightly more than most vending machines in the U.S.