Two more Misawa restaurants

OK here are the last two I got pictures of. Both of these places are on the last side street on the left as you head from the main gate to the actual white pole section of "White Pole Street". I dont know the name of either place.


The first place is a yakitori restaurant.
Yaki = BBQ
Tori = chicken

Short story, this place is really good, reasonably priced and they have an Engrish menu.

If you look at the picture you enter this place to the right of the white car. It's on the left hand side of the street as you head away from White Pole. Its a smallish place but they have a few private rooms that can seat a family sized party. The room we sat in at the back is faux floor sitting (i.e., the floor is cut out under the table) so you can look like you're sitting on the tatami without needing a chiropractor after dinner. Perfect for gaijin like myself.

Yakitori, like alot of Japanese dining is, in my experience, as much about socialization as it is about eating. For this reason it is one of my favorite meal expereinces. Yeah I know most people dont think of me and the word "social" in the same thought but this is different. And most who know me know that once I'm comfortable talking to you, I dont shut up. I can sit for hours at a place like this just eating, drinking and chatting with friends.

Anyway, everything comes in smallish portions (sort of tapas style to draw a parallel to something others might know). Most everything comes on skewers, two or three per order. They use every part of the chicken. My favorites are the hearts, livers and skin. The wings are really good as well. Everything is generally salty which makes it great beer food.


The second place is traditional sushi.
They do not have an English or even an Engrish menu. I have not been here without native Japanese speakers but the staff is super nice so it might be worth a try.

Its on the right hand side of the street as you head away from White Pole. It is totally nondescript from the outside. Inside are a bunch of private rooms and a sushi bar.

There are two unique things about this place. The first unique thing(s) are the features of the place physically inside. There is a large(gigantic really) crab tank behind the sushi bar and the tanks that make up the bar itself. I've included a bad pic of the tank behind the bar. The second unique thing is that they serve fresh wasabi with your meal. No premixed paste. You get a short piece of horseradish root and a sharkskin plate to grind it on.

Needless to say, the food here is really really fresh. As you can see from the video below some foods are still kicking when you get them.
There really isnt much else to say about this place really other than GO HERE WITH A BIG APPETITE. It's not overly expensive, me and 4 other guys ate here for less than $200 including alcohol. The sushi is fresh which is the key after all.

Monster Sushi

OK another kaitenzushi post . . . this place is called Kappa Sushi.

Kappa is a monster that lives in the water maybe a rabid turtle or creature from the black lagoon or something. But, as you can see from the sign, this is a kinder gentler kappa. The restaurant is more of a family type place.

It's more industrial, less personal but each plate is only 100 yen. The food quality was average. Fresh cold fish and warm rice again so you really cant go wrong but gut feel was the fish was fresher last night at Kozo. This place did though have aji (spanish mackerel) which actually was super fresh and the pieces were large so I was quite happy about that. They had a wider variety of things than other places but the hamachi was better elsewhere and I didnt see any of the higher grade tuna's on the menu. but and if you have kids its very entertaining.


There is a truly unique feature that makes this place "wicked pissah" as they say at home.

So at most kaitenzushi places they have specials that you have to request. You can also request from the normal fare in case what you really want hasnt been making the conveyor rounds. Typically this actualy requires human interaction which can sometimes be problematic for introverted non-Japanese speakers like myself.

At Kappa Sushi though at each table there is a touch screen menu ordering system (see my crappy pic to the left). You just pick what you want from the menu, sushi, drinks, soup, desserts, and push the "place order" button.


Now comes the cool part . . . the chefs in the kitchen make your order and send it to you by a miniature Shinkansen. So here's a video of my aji arriving by train . . .








What did I tell you? Wicked pissah, right?!

The Restaurants of Misawa

Boredom is getting to me still so maybe blogging is in order. I've found that there is limited guidance on the restaurants of Misawa Japan. Especially guides geared toward those who's Japanese is limited. Odd since this is largely a US military town. www.misawalife.com is a very good site but only covers a small fraction of the restaurants here. Of course alot of Americans are probably hanging out at the AAFES Food Court eating Taco Bell and Subway, then heading over to the Commissary for Cap'n Crunch and Hot Pockets but I'm sure there are quite alot of adventurous folks who wander the streets looking for some local flavor. So I'm not going to make this an all Misawa blog, my attention span is way too short to stick to just one subject. But I will add some more detailed info about the food here.

I honestly didn't expect to get much good food in close proximity to the base but was wrong. Not that I'm a gourmet or anything. My wife would say I'm in no position to rate Japanese food since I don't even eat natto. But I consider myself to have a broader palate than most and this is just my opinion anyway so.

I've been to around a dozen restaurants by now, most all of which have English menus and waitstaff that at least understand a moderate amount of English. You wouldnt know that just wandering the streets though. It didn't occur to me to take pics of them until now so I will attempt to put up pics, reviews and maps in the hopes that someone else might find it useful. So first review . . .

Location Map
Kozo Sushi is the actual name but locally this place is known as "The Pink Sushi Place" for obvious reasons. From the main street side it appears to be sushi takeout. But in the back is a small kaitensushi bar.

Kaitenzushi for those who don't know is the type of place where the sushi comes around on a conveyor and you just take what you want. The sushi is presented on plates of varying colors. Each plate color has a different price. When you're done eating they just count up how many plates of each color and tally the price. The positives are that if its busy the fish is fresh and the prices are usually very reasonable as compared to traditional sushi places. The negative is if its not busy the fish isn't fresh or you have to order each thing individually which is the same as going to any other sushi place.

I will take some pictures next time and add a conveyor belt sushi primer at some point just because there are some really interesting aspects of this type of dining.


So anyway this particular place is very good. When we went the place was full, it only seats about 16 people so if you bring the whole family be prepared to wait. We waited maybe 10 minutes to seat two. Most importantly they met the basic criteria for good sushi . . . warm rice/cold fish. The menu is available in English so you can identify what you're eating and how much it costs. The fare covers all the basics (salmon, tuna, mackerel, yellow tail, urchin, roe, natto, etc) along with some good interesting items. The overall experience was excellent, the food quality was definitely above average and the folks who run the place were super friendly and very accomodating to two non-Japanese speakers.