If you love Unagi, you will faint at Hitsumabushi

One of my favourite things to order in a Japanese restaurant is unagi. Whether on nigiri sushi, or a whole layer of it on a bed of sticky sushi rice, I just can’t get enough of it. The flesh is meaty and fatty, yet the sauce is a sweet and sticky in a trashy-but-good kind of way.

I always feel a little  guilty when ordering unagi, since it is  often the most pricey item in a Japanese restaurant and I also have to pretend that I am not aware that if you are eating it in the UK, it is almost always frozen in Japan and shipped over (Carbon count! *gasp* Not fresh?! *shriek*), but let’s not dampen the mood. Find your blind eye and use it. I conclude that it gives me at least twice the pleasure of any of the other dishes, so it’s fine.

So anyway, my friend K who lives in Tokyo was aware of my obsession with their slippery National treasure, and suggested that we take a  trip to Nagoya, on the Shinkansen on a hot and humid bank holiday weekend earlier this year to sample  the country’s most famous eel dish; the Hitsumabushi.

Remember that the Shinkansen bullet train is speedy to say the least, and we were on it for 2 HOURS to reach Nagoya;  this was nothing short of a food pilgrimage.

And we weren’t the only ones!

The queue for hitsumabushi

We waited over an hour (on top of the bullet train ride!)  Seems like these people below have rushed here from the…airport?!

K took me to one of the City’s most famous restaurants called  Atsuta Unagi Horaiken at Yabacho Station in Nagoya. The term “Hitsumabushi” is a registered trademark of Atsuta Houraiken, one of Nagoya’s older and most famous restaurants for this dish. They serve other dishes too, but this is their signature.

So what’s the big deal? Hitsumabushi is a bowl of grilled eel on a bed of rice, that comes with a dashi stock which you pour over the top, with some side pickles before tucking in. The eel was thick like chunky Char Siu pieces, but tender like a steamed seabass. The flavour of the sticky sweet and salty sauce was penetrating and pungent, so you had to take a breather between mouthfuls, and sip the clear soup to cleanse the palate each mouthful.

The dish comes with an empty rice bowl so that you can serve yourself, and add the dashi, pickles and garnishes that they provide to your taste; this self-compilation was certainly part of the fun of eating it. Like a little toy kit made up of the BEST food EVER. What with having to leave our shoes outside and sit crossed legged on a tatami to enjoy this meal, it was a really relaxed eating experience.

As you can tell, the bowl was rather large. I feigned fullness; pretending that it was far too much food, and that I had best finish it as not to waste it, but truth be told it was pretty much my usual serving size! I had clearly begun to take on the politeness that surrounded every dining experience I had in Japan.

SO what’s so special about this dish? And how is their way in Nagoya of grilling their eel different to other parts of Japan? Put simply, Tokyoites slice open the Unagi at the back, while Osakans gut the fish at the belly. In Tokyo, their unagi prep involves steaming the fillet between sessions of slow grilling, while Osakans grill the fish for a longer time. And the Central Style of Nagoya? Unagi chefs around Nagoya are said to have blended Tokyo’s back-splitting with Osaka’s way of slow-grilling into a style of their own.

Each time I mention that I have had Hitsumabushi to Japanese people, I am given a nod of approval; it’s like I have been let into the fold, ah, she’s one of us. And I can’t help but feel a bit pleased with myself! If you want to also be let into the fold, find your way to this amazing restaurant on your next trip to Japan. It’s not cheap (the rail fair from Tokyo was £170 + meal was £30 plus 4 hours travel each way plus 1 hour wait) but hey, I never complained!

ATSUTA HOURAIKEN, HONTEN (Nagoya), Aichi-ken Nagoya-shi Atsuta-Ku Godo-cho 503

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