Niigata is a two hour bullet train ride from Tokyo. The city faces the Sea of Japan and is noted for snow during the winter. It is also renowned for rice and sake, usually gaining top ratings for both. I'm now at the Niigata Nikko. I guess that is a giant grain of rice in front of the hotel.
Thus, I asked the train station tourist desk and hotel concierge where was the best restaurant for Niigata rice and sake. I'm not sure if it was more a language problem than anything else, but no one had a hint as to where to go. I got a sense that the hotel area was not good, and the train station was best.
At around 4:15PM I walked into a restaurant, and learned that I could have the sake, but the earliest they served rice was 5PM. A second restaurant said the same thing and a third indicated 5:30. I did not want to hang around all that time, so I decided to buy a musubi (rice ball), which certainly had to be made of Niigata rice.
This is a huge aside, but some years ago, Pearl and I went to Munich for Octoberfest. We were told to catch a certain train and follow the crowd. This we did, except it was drizzling. Octoberfest is not what you think. It is like a fair with rides and huge barns where they serve beer and food. We made several mistakes. First, we bought some bread outside and brought it in to eat with the beer. That is a no-no. They don't serve you beer if you bring in your own food. So, we looked around for a place to just buy beer, like a stand, perhaps...but no such thing. We went into a restaurant, but they only served wine. It was raining by then so we ordered a typical German meal with some German white wine. Pearl and I are the only two people who ever went to Octoberfest in October and, and wanted to, but did not drink any beer.
Back to Niigata and rice, I walked around for a while and could not find a decent musubi stand. At that point I saw a restaurant that appeared to be open, so, indeed, at 4:25PM, they said rice came with a set meal.
I asked for the best sake in the house, and they brought a huge bottle and proceeded to pour the best sake in Niigata into a three-layer system:
I've had many two-layer sakes, but this was was a first for me. I wasn't quite sure how to proceed, but somehow managed. The sake was kind of sweetish, but terrific.The set meal was also outstanding, with a grilled tai (a type of red snapper), a generous portion of sashimi, miso soup, soba (buckwheat noodle), an excellent vegetable tempura of onions and edamame (soy beans), several plates of other stuff and...tada...Niigata rice.
I guess that was what that was, but they could have served me something from California and I wouldn't have been able to tell. The meal cost about $30.
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Super Typhoon Melor, at 160 MPH, is now headed for Japan. It is not totally clear where it will be on Thursday, when I need to return by Shinkansen from Sapporo to Tokyo, but the following projected path looks threatening:
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Cuba is the 108th country to visit this blog site:
6007-108-326
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