Numazu-don is a local specialty born at a Numazu bowl contest in 2000: rice cooked with dried horse mackerel, topped with raw whitebait, raw sakura shrimp and chopped horse mackerel. Restaurants around Numazu Port serve it. It brings together Numazu's three famous catches, horse mackerel, sakura shrimp and whitebait, in a single bowl. On the road I skipped the cooked-in version and mixed flaked grilled horse mackerel into hot rice instead, then topped it with what I had gathered at the market, the port and Yui.
Ingredients
- Dried horse mackerel from Numazu
- Freshly cooked rice
- Horse mackerel sashimi
- Raw whitebait
- Raw sakura shrimp
- Shiso leaves
- Shredded nori
- Green onion
- White sesame and soy sauce
How I made it
- Grill the dried horse mackerel, take the flesh off the bones and mix it into hot rice
- Chop the horse mackerel sashimi finely to make tataki
- Fill a bowl with the horse mackerel rice, scatter shredded nori and lay shiso leaves on top
- Add the tataki, raw whitebait, raw sakura shrimp and green onion, and eat with a drizzle of soy sauce
Sources: nap-camp.com
This moment in the journey
Making a Numazu bowl from the treasures of Suruga Bay
Time to make dinner. I opened the grill and cooked Numazu's dried horse mackerel, packed with the flavor of Suruga Bay. When the rice cooker was done, I took the grilled fish off the bones and mixed it into the hot rice.
The horse mackerel sashimi became tataki: I chopped it fine with a knife, and set half of it aside in a bowl with white sesame and soy sauce to marinate. Something to look forward to tomorrow morning. Half of the cherry-colored treasures of Suruga Bay went into kakiage: mixed with batter and dropped into amber sesame oil, they fried up beautifully.
Over the horse mackerel rice in a blue bowl went shredded nori, then the tataki and raw whitebait on shiso leaves, and finally the raw sakura shrimp and green onion. The Numazu bowl was complete.
Watch this scene on YouTube5:56
More notes from this journey
Numazu, Shizuoka
Sakura shrimp kakiage
Every sakura shrimp landed in Japan comes from Suruga Bay.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Horse mackerel chazuke
The half of the chopped horse mackerel I had set aside while making the Numazu bowl spent the night in soy sauce and became the next morning's chazuke.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Asa-Ichi, the morning market in the Arcade Meitengai
A morning market held in the shopping arcade near Numazu Station on the first day of every month except January, from 8 a.m.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Numazu himono, dried horse mackerel
Numazu is one of Japan's leading producers of dried fish; fish drying at the Numazu post town even appears in Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Sakura shrimp of Suruga Bay
Sakura shrimp also live in Tokyo Bay and Sagami Bay, but only Shizuoka Prefecture licenses the fishery, so every shrimp landed in Japan comes from Suruga Bay.
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
Nishiura mandarins and the Jutaro variety
In the Sanura district of Numazu, made up of Nishiura, Uchiura and Shizuura, mandarin growing can be traced back about 450 years, and full-scale cultivation beg…
From: Gifts of the sea in a town that looks out on Mt. Fuji
More notes from Tokai
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Rice cooked over a kamado
In this house the tiled kamado is still in daily use.
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Satsuki's lunch box
A recreation of the lunch Satsuki gets up early to make in My Neighbor Totoro: rice cooked over a kamado, grilled dried sardines, green peas, pink sakura denbu…
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Wild boar hot pot over the hearth
Most of Hamamatsu's Tenryu Ward is forest, and the Tenryu Gibier Fes, a festival of wild game, is held in Futamata (its fifth edition was in May 2025).
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Skewered yamame trout
Every summer a yamame-catching festival is held on the Misakubo River (the 28th was in July 2025).
From: Lighting the kamado in a house in the sky
Numazu, Shizuoka
Rice-ball bento in bamboo sheath
I wrapped freshly made rice balls in bamboo sheath with rolled omelet and pickled cucumber and carried them down to the water.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji
Numazu, Shizuoka
The Numazu special: nigiri and gunkan sushi
Numazu Port is where the fish of Suruga Bay come ashore, with a street of restaurants serving seafood fresh off the boats.
From: Making sushi with a view of Mt. Fuji