HOKURIKU / KOSHINETSU
Narai-juku
Travel journal from Narai-juku, with 7 notes on the places I ate, the dishes I cooked and the sights: Narai-juku, Rice-flour oyaki with nozawana, Shinshu beef sukiyaki, Sagamiya Soba.
Journeys: 1 · Notes: 7
Journeys
01
Cook the local flavors once more
Dishes made in borrowed kitchens, and how each one connects to the land.
Shiojiri, Nagano
Rice-flour oyaki with nozawana
Oyaki are the signature home dish of Shinshu: a dough of wheat or buckwheat flour rolled thin, wrapped around a filling and baked.
From: Autumn leaves in Narai-juku and an autumn table in Shinshu
Shiojiri, Nagano
Shinshu beef sukiyaki
Nagano's "apple-fed Shinshu beef" is black wagyu that meets standards set by a producers' association; the cattle are fed by-products of the prefecture's food i…
From: Autumn leaves in Narai-juku and an autumn table in Shinshu
02
A little of each town’s story
Sights, specialties and how the towns came to be: small cultural notes beside each journey.
Shiojiri, Nagano
Narai-juku
The 34th of the 69 post towns on the Nakasendo, equidistant from Edo and Kyoto.
From: Autumn leaves in Narai-juku and an autumn table in Shinshu
Shiojiri, Nagano
Shinshu soba
Buckwheat grows even in cool highlands where rice and wheat struggle, so it has long been cultivated in Nagano, helped by the wide day-night temperature swings…
From: Autumn leaves in Narai-juku and an autumn table in Shinshu
Shiojiri, Nagano
Pickled nozawana
Nozawana is said to descend from Tennoji turnips that a temple priest in Nozawa Onsen brought back from Kyoto in 1756.
From: Autumn leaves in Narai-juku and an autumn table in Shinshu
Shiojiri, Nagano
Apple-fed Shinshu beef
A brand of black wagyu from Nagano.
From: Autumn leaves in Narai-juku and an autumn table in Shinshu
03
Places we stopped along the way
What we ate and bought, with shop details checked against published listings.
