Kanazawa – Kuroyuri

We had really enjoyed our first afternoon in Kanazawa; checking out Omi-cho Market and having a nice lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing before heading off to dinner. Which was really close by. I'd had a friend make reservations at Kuroyuri; a Oden restaurant. Kuroyuri is located in the Hyakubangai Shopping Center which is attached to Kanazawa Station. And was rather easy to find.

Man, this place was busy. There's a packed u-shaped bar area on one side of the restaurant and packed tables on the other. And we did have a table waiting for us when we arrived.

I had heard that one of the iconic dishes of Kanazawa is Oden and Kuroyuri has been around for more than a half-century specializing in Oden. The menu has oden; here you order by item and a whole bunch of really good looking izakaya type dishes along with another iconic dish of the Kaga Domain, Jibuni.

So, of course we ordered it all. Along with a nice bottle of sake.

The oden here is very light and clean; not too salty, but with an mild ocean-savory flavor. As a whole, we enjoyed this, but not as much as other items we ordered. Our favorite item by far was the egg wrapped in fish cake. What a symphony of textures!

Our favorite item by far, was the amazingly savory and sweet Kasuzuke (fermented in sake lees) Fugu…yep, blowfish.

We were surprised at how relatively tender (it is after all dried and marinated) the fish was; without being too salty. We actually had a second order.

The Nukazuke (fermented in rice bran) seemed a bit saltier without the complexity of the previous version.

The strong fragrance and oiliness of the Nukazuke Saba(Mackerel pickled in rice bran)  was a bit much for the Missus.

It was on the fishy side and quite salty, but I thought it to be really good bar food.

The Jibuni; a classic Kanazawa duck stew arrived in a pretty lacquer bowl.

Man, this was quite rich and hearty. the salty-sweet flavors shone through, along with the gamey duck. Loved the mushrooms in this along with the seitan. Very nice overall.

We ended with a cleansing mushroom – egg drop soup.

And some yaki-onigiri to keep any future hunger at bay.

We really enjoyed our meal at Kuroyuri. The Missus loves izakaya style dishes. The service was excellent as they usually are in most restaurants in Japan.

We'd gladly return….especially for that fugu and more sake of course.

Kuroyuri
1-1 Kinoshinbomachi
Kanazawa, Japan

We walked through Kanazawa Station on the way back to the Nikko Hotel. The gate at the front of the station is called the 'Tsuzumi-mon' (Drum Gate) The two pillars are shaped like traditional hand drums.

The area behind the gate is covered by a large glass dome; known as the 'Motenashi' (Welcome) Dome. This was all built as part of the project that eventually brought the Shinkansen to Kanazawa. If you'd like to read a bit more about the history of Kanazawa Station, click on this link.

It was an easy walk back to our room. I found that the beer I had bought in Hida-Takayama was now nicely chilled.

I had bought this one….well, because it had Sarubobo on it. For some reason, we really took to Sarubobo during our visit to Takayama.

I spent the rest of the evening just watching Kanazawa from the window.

There was something about Kanazawa, and this trip as a whole that really touched us……

Thanks for reading!