Kanazawa – Kenrokuen Garden, Higashi Chaya District, and Lunch at Morimori Sushi (Omi-cho Location)

After a nice respite at Oyama Shrine we headed out, past the city office and art museum, finally coming to the quiet entrance of Kenrokuen Garden.

Declared to be one of the "Three Great Gardens of Japan", we just had to visit. Kenrokuen was once the outer garden of Kanazawa Castle and was built by the Maeda Clan who ruled the area from 1583 to 1871. In 1871 the garden was opened to the public.

This is Hisagoike Pond.

It was pretty mellow; with tourists having a fun time.

Except for the few knuckleheads who walked over partitions and around the ponds and climbed onto structures like Yagao-tei Teahouse which dates back to the 18th century.

Next to Kasumigaike Pond stands the iconic Karasaki Pine.

According to the story the 13th Lord Nariyasu planted the seed from which this tree grew.

There's a nice plum grove. Plum trees start blossoming before cherry blossoms.

Do you know how to tell the difference between plum blossoms and cherry blossoms? Cherry blossoms have a "split" at the end of each petal, while plum blossoms do not.

We had a nice stroll to the other end of the park.

As we headed put the exit and down the hill we saw this beautiful Cherry Blossom tree in bloom. Or was it?

Yep, cherry blossoms…..

The Missus wanted to visit the Higashi Chaya District, so we headed down the hill.

Along the way we saw a shop doing bustling business. Turns out this was the Ishikawa Prefectural Products Center.

There was, of course, gold leaf products everywhere. I ended up buying some food quality gold leaf. We also sampled a bunch of local delicacies and ended up purchasing dried and preserved fish which was mighty delici-yoso!

I was tempted to buy a couple of bottles of "Lame Spray" for some rather "lame" folks I know……they would never figure out that is should be pronounced "lamé". But they really weren't worth the price tag.

Ishikawa Prefectural Products Center
2-20 Kenrokumachi
Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

We had an uneventful walk to the Asanogawa River.

And crossed over the Asanogawa Ohashi Bridge, arriving at Higashi Chaya, a district full of historic buildings, faux geishas, gold leaf ice cream shops….

It was quite touristy; but in the low-keyed, mellow, Japanese way. And we ended up visiting quite a few shops.

We had a fun time……and it was the little things that seemed to catch our eye…..

We were starting to get hungry. Not sure where to eat, we decided to walk back to Omi-cho market. There was a Kaiten-zushi shop in the market that always seemed to have a line. I'm not big on conveyor belt sushi here in the states. It's usually of very low quality; but heck, if all these Japanese were lining for it…..

We had a wait of about 30 minutes, not bad….though we were fairly hungry.

You can get your sushi two different ways; by grabbing it off the conveyor (of course)…..

Or ordering from the handy-dandy iPad….with English translations as well!

You get tea from the spigot in front of you; the ginger and wasabi are in discreet containers on the table.

The first thing to arrive was the Aji (Spanish Mackeral). I had expected to be a bit underwhelmed. But I was so wrong. The fish was firm, moist, with a hint of oily-sweetness. The ginger helped cut through any richness and the scallions added a nice bit of sweet-pungency.

We picked the "slime meets slime", the lovely "neba neba" Natto and Okra Gunkan sushi off the belt.

This was quite delicious; the rice was so perfect.

The Hamachi was passable if a bit on the dry side. Good fat content though.

We ordered two different version of Negi-toro.

Both were excellent. The quality for the price was amazing. This is what I truly expect to get in a fishmarket.

We got a three piece combo with Hokkaido Uni, O-Toro, and Ama-ebi.

Based on what we had the day before, I expected the shrimp to be fantastic, and it was. But that uni was so briney, with a buttery texture, and that o-toro…..doesn't it look like beef?

We had a o-toro, which was fine….but not nearly as rich and buttery as the o-toro.

More "neba neba" goodness. Squid and Natto. This was so delicious.

Great textural contrast……

We finished things off with Crab and Crab Butter (Kani Miso). Man, this was so wonderfully savory, briney tones, great richness, the crab was tender and sweet.

At this point we'd had enough.  You press a button and they calculate your check based on the plates.

The petite Japanese woman sitting next to us ate as much as the both of us and had a tokkuri of sake to boot!

And you knew she was Japanese….she just left her purse by itself, stood up and went to the restroom, which is outside the restaurant. Yes….this is Japan.

When our bill arrived, I looked at it and blurted out "holy crap"! This Missus was startled and thought something was wrong. And no, nothing was wrong, things were so right. You see, the entire meal came to 3300¥, about $31/US. With toro, real crab, amaebi, uni, real wasabi!!! And in Japan, there's no tipping as well.

Morimori Sushi (Omi-cho)
88 Aokusamachi
Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

Like I always say; in Japan you can eat for 5 dollars or 500 dollars; it's up to you, and most of it is darn good!

Thanks for reading!