Nestled in the mountains of Japan north of Tokyo is the city of Matsumoto. I rolled into to town yesterday evening via the Super Azusa with a little daylight to spare, but because of the light mist and overcast weather I ruled out a quick excursion/fact finding mission and instead went ahead and set up shop at my hotel. Once settled in, I did some internet research on restaurants in the area and came across this nicely done post from a travel blog (Kudos Paul!) which reviews in detail one of the traditional meals of Matsumoto, basashi . Basashi is raw horse. Wow.
Needless to say I immediately set out find a traditional basashi restaurant of my own and ended up at Shin-Miyoshi. They don’t have a website, but are in the same area close to the train station and the experience was very similar to that of the travel blog.
I thoroughly enjoyed the basashi, especially the horse liver served sushi style wrapped in seaweed with rice. I also tried a fish sashimi that was served along with its skewed donor- still flopping (see right side of picture). At least to my unrefined palate this sashimi was tasty but otherwise unremarkable, however the dish’s presentation and the realization I had midway through the meal that was absolutely not. While sitting there devouring that poor little fish with its dead yet still twitching body in full display… his colleagues were staring at me not three feet away in a fish tank (see left side of picture). Poor little fishies, it made me think of myself as the monster of Matsumoto!
What’s the recovery twist to this story? It’s a tenuous tie-in at best, but hey, I’m on a break! These days eating a raw fish in front of an aquarium audience is about as monstrous as I get, that’s a far cry from my past days as a guzzling Godzilla that left a far greater path of destruction.
Bon Appétit!
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I loved your post! Enjoy the rest of your trip!!