Continued from part one of our trip in Kanazawa. Our concierge at the Nikko Hotel helped us with a couple of our restaurant’s reservations. We have a large family so having reservations is a must during our travels. Restaurants in Japan can fill up fast and will turn away customers. For our first night in Kanazawa, we chose Itaru Honten as the city is famous for its izakaya restaurants. Izakaya restaurants are casual pubs that catered to the after-work crowd but have some of the best bites in town.
Itaru Honten is popular with the locals, and once seated, we saw a line out of the door. It would have been impossible for our family of six to get a table without having made reservations. I had Nikko Hotel help us book about 3 months prior, but a months notice for large parties is my recommendation.
Itaru is an open kitchen and counter oriented layout restaurant typical of izakayas. They have 5-6 tables where we were seating. Kanazawa is close to the Sea of Japan and as a result, has a rich bounty of the ocean. As such Itaru takes advantage of the diversity of the sea by having a full range of seafood on the menu. The staff has very little knowledge of English, but the menu has both Japanese and English and small pictures of the food.
I feel the food at izakaya was create for the drinks and not the other way around. A sip of beer after a bite of one of the tapas dishes is so satisfying. Nihonshu (sake) and beer are regular choices, but high-balls and shochu are also popular. An added plus is that all the drinks are cheap.
A couple of good examples of food created for the drinks we ordered include fermented hotaru ika. It has a nice briny taste and a fermented taste like good cheese. It tastes so good taking a bite and having a sip of nihonshu. Another appetizer we ordered was kani-miso was is the head-fat and role of the crabs. It is rich and packed with umami, and also great with nihonshu.
As mentioned, Kanazawa is close to the Sea of Japan. You can get some of the freshest and best seafood around all of Japan, rivaling Hokkaido. As such sashimi is a must order in this region. We ordered whelk, octopus, and sweet shrimp, but I could have ordered so much more.
There are two specialties of Kanazawa that stood out to me and are very hard to find elsewhere in Japan. The first is shiro ebi which is a type of white shrimp. They are in season from spring to fall and the best specimens come from Toyama Bay, which is nearby Kanazawa. I normally see shiro ebi peeled and as they are small, many of them used as neta for sushi. This was the first time I had them fried whole and was one of the best dishes I had on the whole trip.
The other specialty is the nodoguro prepared using himono technique. I mentioned nodoguro in my sushi blogs as it is one of the most prized sushi toppings. It is one of the fattiest white fish available. Himono is a preservation technique in the past where the fish is cut in half, lightly salted, and then air-dried overnight. Helpful in days before refrigeration, it has the added effect of concentrating the flavors. The fish is then grilled over binchotan before serving. I loved this preparation as the nodoguro is delicious.
There were several non-seafood items on the menu which we ordered. We had local ohitashi which is vegetables marinated in dashi. The grilled mochi was a dish my daughter requested, and it was a great choice. We also could not resist the duck jibuni, it is a local dish from the nearby Kaga area. It is duck and vegetables in a thick and savory broth. Finally, our youngest children both requested tamagoyaki, which is an omelet made of egg and dashi.
We finished our meal with a nice bowl of zosui. Zosui is the Japanese version of congee. In izakaya restaurants, there are several courses meant for after you finish drinking. It helps to sober you up if you had quite a bit to drink. At Itaru, there were some stews and soups on the menu in this category, but they were out of them that day. I was impressed by the izakaya and recommend a visit if you come to Kanazawa.
Resturant information:
website: http://www.itaru.ne.jp/
Address: 3-8 Kakinokibatake, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-0999, Japan
(near Kenrokuen and the 21st Century Museum)