Morioka Jaja-men / Chitantan Soup Jajamen is one of three infamous noodles of the city of Morioke in Iwate prefecture, along with Wankosoba and Reimen. The dish consists of a bowl of thick, udon-like noodles, with cucumber and green onion and a dollop of special meat-miso sauce, which you stir together before eating. The appearance,…

Sanriku Scallops, Hotate The Sanriku coastline stretches several hundreds kilometres along Japan’s Pacific coastline, starting in Aomori, passing through Iwate and finishing in north Miyagi. The area is well regarded for it’s seafood and perhaps most prominently for it’s giant scallops. I had the chance to try them out in Morioka at a fish restaurant…

Wasabi Dango On our journey through Iwate, I was delighted to find the picturesque city of Tono, hidden away in the mountains is famed for it’s Wasabi production. We stopped at a road side station and bought as many Wasabi-related products as we could carry including Wasabi mayonnaise, wasabi rice crackers, wasabi salad dressing –…

Trout, Yamame In the mountains of Iwate is the town of Tono, a picturesque countryside town surrounded by mountains and ricefields, that took my breathe away as I cycled through it with local, Tomoko Omori. Tomoko used to be a Nurse but now spends her time running a guesthouse, where guests can cook alongside Tomoko…

Cake Manjuu Today we visited one of the most famous sweet shops in Hanamaki, where we had the chance to meet an expert sweet maker. Manjuu is a chewy rice sweet, where the rice and flour are beaten under immense pressure to give them a chewy texture (in the same way flour is beaten to…

“Genghis Khan”, Jingiskan When I heard we were eating “Genghis Khan” for lunch, my reaction was one of confusion and surprise. I’ve never been the sort of person who likes to eat Mongolian dictator’s for lunch. Imagine my relief then when it turned out “Genghis Khan” is in fact a grilled lamb dish, particularly popular…