Delights of Chugoku (3): Oysters galore at Kaki-ya (牡蠣屋), Miyajima - and more bites thereafter!

Today we travelled to Miyajima, an offshore island about 45 minutes by local train and ferry from Hiroshima's city centre, and a popular day-trip option for visitors to the city. Landmarks include the UNESCO site Itsukushima Shrine with its famous torii gate that seems to rise out of the waters at high tide, due to the connecting coastal area being submerged.

Miyajima is also famous for its oysters, and restaurants offering oyster-based cuisine can be readily found along the main Omotesando shopping street. Amongst them Kaki-ya is the most established and popular, serving up to 3,000 oysters, raw or cooked in various ways, on a busy day. The peak season for them lasts from October to March, so we were in for a real treat!

Afraid of potentially long queues (they don't take reservations),we made our way there for an early lunch as soon as we reached the island. Although the ground floor was already filled up with customers at 11 am, to our pleasant surprise we still had the whole of the first floor to ourselves.

Plump raw oysters!

Oysters on a charcoal grill on the ground floor.

Various à la carte options are available together with an extensive sake and wine list (the unique selling point of this restaurant), but if you would like to have a taster of (almost) everything, the way to go would be to ask for the special teishoku (set meal) at 2,000 yen plus tax (not officially printed on the menu). For tourists like us, for whom this would likely be a first and last visit, the choice was obvious.

First up, a starter of two Hiroshima oysters grilled in their shells. A popular dish on Miyajima Island known as yaki-gaki, and also the signature dish at Kaki-ya, these were absolutely plump and juicy, and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt was all that was needed to heighten their fresh and deep umami.

Soon the main meal was brought to us, which consisted of various oyster-based delicacies which I will go through in greater detail below.

Oiled oysters - fresh oysters are first stir-fried in oyster sauce to condense their size and enrich their flavour, then marinated in grapeseed oil to produce Kaki-ya's own version of oyster confit. This morsel was very Chinese-tasting (perhaps due to the oyster sauce), with a deep and slightly piquant flavour, and a surprisingly smooth, rich and creamy texture not unlike a liver pâté.

Crumbed and deep-fried oysters, served with homemade tartar sauce and ketchup. The batter was very crisp and light, and it had sealed in all the oysters' juices, allowing their natural flavour to shine through. It was all lovely, but having had the same dish on Nokonoshima Island just two days ago I couldn't help missing how much larger and more luscious those had been.

Oyster meshi - the rice is cooked in oyster juices in a large earthenware pot at the front of the shop, then oysters simmered in soy sauce are added prior to serving. The rice was very tasty but its portion was really small - that could not have been more than two mouthfuls! The oysters here were not quite as juicy or natural as the grilled or breaded ones, but they were still pleasant, having acquired a good flavour from the simmering process.

Finally, the oyster red miso soup (no close-up) was lovely, with the stronger taste of red miso (as compared to its more common white counterpart) going hand-in-hand with the oysters in the soup.

Kaki-ya also sells bottled oyster-based condiments to go, in case you would like to take a souvenir home for use in your own cooking.

I must confess that both of us left the restaurant barely half-full, as the food, though good, was meagre in portions. However we decided against ordering more food, as there were many other stalls outside selling interesting bites, so we thought it might be a better idea to try as many of those as possible instead.

We first came across this shop Furaido 風籟堂 specialising in roasted chestnuts and supposedly unusual/rare varieties of sweet potatoes (I must say I've never seen purple- or white-fleshed ones). We went for two soft ice-creams with purple and orange sweet potato toppings. The contrast in temperatures was delightful as expected, and the rich starchy texture and earthy sweetness of the roasted sweet potatoes worked perfectly with the ice cream. I personally found the purple variety more intense in flavour (and it is also probably better for you, given its antioxidant-rich colour).

Next was a stall Marukin-honpo ○錦本舗 selling steamed buns. These large and piping hot buns, chock-full with fillings of either local Miyajima anago (conger eel) or Hiroshima beef, were perfect for the unfortunately chilly and drizzly weather we had found ourselves in. We could not have guessed how delicious they were, given their very modest appearance - the anago bun, with a touch of yuzu kosho (a spicy condiment made with yuzu and green pepper) in the filling to maximise its flavour, was so good that we actually went back for a second one! Admittedly at 400 yen per bun it was a little expensive for a street snack, but it was well worth the money.

Now this was the other thing I had actually planned to try in Miyajima besides oysters: deep-fried momiji manju 紅葉饅頭. Miyajima is also a popular maple leaf (momiji in Japanese) viewing location during the autumn, and here the traditional Japanese confectionery manju has been named after the shape of a maple leaf, in which it is cast.

Not surprisingly, this eatery, a branch of the famous Momiji-do 紅葉堂 (more details and a link below), is hugely popular; expect to queue and wait, as everything is prepared to order.

Alright, so the batter and deep-frying had distorted the original shape of the confectionery beneath, but as they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Beneath the crispy and aromatic pastry layer lay a really smooth and sweet anko (red bean paste) filling. Not good for your arteries at all, but so incredibly moreish! Anko is of course the main ingredient found in most Japanese sweets, but there are also 2 other options for foreign (Western) tastebuds - custard and cheese.

I would always recommend the anko filling though; it is just so much more authentic and tasty in Japan, made with real azuki red beans (far superior to the normal red beans we use for desserts back home, if you ask me).

Trust me - two aren't enough!

Very cute decoration with that other symbol of Miyajima -
the wild deer roaming the island.

Seating area at the back of the eatery.

The healthier original version of momiji manju is available at Momiji-do's main shop just 100 metres down the road, where this confectionery was invented. After a whole day on the island, we got back to the shop just in time before closing, and bought a box with assorted fillings (custard, almond, anko and chocolate). Having tried all of them, my vote still goes to the anko filling, with the almond (similar to marzipan but less sweet) coming in a close second. (By the way, these freshly-made ones don't keep very long as no preservatives are added; we were advised by the staff to finish them within 4 days.)

One last unusual ice-cream from Momiji-do to wrap up the day - this was momiji-flavoured ice cream, made using Sagotani milk produced on just 7 farms in the countryside west of Hiroshima. The dairy component itself was lovely, but the idea of incorporating the momiji manju pastry mix into the ice cream was not successful; neither of us could detect any additional flavour. Taken on its own terms, this was a very good milk ice cream, but nothing more.

I hope this post has given my readers an idea of what to look out for (food-wise) while visiting this beautiful historic island!