As a profoundly touristic destination, Nara certainly wasn’t the best-known culinary center of our Japanese tour. But we did identify one spot we wanted to try – Edogawa Naramachi, a restaurant specialized in eel.
After searching for it at lunchtime and failing miserably, resorting instead to street food from the Higashimuki shopping street, we finally found the restaurant at dinnertime (thanks to a very knowledgeable taxi driver). We were warned in advance via reviews that the wait to get in might be long, but we had no idea quite how long. It took over an hour for us to get a table, in a restaurant that, to our Manhattanite eyes, didn’t actually seem all that busy.
Once we got a seat, however, the food came quite quickly. The menu offers a bit of variety, but it’s clear that the thing to try here is the eel. It’s offered as part of a few different set menus, each of which begins with eel liver soup. This was a bit too weird for the siblings, but I actually really liked the earthy flavor here (and I’m a huge fan of the mochi balls floating in it!)
Next I dug into the main event: barbecued eel on a bed of brown rice. My menu paired the eel itself with eel-stuffed tamago. This was quite tasty as well, though my brother and I both noted that, for better or for worse, New York has eel just as good as the one we tried here (and you don’t need to wait over an hour to try it).
All in all, this was a good option for a meal in otherwise tourist-heavy Nara. It might have even garnered a better review if we hadn’t had to wait so long to get in. After all of the waiting, I’m sorry to say, the final result fell a bit flat, but I would recommend it if you’re able to get in more quickly (or have your hotel reserve in advance!)
Oddly enough for someone who’s not at all a dessert person, I was far more impressed by the sweets in Nara… which I’ll tell you all about tomorrow.
Edogawa Naramachi – 43 Shimomikadocho, Nara, 630-8365