This meal was one of our best memories of West Japan, starting with the initial reservation phone call -- in my broken Japanese -- prior to flying to Hiroshima. Impossibly fresh seafood, extremely friendly chef, ridiculously cheap prices, AND easily accessible by train if you're visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Iwami Ginzan. How good is this?
Food Review: KAMEYA (Nima)
Address: Nima-cho 1415-5, Oda-shi, Shimane Prefecture
Hours: Open for Lunch and Dinner on most days, but best to call ahead at 0854-88-3075
Map: from Google Maps
Directions: Starting from Nima Station, walk north along the road parallel to the train tracks for 500m, then turn right at the main crossroad (Route 235). Kameya is on the right side before the train tracks.
By pure chance we stumbled upon our favorite little eatery in West Japan while researching for dinner options for our 2-night stay at the hotspring town of Yunotsu, one of Japan's least visited World Heritage Sites. As restaurants were nearly non-existent along this sparsely populated stretch of the San'in Coast, I took the leap of faith to call Kameya and book ahead, based solely on unconfirmed reports from a local website.
My conversational Japanese was -- and still is -- a terrible mishmash of short sentences assisted by Japanized English terms, barely enough to communicate our arrival time and choice of Teishoku meal over the phone. Two weeks later we showed up at Chef Ido's one-man operation, luggage in tow and trapped for hours between infrequent trains, to find our Taisho cordially awaiting our arrival, so well-prepared that he had even arranged a special translator for us in the form of a teenage niece.
The Teishoku meal that we pre-ordered was the Ikizukuri, or Live Sashimi ... which meant exactly how it sounded. Within minutes Chef Ido took from his fishtank an beautiful mid-sized fish, pretty enough to be an aquarium exhibit with sparkling scales and dazzling zebra stripes. Somewhere between the cleaning of the fish and the appearance of the appetizer, the chef's niece arrived from her nearby house. (Hello Minori-san!)
Still in her early teens, Minori had to be the most fearless Japanese junior high student I've ever met, in terms of her confidence in speaking with random foreigners in English. This was exactly why Chef Ido brought her along as translator for two clueless Canadians ... and a rare chance to further sharpen her English in a region of Japan that few foreigners visit.
While we're chatting with Minori, Chef Ido went to work and soon produced this fascinating appetizer of regional specialties: Baigai whelk from the rocky coastline, Hotaru-ika (florescent squids) from the fishing boats, and the simmered, velvety rich liver from a mysterious fish to be featured next on our Sashimi plate.
This was by far the most impressive dish of our 16-day trip, an extravagant arrangement of two large conches and four local fish at their absolute peak of freshness, shared between just the two of us.
And the kicker is ... this was just one of many dishes in an impossibly cheap meal of 2500 yen (CAD$29.4) per person.
To give an idea of how gigantic this Sashimi plate was, each conch at the centre was about the size of my palm, and the dish itself was close to a half metre in diameter. This level of lavishness was certainly beyond what we'd usually spend on dinners, especially in large cities where a Sashimi-mori of this colossal size and uncompromised quality would have cost a fortune -- and that's before considering that one of our fish had to be served alive as Ikizukuri.
Featured prominently was the zebra-striped fish that our Taisho took out of the water merely 20 minutes ago, known as Ishidai according to Chef Ido and apparently prized among anglers for its mildly sweet flesh and a chewy texture reminiscent of Japanese seabream. My wife and I were just blissfully chatting with Minori and savoring our Sashimi until I noticed ...
.. the fish's gill cover kept opening and closing in front of our eyes!
What exactly it was breathing I had no idea, as half of its body was neatly plated on the Shiso leaves and the other half was already in our stomachs. My wife wished in retrospect that I hadn't told her, though this had to be unquestionably the freshest Sashimi we've ever had. Period.
This definitely wasn't your standard assortment of Akami tuna, Buri or Katsuo served in most Izakayas in Tokyo or Osaka, but three exotic species of local catches that we had never seen, let alone tasted, anywhere else. These two Yumekasago, or Japanese scorpionfish, were entirely different from the Ishidai with a softer texture yet the same level of absolute freshness ... and without thrashing around on our plate.
Even sweeter in flavor was this odd-looking fish with an angular head, bright orange body and disproportionately large pectoral fins that resembled the wings of a small airplane. According to Chef Ido, this was a locally prized fish in the autumn and winter season with the affable name of Houbou, coined for the loud vibrating sound it made with its swim bladder. As you can see we learned much about Japanese seafood on this evening from our master chef.
Starting with the fascinating array of fishes and gradually working our way towards the succulent Tsubugai conches at the centre of the ginormous platter, we took more than an hour to finish this one epic dish that would probably cost 8000+ yen (CAD$94) in Tokyo, except that we're paying a fraction of the price at this remote fishing port in West Japan.
And that was just the start. Arriving next were four grilled fish in Shioyaki style, two being some sort of rockfish and two being the local autumn specialty of Hatahata (sandfish), all seasoned in nothing but sea salt and expertly broiled to perfection. This was really over the top, in terms of both quantity and quality.
Minori had been translating for us this whole time, bridging our conversation with Chef Ido who shared his joy of living on the San'in Coast, the low cost of living in rural Japan, his cute grandkids in Shanghai, and of course his passions about food. Everyone was having a good time, though I suspected that we were keeping Minori from finishing her daily homework.
While Chef Ido served up these silky smooth bowls of Chawanmushi custard, we chatted more with Minori about the Japanese school year, her experience on a short-term exchange to Australia, and her aspirations to attend university in West Japan and become a professional translator. There is no doubt in our minds that, with some hard work in her upcoming pivotal years of senior high, this intelligent young lady would one day reach that goal.
And while we're having this great conversation with Minori, Chef Ido kept serving up more delicacies such as this family-style Tempura of Squid Tentacles. The amount of food served, at the rock bottom prices that Chef Ido charged, was simply becoming ridiculous.
And don't forget the salad, homemade Tsukemono, and a seriously good Aka-miso soup flavored with a whole fish head. We're talking an 8 course dinner with 8 fish (4 as Sashimi, 4 as Shioyaki) shared between the two of us, plus the conches, squids, Chawan-mushi and Tempura, for an impossible price of 2500 yen (CAD$29.4) per person. I would have gladly paid 6000 yen per head in Tokyo ... and that's without Minori-san's personal translation service!
Two-and-a-half hours were too short for an exceptional dinner with some great memories, of our marvellous Taisho Ido-san and of course Minori-san, who will become a professional translator someday I'm sure. 夢を目指して頑張ってくださいね、みのりさん!
That evening we caught the tiny conductor-less train to the hotspring town of Yunotsu, where we rented a traditional wooden Machiya for two nights as homebase for our day-trip to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Iwami Ginzan. For the rest of our journey we never encountered Sashimi of this incredible freshness again, and that's a testimony to the skills of Chef Ido and his little shop on the isolated San'in Coast.
Bill for Two Persons
| Ikizukuri Teishoku x 2 | 5000 yen |
| Bottle of Draft Beer | 600 yen |
| TOTAL | 5600 yen (CAD$66) |
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