Kanazawa - does coffee and toast get any better? The best ever sushi train? Has pub food ever been this good?

Navigating Kanazawa Buses, coffee, sushi, ice creams and BBQ

Trip Diary Day 5 - 2 April 2019

Check out Episode 3 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

Eight in the morning and the rain was still persisting down. We’re in Kanazawa for four days so I expected the rain to ease up at some point. We had breakfast and then went out to face the rain. And sleet. And snow. We walked up the street to the closest bus stop. We wanted, no needed, to go to Blue Monday for coffee which was somewhere near Kanazawa Station. The first bus that came along wasn’t going to Kanazawa Station. Rain was still bucketing down. We had some cover at the bus stop and the umbrella we bought the previous night, but we still got a little damp. As each of bus pulled up at the stop they opened the middle door and not the front. This confused me. I’m used to getting on at the front and off at the middle. A yellow rope seemed to block the front entrance. Maybe it was so only people with IC could board and swipe? No cash maybe? Were they express? So we didn’t get on any. I feel a bit stupid now, as I write this, not knowing how the buses worked. We figured it out later. It isn’t complicated. You get on through the middle door and drop a few coins in the pay box at the front as you exit. Or use an IC card. IC cards are rechargeable cards used to pay fare on public transport. After a while we decided to go to the nearby Nomachi station and see if we could catch a train. It looked like a longer more circuitous route than by bus but it might be easier to use. At the station I asked the station master how much it was to go to Kanazawa station and she indicated we should take the bus outside rather than the train. The driver of the waiting bus opened the front door and I asked for 4 tickets to Kanazawa Station. 500 yen. This bus took about 15 minutes and ended up on the “other” side of the station. That is, the opposite side to the one we wanted. Kanazawa station is huge. Significantly bigger than I expected for a city the size of Kanazawa. Kanazawa Station for all its bigness is still tinier than Tokyo station but it follows the same plan. Shinkansen to one side, local trains on the other, and lots of shops.

Blue Monday

Blue Monday is in the Nikko Hotel building one level below ground. It is a kiosk style shop. A stand-at-the-counter no seating espresso stand type shop. Coffees were 470 yen and toast with margarine was 280 yen. The guy who owns the shop was very friendly. “Where are you from?” he asked. ”Melbourne Australia” I said. ”I went to Melbourne June last year” he said. He pulled out a bag of coffee beans from Proud Mary. He mentioned 7 Seeds coffee as well. Both are well known coffee shops in Melbourne. Just quietly, I think Blue Monday coffee is better than either. He showed us photos on his iPad of the coffee roasters at the Queen Victoria Market and other places around Melbourne he’d visited. He really was nice guy. We also chatted about food and he suggested Plat Home Kanazawa Kitchen as his pick as the best food in Kanazawa. He also recommended Curio Coffee because they were friends of his. We were going there anyway but it was a very nice thing to say about another coffee shop. We actually came to Blue Monday today because Curio is closed on Tuesdays. I’m so glad we did. We’ll definitely be back. Blue Monday has awesome coffee, shokupan toast and a great owner.

Damn fine coffee - Blue Monday, Kanazawa

The rain had stopped so we walked to placed called Bakazu for lunch but they were full and I could not make the waitress understand when I asked if they had something available on another day. I’ve already mentioned that my Japanese is crap.

Mori Mori Sushi Omicho

Omicho Fish Market is in central Kanazawa. Omicho is Kanazawa’s largest fresh food market with over 200 shops. We visited because it has a sushi train restaurant called Mori Mori Sushi Omicho. Let’s get this out of the way first - this was the finest sushi train, conveyor belt, restaurant we’ve ever been to. Being so good means that it was very popular. They, like the eel restaurant in Narita, issue tickets so we had to wait till our number was called rather than queuing uncomfortably. Our ticket was for counter seats, ticket no. 52, and we settled in for a 30 minute wait. We didn’t know it was going to be 30 minutes but it was totally worth the wait. Best sushi train meal ever. The sushi was as good as some of the better sushi places we’ve been to before. You can take plates of sushi directly from the conveyor or use a touch screen to order whatever you wanted. We mostly ordered with the touch screen. In the end we polished off 28 plates of sublime sushi. We called it our sushi plate tower of shame. Brandy ordered half dozen dishes himself either by touch screen or by pulling them off the sushi train as the dishes went by. Georgia wanted to order everything too. Everything. If we’d been more sensible it may have been a cheap meal. As it was it was over $100 - cash only.

Kazue-machi Chaya Geisha District

Next we made the 20 minute trek to the Kazue-machi Chaya District on the river. One of the 3 geisha districts in Kanazawa filled with old homes and historic buildings - most are heritage listed. It also has many cherry blossom trees. A few had started to bud and blossom. Most hadn’t. You couldn’t fault the trees for not trying considering how cold it had been. Appropriately enough it started raining again. The wind picked up and blew an eerie haunting whistle through the old wooden bridge crossing the river.

Higashiyama Chaya District

The Higashiyama Chaya District is on the other side of the river from Kazue-machi Chaya. The Higashiyama Chaya district is a historic tea house and geisha entertainment district. This where we found all the tourists. I’m pretty sure every tourist in Kanazawa was here. Bus loads following their guides with little flags. Mostly European tourists. Michelle was photographing a tree with the kids and some woman on a tour rudely said “Can you move I want to take a photo”. If the positions were reversed we’d either wait or try something else. Michelle, slightly taken aback, said “No, I haven’t finished” and kept taking photos. Georgia later said the woman had also spoken to her in a rude insulting manner. Great work European tourist, if you can’t get your way, insult a child.

We wandered around looking at the shops and old historic buildings. The tea shop we had planned to visit was closed so we thought we’d finish with and ice cream from the Yamamoto Soy Sauce Miso shop instead. No, not soy ice cream, soy sauce ice cream. 350 yen for a salty sweet weird yet delicious ice cream. Very creamy. Odd at first but very moreish. As we sat the sleet fell in sheets so we thought we’d have another ice cream and sit it out the downpour but the young women behind the counter said they had actually already closed. It was 5 pm and closing time is sacrosanct. She said we could have another ice cream but we’d have to go. So we said thanks, that’s okay, we’ll brave the storm and go.

Georgia with a Soy Sauce Ice Cream

Kanazawa, Japan

Fuwari Izakaya

It’s almost like our touristing is mostly checking out the sites between food stops. Anyway, it was time for dinner so back we went back up over the river the way we had come to Fuwari Izakaya. Fuwari Izakaya. Fuwari Izakaya is an izakaya. Izakayas essentially serve pub food. Of course Japanese pub food isn’t pub food as we know it. You won’t find chicken parma or sausages and mash here. This is beautifully grilled Japanese BBQ. Fuwari is a Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant. This means Michelin thinks it is good food for a good price. Michelle also thinks its good. That’s the main reason we’re here. Michelle spends a lot of time researching the best places. We don’t usually happen on them by accident.

The guy who met us at the door said we could come in but the table was reserved for another party at 7 pm and could we be done by then? It was around 5.30 5.45 so we thought we can throw down a bunch of grilled meats in a little over an hour. Yes. He took us through the main bar area to a tiny room with sunken floor. You sit at a table with your bum on the floor and your feet in a hole. Then we mostly had grilled meats. Chicken, pork and beef. The veggie options were quite awesome too.

We had a beef tendon and daikon soup to start. Tempura octopus. Little puff balls full of creamy something. Grilled shiitake and grilled zucchini in truffle oil. All so delicious. Ridiculously delicious. We had no idea it would be this good. Each dish between 400 and 600 yen, so not super expensive. In the end the total price including a beer or two and soft drinks came to about 8500 yen - a little over 100 Aussie bucks.

Fujiwara is another of those this is one of the best meals I’ve ever had meals. The amazing thing about some of these places is they look so nondescript from outside. Except for a light hanging outside you wouldn’t even know it was a restaurant. It looked like an old traditional Japanese house. Like something we’d seen in the historic parts of the town earlier in the day.

As we were leaving the snow started dumping down, then heavy sleet then heavy rain. Georgia was so very happy with the snow. She kept telling me that Mummy had told her we wouldn’t be seeing snow in Kanazawa. I told her that Mummy was right. It shouldn’t be snowing now. We’re weeks into Spring. It should be sakura season. But the cold and snow just keeps coming. It has been between 4 and 8 degrees during the day while we’ve been in Kanazawa and dropping to below zero at night. Interestingly the aircon in our apartment has a sign on it that says every so often the unit may stop to defrost especially if has been snowing. It’s like our aircon at home, it stops working when the temperature in hits 39.

We walked back around to the main road running to Kanazawa station in one direction and our place in the other. We needed more supplies from Lawson or Family Mart. All the Lawsons we walked by were on the other side of the road so we kept walking. Too tired to cross the road. The rain had stopped by now. We eventually crossed the road to a Lawson because for some reason the city planners, or conbini people, had decided to only put Lawsons on the other side of the road. We thought we’d just get the stuff and get a taxi. While we were in the shop the Georgia flicked Brandy with her glove and he cried so we left in embarrassment. Yeah, sometimes travelling with kids has its moments. We wandered on until we found a family mart and finally got our essential supplies. Yoghurt, milk, Sakura Sake KitKats, roasted tea KitKats and a donut. Then we kept walking.

Catching a bus in Kanazawa

I thought we’d try and catch a bus. I was reading the doco from our apartment on my phone and they had helpfully provided public transport details like bus numbers, routes and which stop was the closest to home. So we caught the bus and not taxi. Anything to save a couple of bucks. I’d seen people putting coins in the machine next to the driver as they got off so I was fairly certain I knew how the system worked now. I was confident enough to catch the next bus. The rest of the family sat but I stood because it was crowded. Peak hour lasts until later in Japan. Quite often buses and trains are packed well into the evening. Not far from where I thought our destination bus stop was the bus driver turned around and said something.
A woman next to me said “He wants to know where you are going?”.
I said “I think it is the next stop”.
Thanks Google maps.
The driver nodded and said okay. I thanked the woman. How good is it when the bus driver notices that you’re clueless tourist needing help. Japan, and Kanazawa bus drivers, I love you. The next stop was indeed our stop - Izume Chome 1. I put coins in the machine but it was the change machine. The driver pointed to the correct box. I put in about 300 yen and scooped up the change from the change machine to put that in too but the driver said it was okay. I know some bus drivers at home might possibly be as hospitable, but then again, after a bus almost ran me down on a pedestrian crossing in Sydney once the bus driver pulled over, opened the door and proceeded to give me a spray. I think “You fat prick” was mentioned. Maybe my opinion of Aussie bus drivers may be a little tarnished by that incident. But Japanese bus drivers get my hearty tick of approval.

We walked home as the rain started to fall again. The cars in our street had a few centimetres of snow on them which I suspected would wash away fairly soon. We were home by a fairly decent 8.30 pm. Expensive day in food terms with two $100 plus meals. But both meals were extraordinarily good and a fraction of the cost of food of a similar quality in Australia. Shit, we could pay as much for noodles and dumplings in Melbourne.

Day 5 in Japan done.

Epic Family Road Trip Japan on Youtube

Check out Episode 3 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

You may want to go back and watch Episode 2 as well…

Many of the pictures on this page are by Michelle. Essentially the good ones. Michelle retains full copyright and they can not be reproduced without permission. To contact her about licensing and using the photos contact her at Michelle Newnan Photography