One of the highlight of traveling to me is food. I love trying restaurants that are popular among local people. Here are some foods we tried during our trip in Kamakura.
HACHINOKI HONTEN (HACHINOKI ORIGINAL)
When you visit a city with many temples, the chances are that you will find a “shojin ryori”, vegetarian cuisine which developed in Japan after having been originally brought from China along with Buddhism. It is what Buddhist monks in Japan eat. My parents took all of us to the “Hachinoki Honten”, the original restaurant of “Hachinoki” in Kamakura. My mom, who is vegetarian, found out about this restaurant through her friend. Since I love vegetarian food, especially Japanese vegetarian meals, I enjoyed every bite of the course meal, but I am afraid that it was a bit too plain to the taste of my carnivorous husband. He didn’t complain a bit and ate most of it though. Kudos to him. If you would like to know more about this restaurant, please click here.
RAMEN HANABI
My husband likes to eat ramen when we go to Japan. When it’s hot outside, it’s refreshing to eat cold ramen! Thinking about it makes my mouth water. I found this “Hanabi” restaurant on a guide book. I had a warm ramen and shared it with my daughter. The soy base soup and the ramen noodles were an impeccable combination. This was actually my snack after my lunch which I had a couple of hours prior to this. We were jet-lagged, so we ate food at odd hours. Hanabi is located near Yuigahama station on the Enoshima Dentetsu. Yuigahama is the second stop from Kamakura. After you exit the station from the only exit it has, take a right and cross the rail road and keep going. You come to a T-junction with a stop light. Take a right. (Side note: If you turn to the left and keep going, you will come to the entrance of Hasedera Temple. To go to this restaurant, you’ll be walking away from the Hasedera.) About 100 meters (very rough guessing) from the T-junction, you’ll find the restaurant on your left. If you read Japanese, you can also check out this site.
NAKAMURA-AN (SOBA RESTAURANT)
My family went to soba restaurant for lunch after we visited Tsurugaoka Hachimangu near Kamakura Station. This restaurant is not far from the Kamakura Station. It is a tiny restaurant on this small road that branched off of “Komachidori”, which I will post about later.
Directions:
Get out of Kamakura Station from the East Exit. Look for Komachi Dori which will be to the left of the bus terminal with a big red tori gate standing at the entrance. Right next to the tori gate is Baskin Robins. If you see McDonald’s sign to your left, you’ll see Baskin Robins and the red tori gate for sure. Walk 2 small blocks and turn right at the corner of a watch/clock store. The restaurant will be on your right. The restaurant doesn’t take a reservation, so there are usually people queuing outside. They are closed on Thursdays and sometimes they close in case of emergency or bad weather. The hours are from 11:45 am to 5:00 pm. If they sold out, they close the door at that point for the day.
Ryokan Food (Hotel Food)
I love staying at a Japanese style hotel that comes with dinner, a course meal. To me it makes our stay at a hotel an even more fun and unique experience. The food was great and we walked out of the dining room feeling stuffed! They also prepared kids meal for our girls, but because they were so jet-lagged and too tired to eat dinner, they didn’t eat much of the delicious food. Sigh. Well, because they didn’t eat much, I have got to eat some from their plate and it was great!
My mouth is watering just looking at these photos. everything looks yummy. Being a vegetarian myself I appreciate all the noodles,yum yum.
how are the prices per meal, reasonable?
Thanks! Yes, prices! The ramen noodle dish I ordered was about $7 with the current exchange rate. There is no tip system in Japan and usually tax is included, so the prices you see on the menu is what you pay at the end. The vegetarian course meal was 3,000 yen which is about $27. The soba ranged between $7 and $12. Since you don’t have to add tip in Japan, sometimes I think that it’s cheaper to eat out in Japan. The prices you see on the menu might look more expensive there, but if you eat in the States, tax and tip will be added in the total amount, so you end up paying 25 to 30% more than what you see on the menu depending on how much you tip.
Wow, Kaho! So much fun traveling with you this summer. Looking forward to Indonesia!
Thanks for reading and leaving sweet comments! I really appreciate it!!
good that you are enjoying the stay in tokyo.
i also like kamakura, but it is too hot to walk around in the city.
so i am trying to get out of tokyo to nagano next week.
it should be cooler there. and of course i am playing golf!
the problem is that i have been sick for a week now.
take care, keep your health during your stay.
you just run around all the time you come to japan— :p
Kaori! Thanks! I was in Tokyo for a week. It was way too short. This time, I stayed quiet. 😛 I got sick at the beginning of our month vacation in Texas, so I decided to chill. It was nice to do nothing while I was in Tokyo and I felt well rested in Japan. On this trip our time was so short that we decided to focus on our family and didn’t go out much except for the Kamakura trip with the family. I’m sorry to hear that you have been sick! That’s no fun. Get well soon. Have a great time in Nagano and fun playing golf!
I went to Kamakura years ago, miss Japan so much. Actually I plan to move to Japan for a year or two in the near future before going back to Indonesia for good… But I think it’s a bit difficult with the current situation… anyway I pray for Japan, its people and gov’t, to be able to overcome the aftermath of the tsunami soon…
Really? I’m happy to know that there are some people who are willing to go to Japan. I’m sure there are foreigners who have left Japan after the earthquake and are not going back there. I also hope that the Japanese people keep their strength and do not lose their hope and the government will pull through the tough time.
Yup, I’d love to go to Japan if there’s a possibility, why not? I love Japanese foods and culture. My problem isn’t about nuclear radiation or so, I know in the southern part of the country the condition is normal. But I’d like to do a joint research with a university in Kyoto, and part of that needs to be financed by Japan’s gov’t. I guess with the current situation, the possibility to do it is so small.
That’s a shame… I guess the timing was not so good? I hope you’ll be able to go though. Kyoto is a beautiful place.