For your second trip and beyond
One town at a time. Where I went, what I ate, when I checked.
You have already done Tokyo and Kyoto. This is the rest of it — chosen the way someone who lives here would choose, town by town.
The couple who run this place are fishmongers, and three of the staff are certified in a method of bleeding and ageing fish that has changed how Japan handles sashimi. Two minutes from the station, and it closes on no fixed day.
The town of Itoigawa invented a black, squid-ink yakisoba and left the rest of the recipe to each restaurant. Aoi Shokudo is two minutes from the station, opens at ten, and does a mild, salt-based version of it.
A soba shop on the old main street of Itoigawa, open straight through the afternoon. The menu runs at two grades, and the hand-cut one is made in a single batch each morning — worth knowing before you plan your day around it.
