下関の川棚温泉「小天狗さんろじ」でふく堪能！ Enjoy Pufferfish dishes at the Kawatana hot spring in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi
Enjoy Pufferfish dishes at the Kawatana hot spring in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi First, let me give you an overview of this video. We stay in a room with an open-air bath at Kawatana Onsen near Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture and enjoy a full course of pufferfish.
The next day, we will move to Iwakuni and visit the famous Kintaikyo Bridge. We also have a local specialty lunch. After that, we check in at a hotel in Hiroshima city, go to a seafood izakaya and enjoy fresh fish.
Now, it’s time to start the main story. I have something to do. After I go to Shinano-Omachi city, I transfer 4 trains and arrive at Shin-Shimonoseki station.
We finally arrived at Shin-Shimonoseki Station just before nightfall. It’s almost a trip across Japan. The train fare is discounted, so we have reserved a station rental car. You can see northern Kyushu on the opposite shore and the islands in the strait. The sunset view unique to Setouchi is wonderful and beautiful.
It takes more than 30 minutes by car from Shin-Shimonoseki Station, and we arrive at tonight’s Ryokan “Kotengu sanroji.” We arrived late, so the y showed us to our room right away. The room I reserved is the duplex room number 2. The room is close to the lobby and the restaurant.
I will shoot a room tour video in a hurry. The room is dark, so I would like to add it tomorrow morning. This is a large open-air bath. Of course, the hot spring is directly flowing from the source.
The second floor is a bedroom. we have a double room with only one quilt, but I asked for two quilts. This is a vaulted structure. The building is more than 20 years old, but it has a modern look.
The toilet is also beautifully renovated. I also like that there is a small towel instead of paper in the hand wash. The hot spring manju in this hot spring is a little strange. The skin looks like castella.
The TV is a large Android TV that can watch 4K broadcasting and YouTube. It seems that only 2 terrestrial broadcasting stations can be used, so satellite broadcasting is important. The refrigerator is a one-door type, the same as a business hotel.
Fresh flowers are displayed around the room. I think that is important as a ryokan. It shows that they are mindful. The coffee machine is not a Nespresso from Nestle, but a Drippod from UCC. I prefer this. I don’t bring the coffee drip set that I usually have because I travel by train.
We go to the restaurant after we quickly removed the sweat from the trip in the bath. We changed trains for 12 hours. When we go to the restaurant, a staff is waiting at the entrance. It’s a restaurant called Ten Kinds of Plants. All rooms are private.
The restaurant is also beautiful and I don’t think it’s been more than 20 years since it was built. I think it’s well taken care of. The cleaning is perfect. This room seems to be the one where we eat.
You can see the illuminated garden, and there are gorgeous fresh flowers. The open feeling of the sweeping window is also good. It’s a nice calm room. I will look over the drink menu just in case. This is the only one after all. Draft beer is the best luxury of the trip for us.
Here is today’s menu. I splurged and ordered a full course of puffer fish dishes with a large plate of pufferfish sashimi. It is tofu made with pufferfish milt. It has a bland taste, but there is no smell and you can enjoy rich taste.
This is an assortment of appetizers. Red fish grilled with miso, ground chicken sandwiched by rotus root, apple jelly, octopus dressed with sesame, pumpkin fried with almond. Each one is a solid dish.
Pufferfish sashimi served on a platter. Sashimi is thick. When transporting live pufferfish, chemicals are added to the transport tank. In the local area, they kill and drain blood right away, so the flesh of pufferfish doesn’t smell like that.
This course included a grass of Hirezake. It’s Japanese sake with dried pufferfish fins. They burn a little alcohol. It tastes rich.
Next, the hot pot dish of pufferfish appears. There are many beautiful pink pufferfish flesh. I feel that this color is a proof that it is not farmed pufferfish. The fact that the amount is not large makes me feel comfortable.
They take the plate with the food down once. After boiling the pot in the kitchen, they bring it back again. It was the same way when I stayed at another inn a long time ago. It must be the way of the place.
Next is deep-fried pufferfish. They don’t use tiger puffer. I heard that they use purple puffer because tiger puffer is not suitable for deep-frying.
The rice porridge is finished. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the hot pot dish of pufferfish is there to eat this rice porridge. There are a lot of eggs in it. It is difficult to add salt, but it is perfectly finished.
The dessert after the meal is muskmelon and chiffon cake. The frozen dessert is like chocolate Bavarian. The taste is very satisfying until the end. Pufferfish is best eaten in Shimonoseki. It was not a heavy meal for my stomach, so I will take a relaxing bath again. Good night.
Good morning. Now that it’s morning, I’ll add to the room tour video. This is the washroom and bathroom where I couldn’t take a video because it was too dark.
There is not only open-air bath but also indoor bath. The indoor bath is not a hot spring but boiled water. This ryokan has a lavishly spacious and comfortable bath.
The open-air bath is wide enough for the whole family to enter, and it is good that the temperature of the hot water is low. You can take a bath for a long time. In fact, we went in many times.
It is said that the temperature of the source is 43.5 °C, so it is the optimum temperature for the direct flowing of the source. It is difficult to control the temperature of a hot spring water. Anyway, we are going to breakfast. Breakfast started late, at 8:00.
We heard that the room for breakfast is the same as the room for dinner, but a staff in charge is already waiting. The fresh flowers in the room are different from those at night. It has a Japanese taste suitable for breakfast.
Only Japanese style breakfast is served for breakfast. I think the taste of breakfast is also very good. It is not a luxurious meal, but each dish is carefully examined.
The main dish for breakfast is also a puffer fish dish. They say it is Shumai of Fugu. Of course, it is homemade, and you can feel the elegant deliciousness of pufferfish. That’s one ball.
We arrived at the ryokan late, so I can’t take a video of the common facilities. I take video using the time of payment. This is the entrance to the ryokan from the parking lot. The main entrance is located at the far end while passing by the guest room.
After going through the front door This is the front desk and the shop of the ryokan. We didn’t use it, but this is the bar corner. It is rare that a ryokan with few guest rooms has a bar. The shop has a variety of small items that women like.
I think they have a good selection. I felt that the cost performance of this ryokan is very good. As for the service, the staffs kept a proper sense of distance from the customers, and most of all, we were very satisfied with the taste of the food.
Go back to Shin-Shimonoseki Station by car and head for Iwakuni. There is also a souvenir shop only for puffer-related products at this station. People who grew up in the Kansai region have deep feelings for the 500 series Shinkansen trains. This train has been reborn as Kodama and is working hard.
If you take a route bus for 15 minutes from Shin-Iwakuni station, you will arrive at Kintaikyo Bridge. This bridge is worth seeing. Since we moved to Azumino, we gave up that we couldn’t see it anymore. In the center part of the bridge, I rotate 360 degrees to take a video.
There are many old cherry trees on both sides of the river. Spring will be the most beautiful. There is a tree called flowering standard tree. It seems to be different from the sample tree which has only one tree per prefecture as a rule.
I’ll have Iwakuni lotus root noodles for lunch. Iwakuni is famous for lotus root. I recommend it to people who like strong noodles.
We moved to the center of Hiroshima city. Surprisingly, we are able to use nationwide travel assistance to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. We really needed to stay here, so I am thankful that it is about 6000 yen cheaper for two people.
Feeling better about the hotel discount, we are going to have a seafood dinner. I choose a more expensive restaurant than the one where I had lunch when I came on a business trip. The entrance has a suspicious atmosphere. The restaurant seems to be on the second floor.
The moment we opened the entrance of the restaurant, we were greeted by a very energetic young lady. It has a good restaurant atmosphere. They will bring the fish that the restaurant is buying today to the table by wagon.
They say sashimi platter is the best recommendation of this restaurant, so I ordered sashimi platter as they told me. It contains my favorite giant clam, has no smell, and is sweet and delicious. It feels good to see young staff working hard.
Hiroshima has a port where both fish from the Seto Inland Sea and fish from the Pacific Ocean are landed. Speaking of seafood dishes, either Hiroshima or Hakata comes to mind, so it’s a place where you can eat fresh fish.
We chose a small stone sea bream. It is a fish that is hard to eat in Nagano Prefecture. It is a very firm and delicious fish.
A dish of steamed anglerfish with ponzu sauce. I asked them if this is domestic, and they said it was from the fish market. There is no bitterness, so I think it is domestic. We enjoy sake of the brand called Kirei together.
I was told that seared sashimi is more delicious than rare sashimi for the Seto Inland Sea specialty eel. This is the most delicious eel with fat. There is no smell that I feel the cooking method is bad.
This is a small sardine tempura that is famous in Hiroshima and I love it. It tastes bland and smells good. It is said that the raw small sardines will be landed in a little while, but it is delicious enough even frozen.
This is Chopped horse mackerel with miso. I think the fresh horse mackerel is more delicious than the sea bream. The miso flavor cooked by the bright manager is also outstanding.
The last thing we eat is a sushi roll named Eha maki. I heard it is a traditional fisherman’s meal in Hiroshima. It contains mustard leaf and boiled sardines. Adding two cups of sake and three glasses of draft beer cost less than 10,000 yen. It’s a reasonable price.
I had to go to a town on the outskirts of Hiroshima in the morning, so it was a good idea to go a little further to see the sights, thinking that it would be far away. Thank you all for watching. If you like it, please subscribe to our channel. It encourages me.
下関の川棚温泉「小天狗さんろじ」で源泉かけ流しの露天風呂付の部屋に泊まってふくフルコースを堪能。錦帯橋や広島市内の観光スポットやグルメも紹介します。
At the Kawatana hot spring “Kotengu Sanroji” in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, we stayed in a room with an open-air bath flowing directly from the hot spring source and enjoyed pufferfish dishes. We also introduce sightseeing spots and gourmet food in Kintaikyo Bridge and Hiroshima City.
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00:00 opening
00:28 Start of the main story
00:43 rom tour
01:40 dinner
03:50 morning
05:16 Kintaikyo Bridge
05:55 dinner in Hiroshima
07:11 ending