Respect the salmon – a visit to an off-the-beaten-path foodie destination in Niigata【Photos】
This charming town on the Sea of Japan coast is a great place to dive into a local culinary culture without massive tourist crowds.
By now, there are certain parts of Japan that just about any traveler knows are famous for certain types of food, such as Kobe for beef, Hokkaido for sea urchin, and Osaka for takoyaki. But part of what makes Japan such a great place to explore is that there are always other hidden gems off the beaten tourist path, and today we're taking a trip to a lesser-known culinary culture destination, the town of Murakami in Niigata Prefecture.
For many foodies, rice is the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Niigata, as it's where the prized Koshihikari strain of the grain is grown. Murakami, though, is all about salmon.
Murakami is located on the coast of the sea of Japan, and the river which flows through the town is also a salmon run waterway. Salmon are deeply engrained in the local way of life, and the locals' respect and gratitude towards the fish is so great that it's said that Murakami has over 100 different salmon recipes, so that as much of the fish as possible can be eaten and only the bare minimum thrown away.
▼ Salmon drying in Murakami
It'd take far more than a single visit to Murakami to sample all of its salmon specialties, but we still wanted to try as many as we could fit into or schedule/stomach, so we headed to Kikkawa Izutsuya, a Murakami restaurant that offers multi-course salmon meals.
▼ Kikkawa Izutsuya
As you might imagine, though, Kikkawa, which is only open for lunch, tends to fill up with reservations pretty quickly, and unfortunately we'd rolled up without having arranged for a table. This didn't turn out to be a major problem, though. The restaurant doesn't start serving customers until 11 a.m., but at 9:30 they start a waiting list for non-reserved tables for the day. After giving them our name they told us the approximate estimated time for when they'd be able to seat us, and while it was several hours away, this meant that instead of having to stand in line, we could go explore the town.
The neighborhood around Kikkawa Izutsuya has some very picturesque machiya (traditional townhouse) architecture, and even amongst the buildings that don't have the look of Edo-period shopfronts there are some with the cool retro atmosphere of two or three generations ago. Since we had a while to go before our Kikkawa Izutsuya seating, we went cruising for breakfast, and found it at a place called Echigo Iwafuneya.
▼ The walk from Kikkawa Izutsuya to Echigo Iwafuneya
Full disclosure: Echigo Iwafuneya is a sweets shop. While we're being honest, though, we should also say that we have very few qualms about eating sweets for breakfast while we're traveling, especially when the glazed dango mochi dumplings look like this (and yes, they tasted as good as they looked).
▼ Plus Echigo Iwafuneya has an eat-in area, so in our book it counts as a proper restaurant.
By the way, the 'Kikkawa' part of the name of the Kikkawa Izutsuya restaurant we were waiting to eat at refers to its parent company, which sells dried salmon, salmon roe, and other salmon-related foodstuffs. Aside from the restaurant, Kikkawa's main store is also located in the area, and is worth a visit even if you're not planning to buy anything.
▼ Echigo Iwafuneya to Kikkawa main store
▼ Kikkawa main store
Not only does the building look extremely cool from the outside, inside you'll see…
…just how much dried salmon they produce!
You might expect the…bouquet of that much fish to be unbearable, but there's also a strong aroma of salt, since it's used in generous amounts as part of Murakami's local drying process. After being left salted for roughly a week, the salmon is rinsed and hung up to dry, with the best results said to come from salmon that dries in the cold winter wind.
We still had time to spare before our Kikkawa Izutsuya seating, so next we strolled down Murakami's Kurobei-dori, or 'Black Wall Street,' so named for the classically styled dark wooden panels at the edges of the properties on either side.
▼ Kurobei-dori is found near Anzenji Temple (walking route from Kikkawa main store to Anzenji shown)
As further proof of how much Murakami loves salmon, on the north side of the town you'll find Murakami Salmon Park…
…and inside the park is the Murakami salmon museum!
▼ Anzenji Temple to salmon museum
Inside are all sorts of exhibits about the life of salmon and their importance to the local community. Not only are there a recreation of a traditional fisherman's dwelling and salmon-inhabited aquarium tanks, there's also a window that looks directly out into the river that's adjacent to the park, so if you come during the salmon run season (late fall/early winter), you can see them swimming upstream on their return to their birthplaces.
Visiting the salmon museum (which is officially called the Iyoboya Kaikan) filled us with both an admiration and hunger for salmon…and luckily it was now time for us to head back to Kikkawa Izutsuya for our long-awaited meal!
As the bilingual explanatory sheet shows, nothing is wasted in Murakami salmon cuisine. Kikkawa Izutsuya offers salmon meals with eight to twenty-two different dishes, and we opted for the 11-dish set, for 4,048 yen (US$28).
Coming first to our table were sake-marinated dried salmon, a salmon temari sushi ball, and winter wind-dried salmon milt (pictured clockwise from right in the above photo). The dried salmon in particular was full of flavor, but we didn't have too long to get lost in reverie since the waitstaff next set a shichirin grill down in front of us with breaded strips of sake-marinated salmon skin cooking on it. They curled as they heated, and when we popped one into our mouth, it was delightfully crunchy.
Next we were presented with dishes of stewed kabuto (salmon head), grilled pickled salmon, and miso-stewed salmon roe, arranged left to right in the picture below.
All of the above items are also part of the eight-dish course meal, but upgrading to the 11-item one also got us simmered salmon milt, salmon sashimi, and kombu (kelp)-wrapped salmon, lined up top to bottom on the right side of this shot.
While no dish alone was a huge portion, the number of different items meant that we had plenty to eat, avoiding the feast-for-the-eyes-but-not-so-much-for-the-stomach problem presented at some fancy restaurants, especially since we also had the star of the show…
…the grilled dried salmon, which was fantastic.
This is also part of the basic eight-dish set, and in addition to eating it by itself, we highly recommend eating some ochazuke-style, as a topping for a bowl of white rice and green tea.
So with 11 Murakami salmon dishes down, but still about 90 more to go, we've got a lot of reasons to visit the town again next time we're craving fish.
Location information
Kikkawa Izutsuya / きっかわ 井筒屋
Address: Niigata-ken, Murakami-shi, Komachi 1-12
新潟県村上市小町１−１２
Open 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Website
Iyoboya Kaikan / イヨボヤ会館
Address: Niigata-ken, Murakami-shi, Shiomachi 13-34
新潟県村上市塩町13-34
Open 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Website
Iyoboya Kaikan interior photos: Murakami Tourism Association
All other photos ©SoraNews24
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The Mainichi
3 days ago
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It was in the late spring of 1955 that Japanese literature scholar Donald Keene first traveled to northeastern Japan's Tohoku region to follow the steps of Edo period poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) in his masterwork "Oku no Hoshimichi," which Keene later translated as "The Narrow Road to Oku." Seventy years later, in April 2025, admirers of Keene including this reporter undertook the same journey. We called it "a journey following the young Keene, who followed Basho." The first leg of the trip took us to the town of Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture, the town of Hiraizumi in neighboring Iwate Prefecture, and Yamadera temple in Yamagata Prefecture, where we were greeted by cherry blossoms in each location. Keene's initial journey took place near the end of his two years of study at Kyoto University from 1953. In an autobiography, he wrote, "For a time, I had considered actually walking the entire distance. ... In any case, unlike Basho, I could spend only a few weeks on these travels." He also wrote that "at every spot the cherry blossoms had just reached their peak," meaning that he likely traveled there between mid and late April. Details of this journey were published in the June 1955 issue of the literary magazine Chuo Koron under the title "Komo Oku no Hosomichi" (loosely translating as "Westerner's narrow road to Oku). Below, we draw on this travelogue, originally written in Japanese, and Keene's translation of "The Narrow Road to Oku." Shiogama After passing through Nikko and Shirakawa Barrier, Keene arrived in Sendai. At that time, the occupying forces were still stationed in the city, likely reminding him of his past role as a Japanese language interpreter for the military. On arriving at Shiogama Shrine in the evening, he first sought out the "lantern presented by Izumi no Saburo in the third year of Bunji [1187]," and wrote, that he was thrilled to realize that Basho had seen the same lantern. The lantern still stands as it did then, to the right of the main hall. Let's read Keene's translation of "The Narrow Road to Oku." Shiogama Early the next morning we visited the Myojin Shrine in Shiogama. As rebuilt by the governor of the province, the shrine has imposing pillars, colorfully painted rafters, and flight upon flight of stone steps. The morning sun was shining brightly on the vermilion lacquered fence around the shrine. I was profoundly impressed to think that it was typical of our country for the miraculous manifestation of the gods to have occurred in so distant a place, at the very end of the world. Before the shrine is an old lantern. A metal door bears the inscription, "Presented by Izumi no Saburo in the third year of Bunji [1187]." It was strange how these words evoked scenes of five hundred years ago. Izumi was a brave and loyal warrior whose fame has lasted to the present; there is no one who does not hold him in esteem. It has been truly said: "A man should practice the way and maintain his righteousness. Fame will follow of itself." It was already close to noon. We hired a boat and crossed to Matsushima. After another five miles on the water we arrived at the beach of the island of Ojima. Matsushima Keene entered Matsushima, one of Japan's three most scenic spots, via Tagajo, traveling by train. Having heard negative comments like "Matsushima is a dirty place" from people along the way, he boarded the sightseeing boat "preparing to be disappointed." However, a woman's voice came over the loudspeaker carefully explaining the names of the islands, and though it was raining, he said, "I was neither disappointed nor impressed." Furthermore, the twilight view from his inn was magnificent, leading him to conclude, "I was moved no less than Basho was. If 'the finest scenery in the land' exists in Japan, I believe it is in Matsushima." Perhaps this was an example of the large difference between hearing and actually seeing. Below is Keene's translation of Basho's description of Matsushima in "The Narrow Road to Oku." Matsushima No matter how often it has been said, it is nonetheless true that the scenery at Matsushima is the finest in Japan, in no way inferior to Tung-t'ing or the Western Lake in China. The sea flows in from the southeast forming a bay seven miles across, and the incoming tide surges in massively, just as in Che-chiang. There are countless islands. Some rise up and point at the sky; the low-lying ones crawl into the waves. There are islands piled double or even stacked three high. To the left the islands stand apart; to the right they are linked together. Some look as if they carried little islands on their backs, others as if they held the islands in their arms, evoking a mother's love of her children. The green of the pines is of a wonderful darkness, and their branches are constantly bent by winds from the sea, so that their crookedness seems to belong to the nature of the trees. The scene has the mysterious charm of the face of a beautiful woman. I wonder if Matsushima was created by the God of the Mountains in the Age of the Gods? What man could capture in a painting or a poem the wonder of this masterpiece of nature? On Ojima, an island connected to the mainland that thrusts out into the sea, are the remains of the Zen master Ungo's hut, and the rock upon which he used to meditate. I caught glimpses here and there under the pines of priests who had abandoned the world. They live quietly in thatched huts from which even at that moment smoke from the fallen pine needles and cones they use as fuel was rising. I did not know what manner of men they might be, but I felt drawn to them. 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Hiraizumi, on the other hand, offered a different experience. "After the long Tohoku winter, the cherry blossoms blooming in the black forest show their true beauty," he wrote. It was here that his ideal cherry blossom landscape stretched out. Among this, the brilliance of the temple's Golden Hall (Konjikido) was even more stunning. Keene praised it, saying, "Since coming to Japan, I've been captivated by wonderful Buddhist statues, feeling they embody absolute beauty. ... However, it was when I saw the inner sanctum of Chuson-ji that I was struck by beauty to the point of trembling, losing myself and entering a world beyond this one. ... I believe it is one of the finest expressions of paradise created by humans in the world." Later, Hiraizumi would be registered as a cultural World Heritage site, but Keene had already sensed its value. 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The foundation's website can be reached at:
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