SCHOOLOGY IKUNA DRIVER
SCHOOLOGY IKUNA FREE

Ishiyaki means “stone-grilled,” and the ingredients are served inside a heated earthenware bowl, so that they cook at the table while you’re eating. Maybe because she was eating slower since she’d ordered three things at once, Ikuna’s fried rice get especially fried, acquiring a cracker-like crispness. ▼ Ikuna recommends dipping them in Wa no Naka’s special garlic soy sauce (にんにく醤油).įinally, the server’s third recommendation was the ishiyaki gyoza fried rice (878 yen). The ingredients were fantastically flavorful and juicy, with the vegetables in particular having a noticeable sweetness to them. The dumplings were adorably plump, with a noticeable chewiness and wheaty flavor to their skin. Ikuna did, also, try Wa no Naka’s gyoza (363 yen), since the staff recommended them and she didn’t know when, if ever, she’d be dining out in the suburbs of Utsunomiya again. It also came with a thick, tender cut of chashu pork, a much more generous portion than you usually get for ramen at his price point in Japan. Really, it reminded Ikuna of the local ramen shop she’d loved eating at in the neighborhood she grew up in.

SCHOOLOGY IKUNA FREE

The flavor was elegant and refined, with each sip of the rich broth ending with a crisp saltiness free of excessive oiliness in the aftertaste. Starting with the non-gyoza item, she got herself a bowl of shio (salt broth) ramen, for 768 yen (US$6.70). Ikuna was now starving, and so when she asked her server what they recommended and got back three answers, she decided to try them all, even if two of them either were or contained gyoza. Even though it was past the lunch rush, there was still a line of people waiting to get in, but in Japan that’s usually a sign that the food is really tasty, so Ikuna didn’t mind the wait.Īfter 20 minutes of waiting, Ikuna was led inside Wa no Naka’s eclectic interior, with its charming wooden fixtures and furniture, rustic tableware, and order touch screens tablets. Whether a restaurant is good or not is up to the person who’s eating, so please don’t hold it against me if you don’t like it.”īy this time they were in the suburbs, and about 20 minutes after Ikuna had gotten into the taxi they arrived at the restaurant, called Wa no Naka. “By the way, if you think the restaurant I’m taking you to isn’t good, there’s a gyoza specialty shop next door to it called Masahi, so you can also get something to eat there.

SCHOOLOGY IKUNA DRIVER

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that at all!” Ikuna promised, but the driver still seemed concerned for her. “Even if you think ‘Wow, this tastes really bad,’ please don’t hold it against me,” the driver added. “I’m sorry to make such a difficult request of you.” “That’s fine,” Ikuna said, willing to accept responsibility for however the meal turned out. I do get a lot of passengers who ask me to take them there, though, so I think it’s a pretty popular place.” “If you end up thinking the restaurant I’m taking you to tastes bad, then I apologize. “But you know, whether or not food tastes good is a matter of personal taste,” the driver said as he drove. It’s not a gyoza-main place, though.” Ikuna assured him that that would be fine, and he pulled into traffic and started driving west from the station. But after thinking it over a little more, he said “There’s a place I can recommend, but they serve gyoza. This wasn’t an off-the-cuff answer just to blow Ikuna off, considering how long he’d taken before responding. He spent several moments deep in thought, before answering:

The unusual question seemed to take the driver by surprise, what with gyoza being the first thing almost everyone wants to eat once they arrive in town. ▼ Clockwise from top left: an Utsunomiya gyoza restaurant, an Utsunomiya gyoza sticker picture booth, Ikuna posing with Utsunomiya’s gyoza statue, and the entrance to Utsunomiya’s Gyoza Road.īut when Ikuna hopped into a cab outside Utsunomiya Station, she asked the driver “Can you please take me to a good place to eat that’s not a gyoza restaurant?” Utsunomiya is famous for gyoza, and you can find restaurants specializing in the delicious dumplings all over the city. On her visit to Tochigi Prefecture’s Utsunomiya, though, our reporter Ikuna Kamezawa pulled a 180 on our usual plan. That’s why we asked for the best takoyaki place in Osaka and seafood in Otaru. If you’ve been following our “Hey, Japanese Taxi Driver” series, in which we ask cabbies to take us to the best local restaurants around Japan, you might have noticed that we often ask for a recommendation for whatever type of food the city is famous for. It’s a gyoza town, but what happens when you ask for a restaurant that’s got other great good too?

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