Finally made it to Hide-Takayama. Takayama is famous for its Hide-beef, which we wanted to try. Though by the time after parking, which was a bit challenging to figure out, and settling into the hotel, and spending what must have been an hour to find a Hide-beef restaurant, we found out that all of them have sold out their day’s supply of Hide-beef. So we just strolled along the rather unattractive and desolate looking (at least at night) Kokubunji-dori and grabbed some noodles from Shinasoba Katsumi.
Katsumi specialises in Takayama Shina Soba, or Chinese noodles, which is a type of thin curly noodles in a chicken broth infused with soy sauce. In Katsumi’s case, the broth was simmered with local old Jidori chicken bones for 7 hours so there’s a richness in the broth. Big tender pieces of charsiu with some bamboo shoots. I enjoyed the bowl.
They also had the special Hide-beef ramen but we didn’t get it. But I did get the Hide-beef brisket/ tendon (I think) rice set, which was heavily marinated and cooked with soy sauce. Couldn’t tell anything about the supposed quality of Hide-beef at all with that cooking method. Skip.
The noodles were better than the 3.07 Tabelog rating suggested, but the portion was quite small. I think i was half full when I left and supplemented with some rice balls from the Family Mart across the train station near the hotel where we stayed.
The Kokubunji-dori did make me wonder about what’s all the fuss about Takayama. But we found out the next day, Takayama had plenty of charms, they just weren’t along that particular thoroughfare.
