Basashi

Basashi means raw horse meat and yep - we tried it! 

 

There's a story that the castle of Kumamoto was under siege at one time and the residents resorted to eating their horses like they ate their fish - raw. Now, it is considered a delicacy and sometimes also called sakuraniku, pink cherry blossom.  We weren't sure if we wanted to try it, but while out on a date the other night we saw it on the menu and went for it. The dish we ordered came cold with some seaweed wraps, a sesame sauce and (as if the raw horse meat wasn't enough!) a raw egg on top. We asked the waitress how to eat it and she told us to stir in the egg, put the meat on a seaweed wrap and top with sauce. The meat was very tender and kind of sweet. Nathan was a big fan and ate most of it, and I did have one wrap just to try it. When in Japan, I guess!

Here are some of the other dishes we had during our fabulous meal. It was kind of like Japanese tapas where you order several small dishes and share. If you come visit, we will take you here because it was a great way to try many different things!

Udon noodles in a sauce similar to a carbonara. This dish also had the raw egg on top which you stirred in the hot pot to cook it a little.

Homemade dumplings filled with meat that came with a great dipping sauce.

Battered white fish was our only dish that tasted just so-so.

Tofu with kimchee. I loved it, but Nathan thought the tofu was too soft. It literally fell apart when we tried to pick it up with our chopsticks.

We thought it felt so funny eating barefoot in a public restaurant! Here are the shoe lockers by the entrance.

Overall it was a great meal and a great date!