Sukiyaki in Takayama

Our group had an organized free dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant in the old part of town in Takayama.

Their speciality are Sukiyaki dinners.
The 33 of us were seated in a seperate room on medium low tables with some kind of Kindergarten chairs.

The places were set already and the waitress came and lit the fire under the pot with different vegetables and grilled tofu in a soy based sauce.

We had to stew the veggies first for about 5-8 minutes. That gave us time to check out the rest of the ingredients sitting in various little bowls. Most of the others were mystified about the raw egg. I told the 3 on my table that Japanese egg are absolutely safe to eat raw and that the beaten egg is used to dip the just cooked beef in before eating.

The small plate with brown stalks caught my eye. I have never eaten burdock root and it was very tasty. When I find some at the market in Kyoto in pickled form, I am going to get some home.

I finished the meal with 180 ml Sake of the Premium kind. It smelled delicious and had a slight floral taste. Drinking it in Takayama makes sense, because they brew it here for many centuries.