Konnyaku!!

Wadayama doesn't have any culinary specialties, yet is graced with a from-scratch konnyaku restaurant. Konnyaku is a jellied Devil's Tongue, and is popular in Japan for its texture and its beneficial digestive properties-- mainly, there's not much to it, and it pushes other stuff out with it. Makes you want to eat it, huh?



A lot of people find the chewy rubberiness off-putting, but not me! I looove konnyaku in my bento or in oden. One of my students had worked at the restaurant [before she graduated], and I'd always wanted to go, but the restaurant kept strange hours and was reported to be expensive.




But with Yukiko and Colleen in town, we decided to check it out for lunch. True to Japan's prefered restaurant style, the konnyaku restaurang ONLY served konnyaku. We each ordered the bento and were treated to a stunningly beautiful and tasty meal. Everything had konnyaku! Konnyaku in the miso soup, konnyaku sashimi, deepfried konnyaku, and even konnyaku rice. The rice was tricky-- it was topped with konnyaku furikomi, but as we were eating, we noticed some of the rice grains were a translucent blue... tiny bits of white konnyaku. A delicious and super healthy lunch.