Rice dishes ── Donburi (rice bowls)
Unadon
grilled eel rice bowl
Grilled eel, glaze included, set over hot rice. An anecdote about Konsuke Okubo capping a bowl of rice with grilled eel at a Ushiku Marsh teahouse is said to lead to the dish's present form.
- Origin: Ibaraki Ryugasaki
- About 50 km northeast of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A grilled eel fillet, glazed with a sweet-savory sauce, is set atop hot rice, sauce included. The rice's heat lifts the glaze's aroma, and each bite plays crisp skin against tender flesh, while the sauce-soaked rice underneath carries a flavor distinct from the eel itself.
How it's made
Skewered eel is grilled plain, then repeatedly dipped and re-grilled in a sauce to build a fragrant glaze before going over rice. Getting the skin crisp and the flesh tender at once is the key, and shops differ over whether the sauce goes on the rice first or over the eel after it's placed.
Why it took this shape
An account from the late Edo period tells of Konsuke Okubo, a lover of eel, stopping at a teahouse by Ushiku Marsh on his way home to Hitachi Province and ordering grilled eel over a bowl of rice — then, hearing the call that his boat was leaving, capping the bowl with its plate and carrying it aboard. Eating it on the far shore, the eel steamed soft by the rice's heat, he reportedly found it better than ever, and that accident is said to have led to the dish's present form.
Before you go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Roadside stations, direct-sale stands, and marketsHow to enjoy buying food near where it's produced, visiting and shopping at morning markets and fish markets, what to expect at farm stands, and finding local food at roadside stations (michi-no-eki).
Dishes in the same style
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- Aizu Sōsu KatsudonAizu's sauce katsudon, doused in a thick sweet-savory sauce. Its origin has several competing accounts, none settled, but all point to it being refined through everyday improvisation on Taisho-era Western food.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.