Rice dishes
Ume Gohan
Ume gohan — rice cooked with pickled plum and dried whitebait
An Odawara City rice dish cooked with pickled plums and dried whitebait mixed in. In a region where plums planted around the castle town were long valued by traveling merchants, it is said to have been devised by a local food educator and spread as a home dish.
- Origin: Kanagawa Odawara
- About 70 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Pickled plum and small dried sardines are mixed into rice cooked in a delicate stock of kelp and bonito flakes. The plum's gentle tartness and bright aroma meet the salty savor of the sardines, and a generous scattering of shredded shiso leaf at the end lifts the fragrance further. Its refreshing aftertaste makes it especially appealing in the heat of summer, and it looks as cool as it tastes.
How it's made
Stock made from kelp and bonito flakes is combined with sake and mirin, and well-washed rice is left to soak in it for about an hour. Chopped pickled plum and small dried sardines are mixed into the rice before cooking, and once done, it's served with shredded shiso leaf on top. The steps are simple, but letting the ingredients mingle with the rice before cooking is key to bringing out the plum's aroma fully.
Why it took this shape
Plum trees have been grown here since the age of warring clans, and pickled plum became a valued item for travelers who needed their packed lunches to keep, embedding itself deeply in daily life as a familiar ingredient. A local instructor devised this rice dish while looking for a home recipe built around the plum, and because its tartness stimulates the appetite, it found a place on summer tables when the heat tends to dull one's hunger.
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.
- Soraben and airport diningA guide to what soraben means and how it differs from ekiben, whether to buy before or after security, etiquette for eating on board, airport restaurants, and things to check before buying food souvenirs to take home.
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.
- Aburi-zushiNigiri with just its surface flash-seared by torch or hot iron. Unlike Edomae's shigoto curing for keeping, the searing here is done purely for the change in aroma and fat it brings — a relatively recent way of eating sushi.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Kanagawa
- DoriaButter rice topped with shrimp in cream, covered in white sauce and cheese and baked. Said to have been improvised at a Yokohama hotel for a guest who wasn't feeling well.
- Ebi MayoBattered, fried shrimp are tossed in a sweet mayonnaise-based sauce — said to have begun when a Cantonese chef, unsatisfied with a mayonnaise-dressed shrimp dish he'd eaten in the United States, remade it his own way.
- Gyu NabeA Yokohama-born hot pot of beef, tofu and chrysanthemum greens simmered from the start in a soy or miso-based sauce. Born of the port city's encounter with Western meat-eating culture, it is said to trace to a tavern owner who opened one of the first beef-pot restaurants.
- Harihari-zukeDaikon cut thicker than ordinary kiriboshi strips, dried, then pickled in a soy-based sauce — a Miura Peninsula specialty. Its name is said to echo the crisp "hari-hari" bite, developed in Miura, a daikon-growing region since the Edo period.
- Herahera DangoA confection from Sajima in Yokosuka City, flattened dumplings of wheat or glutinous rice flour coated in sweet bean paste. Offered at the shrine during a summer boat festival to pray for a good catch and good health, it is still shared among family.
- Hiratsuka-kei TanmenA clear, salt-based broth carries a faint edge of acidity, topped with wakame seaweed and chopped onion — a thinner, less thickened bowl than the typical Kanagawa tanmen, said to have taken root among Chinese-style diners in Hiratsuka.