Eating in Okayama
Try these dishes while you are here.
Try these dishes while you are here.
Order the first one and work down the list.
We recommend ordering this one first.
Pale, soft and extremely sweet. Picked in July, and the reason the prefecture is called the land of sunshine.
Large green grapes grown under glass, eaten skin and all. September is the month.
Vinegared rice with a whole layer of seafood and vegetables spread over it. A festival dish, served in a box.
Small millet dumplings tied to the local folk tale. Sold at the station, and better fresh.
Small shops, no English sign outside, and worth the walk.
Fried noodles in a miso sauce made with garlic, onion and apple, with chicken and cabbage. It belongs to the highlands in the north of the prefecture, and the hours change with the season.
Okayama puts a breaded pork cutlet on rice and pours dark demi-glace over it. Ten minutes on foot from Okayama station.
In the story, a boy feeds these to a dog, a monkey and a pheasant so they will follow him to fight the ogres. Okayama is where the story is set. Making them since 1856.
Bukkake means the stock is poured over the noodles rather than served beside them. Kurashiki makes it dark and strong. Two minutes from the station, on the arcade.
A lord once ordered his people to eat only one dish with rice, so they hid seafood and vegetables underneath and called it plain. That is Okayama barazushi. Facing the station gates.
Olives have grown on this hillside since 1942. The grove is free to walk into, and the shop at the top sells the oil pressed here and a tea made from the leaves.
Hinase grows oysters in the bays along its coast and puts them into okonomiyaki instead of serving them in the shell. The town has a run of shops that do little else.
Tsuyama fries udon on the griddle with beef offal and a sweet-salty sauce. Ten minutes on foot from Higashi-Tsuyama station.
Okayama Prefecture describes Kasaoka ramen as a soy-sauce soup from chicken bones, topped with chicken rather than pork, plus bamboo shoot and spring onion. This shop stays open through the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday.