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I’ve finally had some time to let the dust settle on what was actually quite the whirlwind adventure last week. Reason being, after The Mountain First Aid course we did, we actually met up with a former participant on our Yamabushido trainings precisely because of this very newsletter.

My friend and participant on one of our programs last year, Keiko Moriyama (read her insightful article about her Yamabushido experience), had replied to one of the earlier newsletters. We kept talking and found out we would both be in Toyama on the exact same day. Our program was finishing the same day her sake tour of Toyama Prefecture was about to begin. It was too serendipitous an opportunity to pass up, and we organised to meet each other.

Little did we know one of the people with us, fellow yamabushi and guide extraordinaire Akai Kohei, was something of a master guide of Toyama Prefecture. Kohei guides adventures all over Japan in both English and Mandarin and is known as Akai Kohei because, as those who know Japanese would be able to deduce, everything he owns is Akai, red.

Literally everything.

From work experiences and simply hanging out in the place multiple times over the years, Kohei had a pretty deep love and knowledge of Toyama, and had the connections to prove it. Kohei admitted that if it wasn’t for the Dewa Sanzan mountains in Yamagata Prefecture where we do our yamabushi training, he would most likely be living in Toyama. Plus, Kohei was our interpreter when Keiko was with us last year, so the two already knew each other well.

First up, we tried getting some coffee at Kohei’s favourite spot in Toyama, Mameya Coffee. As we would find out later, this shop was as good as it sounds, but they had a limit of three customers in one group for drinking in the cafe itself. I’m not sure if this was a leftover from COVID or simply due to the limited space inside (it could be either), but for whatever reason, we weren’t getting our coffee there.

Not yet, at least.

Before we could turn around and complain to each other, the super-guide Kohei was already on his phone. However, it wasn’t quite coffee he was calling for. Rather, it was sushi. But not just any sushi. Toyama sushi made by Michelin-starred Chef, and what would appear to be good friend of Kohei, Kimura-san.

What makes Toyama Sushi so special is the bay to the north with fresh water from the Tateyama mountain range in which the fish grow. According to Kohei, someone who has been all over Japan and tried the best sushi everywhere, Toyama had the best sushi anywhere. Tsuruoka City, Japan’s first UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, was partially selected for its seafood fed from fresh nutrient waters of Mt. Gassan.

Tsuruoka has nothing on Toyama.

According to Kohei, at least.

I wasn’t convinced, at first.

The Shonai region, and Sakata where I live in particular, has some pretty good seafood.

Either way, we arrived outside an unsuspecting black building and were quickly pulled inside by a red human-sized figure. This was unlike any sushi shop I had been into in that it was standing-room only. Or rather, there were no seats. It was a standing-only sushi joint, a concept that follows the original sushi shops. The shop’s name was Jin-jin, in homage to Jin, Kimura-san’s original shop where he got his Michelin stars.

So there we were, standing against a stone benchtop with an eccentric sushi chef bearing down on us. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. Kimura-san has very soft facial features and a smile that lasts for days.

Then, despite her name and looks, Keiko is about as American as they come (I mean this as a compliment, Keiko). It’s likely the chefs thought Kohei was speaking English for me, the lanky white guy trying to decipher the Japanese drinks menu. Naturally, they asked if we needed an English menu, but the first words out of my mouth were:

Non-aru Umeshu Soda

‘Nanda! He speaks Japanese!’ followed by bursts of laughter all round.

Next thing you know, Kimura-san had pulled out a giant bamboo sieve type thing to prepare rice with vinegar, a touch of soy sauce, and sake lees, a by-product of sake making. I don’t recall exactly, but I think Kimura-san said the sake lees means the rice doesn't stick as much, and he uses it in place of sugar, I think. For whatever reason, the reason for the sake lees soon became apparent.

It made the sushi shine.

Even as a lover of Yamagata, it’s fair to say Toyama has the best sushi.

There.

I said it.

The thing is though, Kohei had mentioned in passing that if we wanted to get into this restaurant, the best thing to do would be to go at an awkward hour. This was at around 4:30 in the afternoon. Not quite dinner time, but

Awkward Enough.

So we enjoyed our impromptu sushi meal with the knowledge that Tak and I still had a 5-hour drive to get back to Yamagata, Keiko had to get back to her hotel to begin her sake-tasting adventure (which Kohei had already initiated in the sushi restaurant), and Kohei was to stay in Toyama before heading back to Tokyo in the morning. Well, after meeting with his friends who we just happened to walk past (connections, after all).

But there’s still one more part to this whirlwind adventure.

This might be news for Kohei and Keiko, but sometime between parking our car and getting to Jin-jin, Tak and I had spotted a certain burger restaurant we just couldn't get out of our minds. The awkward hour, long drive home, and knowledge of this burger joint meant that at Jin-jin we only ordered a very modest meal.

Long-story short:

The burger was very good.

The coffee was very good.

Toyama was very good.

And the drive home wasn’t as bad as it could be because we were caffeinated and had very full stomachs thanks to a certain red guide.

Thanks, Kohei!

Thanks Keiko!

And thanks, Toyama.

We shall be back.

This article from the Kiwi Yamabushi newsletter got more than 1,000 reads, so I decided to put it here for everyone. Get articles just like this in your inbox by signing up here. Paid subscribers get priority access and access to the full archive of over 100 articles.