After reading all about Japan's luxurious ryokan culture, and me naturally being drawn to five stars (it's in my genes), we (or I) decided that we only live once and we'd regret it if we didn't, so I went and booked ourselves into one of Japan's top five ryokans - cue Nishimuraya Honkan in Kinosaki Onsen. We have been big fans of the cook Nigel Slater for some time, we love all of his recipes and his Instagram account is the epitome of food porn as far as we are concerned, so it seemed clear when we were searching for the perfect splurge that if Nishimuraya is good enough for him, it'll be good enough for us! Kinosaki Onsen is a famous onsen town, it has seven natural hot springs in total and clip clopping round them in traditional Japanese yukata is the norm. We felt like total idiots but tried to act cool. Difficult when you are giggling away at your boyfriend wearing the closest to drag you'll (hopefully) ever see him in. Nishimuraya is a dream. There is a surprise around every corner and every alcove has been thoughtfully curated. It is traditional with a slice of designer chic, the mid century furniture and cool tone colour scheme see to that. And the little garden that many rooms face out on to is probably the cutest garden I have ever visited. DINNER - a ten course kaiseki of locally-sourced goodness, the highlights being fresh Matsuba crab and Tajima beef. Never have we been so adventurous in a hotel room. Haha, jokes, dinner was served in our room with a tepan grill, konotori rice kettle and all. We ate a lot of things that we could not identify, thankfully we had a detailed menu to guide us through. Rather than bore you and myself with each course, here are some photos. BREAKFAST - hmmm. Erm, lets just say that raw little squidies and a raw egg 'cooked' in vinegar at 8.30am after a belly full of sake and plum wine isn't our preferred start to the day, but we were here to try the full shebang so gave it our best! We may have tried to fry the raw egg on the tepan grill but don't tell them that.
In summary, Kinosaki isn't probably worth a detour unless you have saved the pennies for a deluxe onsen experience, but it's a beautiful, quaint little town and well worth a stop if in the vicinity. Comments are closed.
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AuthorsRob & Charlie's travelling adventures on their long journey back to London after living in Hong Kong. Four continents, twelve countries, lots of experiences. Archives
July 2017
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Robert Ware & Charlotte Nunn |