Into the market
Hirome Market sits at the end of the Obiyamachi shopping arcade, right in the middle of Kōchi city. We came in from the Ohashidori side, under the long glass roof, and walked straight into the noise.
Inside it’s one big covered food hall: stalls all round the edge, shared wooden tables in the middle. You buy from whichever stalls you like and carry it all back to your table. It was a weekday lunchtime and the place was packed: office workers in shirts, aunties, tourists, and plenty of people already on their second beer at noon. Grab a table first, then go hunting, and leave one person behind to guard the seats.
Katsuo tataki
Katsuo tataki is Kōchi’s famous dish: bonito seared hard on the outside, still raw in the middle, cut into thick slices and eaten with flaky salt instead of ponzu.
Minmin was pregnant, so no raw fish for her. That meant I had to finish the whole plate by myself. Tough job, but somebody had to do it.
The seared saba sushi was mine too. Minmin had the karaage and kushikatsu, and lunch for the two of us came to around ¥3,300.
The Obiyamachi arcade
After lunch we wandered the Obiyamachi arcade next door and came out with a maneki-neko noren, a beckoning-cat curtain, for the door at home.
Then back to Xiaobai and on to the Makino Botanical Garden.
Postcard from Kōchi
Kōchi's covered food hall: around 60 stalls round shared tables. Katsuo tataki is the thing to order. Packed from lunchtime, and plenty of locals drink here from noon.