Nagoya-meshi, Nagoya Castle, SCMaglev and Railway Park, Nagoya, Japan

When I asked a friend what was there to do in Nagoya, she said: eat. With a little bit of googling, I found there is a unique cuisine called Nagoya-meshi. I drooled over the 20 search results. But two days in Nagoya only allowed me to savor four (well, that leaves me with 16 reasons to go back to Nagoya).

Technically, five, since my first one, at Motomachi Coffee, was like hitting two birds...or rather eating two of the Nagoya-meshi-Morning Service and Ogura Toast-in one go. Morning Service is offered in many coffee shops: just order a drink and they'll throw in toast and egg for free. Ogura Toast is toasted bread spread with butter and sweet red bean paste. In Motomachi Coffee, I ordered tea, which comes with bread and egg (Morning Service), and had it upgraded to Ogura Toast (additional butter and sweet red bean paste).

Tebasaki, short for tebasaki-karaage, are deep-fried chicken wings with sweet and salty sauce. Tebasaki is bar food: eaten while drinking beer. One night, at Yamachan, everyone was eating chicken wings and drinking beer. Me? I ordered wings and a bowl of rice. No beer. Not the right way to eat tebasaki, but, heck, I wanted chicken wings with rice! Yum!

And, last, and the most expensive of the lot: Hitsumabushi, grilled eel served on a bowl of rice, with a separate selection of condiments, and green tea. The tea is not for drinking, but for mixing with the eel and rice and condiments: one of three ways to eat Hitsumabushi. The other two ways are: 1) just the rice and eel, and 2) mix the rice, eel, condiments. This dish is very popular in Nagoya and I had to wait in line to experience it in Maruya Honten. The best way to eat hitsumabushi in my opinion? With the green tea! ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).