Tai-meshi, sea bream on ricePhoto: Fred Cherrygarden / CC BY-SA 4.0
The Ministry of Agriculture's regional-cuisine record gives the origin of the Uwajima style: fishermen working off Kyushu, with no fire on board, steeped raw fish in a sauce and poured it over rice.
- Getting there
- Gansui Dogo is inside the Dogo arcade; its main shop is at 3-7-8 Okaido, a short walk from the castle ropeway; train and tram from the quay
Checked · Researched, not yet visited · times from official timetables and our estimates · Takumi Yamada
Ehime has two tai-meshi. In the Matsuyama style the bream is cooked with the rice and flaked in. In the Uwajima style, a fishermen’s dish, raw slices are steeped in soy, egg, sesame and stock and poured over hot rice. Gansui serves the Uwajima kind: lunch 11:00–15:00 (last order 14:30), no reservations, and it closes when the bream runs out. The Dogo shop closes on Wednesdays.
- Reachable on foot from the berth, so no timetable can strand you.
- 3 hr 30 min door to door needs a 5.5-hour call: a 2–3 hour stop cannot hold it. Pick something closer instead.
Three places, three different answers
| Place | What you get |
|---|---|
| The famous oneGansui Dogo元祖宇和島鯛めし 丸水 道後店 | Uwajima-style tai-meshi inside the Dogo arcade, 13-10 Dogo-Yunomachi. Lunch 11:00–15:00 (last order 14:30), dinner 17:00–21:00; closed Wednesdays. No reservations; it closes when the bream sells out. |
| Local pickGansui Honten元祖宇和島鯛めし 丸水 本店 | The main shop, 3-7-8 Okaido, on the way to the castle ropeway. Lunch 11:00–15:00 (last order 14:30), dinner 17:00–20:30; no fixed closing day. No reservations. |
| Closest to the berthKadoya Dogo Tsubakizakaかどや 道後椿坂店 | Tai-meshi at 20-24 Dogo-Yunomachi, about 220 m from Dogo Onsen tram stop. 11:00–15:00 (last order 14:30) and 17:00–22:00; open all year except 1 January. |
Each name opens in Google Maps. Opening days change; check before you build a day around one.
Where the 3 hr 30 min goes
The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside. The minutes are our estimates from timetables and maps, not timed on the ground.
If your ship is late, cut the 1 hr 40 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Routes that already include it
Finished days timed from official timetables and our estimates, with this stop in them.
Dogo Onsen: the Honkan bath, the clock and lunchNeeds a 7.5-hour call · ~5.5h door to doorCalls with six hours or more ashore, any day of the week. The Honkan takes no reservations for the ¥700 bath and can have a queue
The castle in the morning, Dogo Onsen after lunchNeeds a 9-hour call · ~7h door to doorCalls of nine hours, such as 08:00–17:00: ashore at 08:30 and back at the gangway by 15:30. On a 07:00–16:00 call start at 07:30 and reach the ropeway for its 08:30 openingWhat to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
See · ~4hDogo Onsen Honkan
A three-storey wooden bathhouse of 1894 and the first public bath named an Important Cultural Property.
See the detail
See · ~4hMatsuyama Castle by ropeway
The keep stands on Katsuyama, 132 m above the city.
See the detail
Do · ~4.5hBotchan Ressha, the steam-tram replica
Iyotetsu’s replica of the Meiji steam tram in Soseki’s novel Botchan, running on the city tram tracks.
See the detail