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Eat in Sakaiminato · #3 of the port's ten~2.5h — the round trip from the gangway, with the 60-minute margin kept aside.
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Japan’s biggest crab port puts the morning’s catch straight over rice — red snow crab most of the year, matsuba in winter. The direct-sales center food hall is the honest venue.
One of Japan's biggest fishing ports, and the snow crab that governs its calendar
Sakaiminato lands more fish than almost any port on the Sea of Japan coast, and the canteen above the auction floor serves what came off the boats. Crab is the local identity, and the bowl here is priced like a market and served like a restaurant.
Sakaiminato regularly ranks among Japan's largest fishing ports by volume landed. Two things drive it: enormous seasonal runs of sardine, mackerel and squid, and — from November — the snow crab that this coast argues about with its neighbours.
Running to about March
For sums that make national news
A summer shellfish here, and very large
Sardine, mackerel, horse mackerel, squid
In season, eat matsuba-gani. Out of season, order beni-zuwai or iwagaki instead — and do not pretend it is the same.
The one the queue agrees on, the one people who live here use instead, and the one nearest your ship. Opening days change; check before you build a day around one.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare on a 6-hour stop ashore.
Each one is a finished day we have walked and timed, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
4 hr for bothThe Yokai Food Research Lab sells Medama-oyaji — an eerily accurate eyeball on a stick, in wagashi form.
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4 hr for bothWorking fishing fleets, Mt.
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4 hr 30 min for both177 bronze yokai spirits line the 800 metres from the station to the museum — Japan’s strangest, most charming main street, drawn from the manga master born here.
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