We checked out at around 7:20 so that we could catch our flight to Fukuoka. The terminal at Naha, where we departed to Fukuoka, seemed to be very old, but had a nice nostalgia factor to it. The flight was relatively quick, at an hour and a half. Peach Airlines is great for domestic flights, though the seats seemed a lot more crammed than usual.
Fukuoka airport was busy, and it strongly reminded me of Kyoto station in terms of the atmosphere (busy, but not Tokyo busy). We found our train that took us to the next prefecture: Saga. Saga was a lot quieter, which reminded me of Zentsuji in Shikoku. We found our hotel and deposited our luggage before proceeding to find a saga beef restaurant. Saga beef is apparently up there with Kobe Beef.
We found Kira Honten, which is apparently the best Saga beef restaurant in Saga, and a One Star Michelin to boot. Unfortunately, we were too late for lunch, so we stopped by at a family restaurant nearby, called Ringer Hut. I got something akin to ramen called Champon: it was extremely tasty. According to my research, Champon is a noodle dish based on Chinese Cuisine. It normally contains a broth made out of pork & chicken bones. Champon uses seafood and vegetables on top of thick ramen noodles.
We returned to our hotel to check in officially and rest up before heading out to find a department store to shop at. We found one a few km away, though it didn't have anything of interest to us. There was a shopping arcade nearby, though it was small and not interesting at all.
We then headed back to Kira Honten. We all ordered a set meal with two of us getting Saga Loin (sirloin I think) and the other two getting Saga Fillet. The meal started with small appetizers that I wasn't able to identify. They were subtly flavoured (expect for one), which I thought was a good way to start off the meal. After the appetizers, we got Tai sashimi. The wasabi, for me, was the game changer. It brought out the Tai sashimi well. Afterwards, we had a fish appetizer that was deep fried and tasty, before heading to the main meal.
The sirloin looked like the Kobe beef we had two years ago, but the fillet was amazingly fatty. Unlike last time, we had to grill the beef and vegetables ourselves. I don't think I did the beef justice, because I couldn't imitate what our professional chef did a few years back. The beef still melted in your mouth, but I did not like the texture of the surface. It was much crispier than what I remembered with Kobe beef. However, it was still quite tasty. The vegetables were relatively straight forward, and I believe that the flavour of each vegetable was enhanced from the melted beef fat on the cooking top. Our main course was supplemented with rice and miso soup.
After the main meal, we had dessert: a small selection of fruits (amazing single piece of grape, sour orange and alright watermelon) with a slice of roll cake, a creamy pudding (Hokkaido milk?) and some sort of sorbet. We also got tea to finish off our meal (and they gave us gyokuro as well during the meal).
All in all, lots to eat, but I wish they were able to grill our meat for us, considering the price we had to pay. I'm quite sure that it would taste better if a professional was able to cook for us.
After dinner, we headed back to stock up for breakfast before checking in for the night. We didn't see as many sites, yet it still feel like a productive day.
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