Old town area of Esashi !

by Kazu

The old and new taste and atmosphere could be felt in the old town area of Esashi.
As we did not have enough time to let my wife take the train, we ordered the buckwheat noodle set for lunch and while waiting for the serve, I rushed in to the patisserie Yamada-ya and took photos of the area.

This is UBAGAMI Shrine famous of its annual summer festival during which all the teachers get out of the town because they would have to catch and scold their students if they found their students drinking even during the festival despite the tradition has allowed the youngsters to drink only in the festival.

This is "Yokoyama-ke" the old house of the Yokoyamas and is used as the buckwheat noodle soup restaurant specialized in the buckwheat noodle soup topped with flavored tasteful herring. It is called Nishin Soba.

 The normal households that were located in the area agreed to refurbish their house or left there.

This is the flagship buckwheat noodle soup topped with the flakes of dried and fermented bonito, fried wheat flour, seaweed and white leek with radish paste. It's cold type.

The aroma of the tasteful soup and the buckwheat can be savored from the bowl.

This is the hot type. The noodle seemed to be thicker than the cold type.

In autumn and winter, the hot type is more popular but to savor the fresh aroma of buckwheat, the cold type is more impressive than the hot, I think.

In the annual summer festival for Ubagami Shrine, a variety of floats are lugged around in the town. Each float has the figure of a certain historical famous person on the top.
This is at the entrance of the restaurant we had our lunch.

This type of ships were used for trade between ancient capital city of Japan Kyoto or Edo and Esashi.

The buckwheat restaurant looked like a hole-in-the-wall and may be difficult to find without the sign below. The name is "YAMAGEN".
It seemed not to set up its own web page but it is introduced in many web site such as
 http://www.hiyama.pref.hokkaido.lg.jp/ss/srk/yamagen.htm

https://plus.google.com/113315855997218184099/about?gl=jp&hl=ja

and
http://tabelog.com/hokkaido/A0105/A010502/1001618/

The address is 70 Nakauta-cho, Esashi Town
The phone number is 0139-52-0357

 Unfortunately, you can smoke in the restaurant.
It's a pity.