Oshokuji-dokoro Matsumoto: A Taste of Home

The dining area is quaint, and it feels as though you are being invited over for dinner with a friend. You can tell there is a lot of care put into the decoration of the restaurant and it is always a joy to see the restaurant transform throughout the seasons in both their menu and decoration. One of the seasonal specialties you can get during the winter is a personal nabe teishoku. Kamogawa doesn’t get as bitingly cold as it does in Wisconsin, yet nothing beats unthawing with a personal, bubbling pot of soup. The kimchi nabe teishoku is the perfect match for a cold winter’s day. Tofu, pork, cabbage, and–my personal favorite–a perfectly cooked egg perk up the spicy-sour kimchi broth. It hits on each of the flavor profiles from umami through sweet.

I don’t like to play favorites but, I have to admit there is one menu item that has had me coming back to Matsumoto consistently for nearly 6 years, and that is their basil sauce sawara teishoku. The sauce is perfectly garlicky and salty without overpowering the freshness of the basil. Paired with a side salad, pickles, and miso soup, this is the choice for anyone looking for a light, satisfying meal. While most of the menu is filled with hearty favorites, like the fried oysters or katsu curry, this sawara teishoku is a chic, and refreshing choice for any time of the year. It combines what I love about teishoku–the pickles, rice, and sides–with something almost Mediterranean in its flavor profile.

The ingredients at Matsumoto are quite local. In the teishoku set you will often be treated to locally grown goods–in my most recent visit it was Kamogawa harvested hijiki seaweed, and Mineoka rice. Even without knowing that their menu includes these local products, you can taste the freshness throughout each of their carefully prepared dishes. It is small details like this that make the experience of eating at Matsumoto feel truly like home for me. Like a good city pop record, Matsumoto is exciting and new to me in some ways yet nostalgic and warm in many others. At the end of the work week, there is nothing better than sitting down for a taste of something refreshing yet familiar, and there is no better place for that than Matsumoto.