Goto Island is surrounded by East China Sea. They have a small airport and you can fly from Fukuoka, or take a Jet Foil boat from Nagasaki port to visit the island. In this summer I visited Nagasaki and Goto Island for giving talk at an academic conference.
When you visit Nagasaki, do not miss Champon, which is a local cuisine in Nagasaki. It is a fusion of Japanese, Chinese, and, believe it or not, European.
Champon is a kind of Ramen, with Tonkotsu (bone of pigs) soup. It usually covered by seafoods and vegitables.
After the magical moment with Champon in Nagasaki, I took Jet Foil boat for traveling to Goto Island. The boat runs at 80km/h over the sea. This was awesome experience.
So what is the first thing you would do when you landed on a new island? Eating! I ran into a local restaurant and found local noodle named Goto Udon.
Dashi (soup) was made from Tobiuo fish and Kombu, which was remarkable. On the top of Udon there were Goto beef and Wakame seaweed, Kamaboko (raw fishcake) and spring onion.
I know only Japanese and Korean eat Wakame seaweed, but I strongly recommend all nations to eat Wakame. It is really good for your health.
I stayed only one night in Goto island. Before leaving the island, I did want to visit very local restaurant. I was looking around any local guy walking in restaurant, and found a taxi driver visiting a small cafe named Goto Cafe. I followed him.
Then? I checked up a menu and found that there were just single choice: Udon. Trés bien! The Udon was thin but strong, Dashi soup was rich, and there was Tororo Kombu (thinly sliced Kombu) on the top. It added another Umami to the Dashi soup.
I haven’t changed my opinion that the best Udon is Sanuki Udon, which is a local Udon in Kagawa Prefecture, Shikoku Island. But the Goto Udon was ranked No.2.
Then I got back to Nagasaki. So what’s next? Another Champon!
Another cuisine you must have in Nagasaki is Sara Udon. Despite its name, the Sara Udon is deep fried noodle, not regular Udon, covered with thick soup of seafood and vegitable. From my point of view, Sara Udon is more like Chinese than Champon.
If you can drink, try beer and Sara Udon. It’s perfect match.
Though Nagasaki is known as Shippoku cuisine, which is very rich set dinner based on fusion of Japanese, Chinese and European techniques, unpretentious foods like Champon or Sara Udon are also very good.
If you can add one more dish to your dinner, I reccomend Jiaozi (Gyoza in Japan). Gyoza is often served as pan fried in other places in Japan, but here in Nagasaki, it is served as boiled. And this is the best way to taste Gyoza. Couple the Gyoza with Tsingtao Beer.
My talk? Yeah, it is online.
Anyway, have Champon when you visit Nagasaki, and if you have a chance to visit Goto Island too, try Udon.