Summer Food in Japan

Summer in Japan tightens around heat, humidity, and the foods that make both bearable. Cold noodles, fatty grilled eel, river fish, shaved ice. Here's what to look for, where, and roughly when.

Somen (cold wheat noodles)

Thin wheat noodles served chilled in iced dashi, sometimes flowing down a bamboo chute (nagashi somen). Hirobun in Kibune, north of Kyoto, runs nagashi somen May through September from 11:00 to 16:00 (closed in rain). No reservations: collect a numbered fan and wait. Around 1,500 yen, fifteen minutes per seating.

Unagi (grilled eel)

A summer stamina dish, especially on Doyo no Ushi no Hi, the midsummer Day of the Ox, which falls in late July or early August (dates shift year to year on the lunisolar calendar; some years there are two ox days). Unagi specialty restaurants book out for that date weeks ahead. The classic preparation is kabayaki: butterflied, skewered, glazed with sweet soy and grilled over charcoal.

Hamo (pike conger)

The Kyoto summer dish. In season May through October, peaking in July, which is why locals sometimes call Gion Matsuri the "Hamo Matsuri." Most commonly served yubiki (parboiled, with plum-vinegar dipping sauce) or in dashi. The fish has hundreds of fine bones, so chefs use a technique called honekiri (bone-cutting) to score the flesh into millimetre slices; mastery of honekiri is the marker of a Kyoto kaiseki chef. Hamo travels from Awaji Island and the Inland Sea.

Ayu (sweetfish)

A river fish, lightly salted and grilled whole, eaten head and all. Season runs mid-May through October. The Nagara River in Gifu is where to go: ukai, the 1,300-year-old practice of fishing ayu with cormorants on torchlit boats, runs nightly May 11 through October 15 except on the harvest moon or when the river floods.

Kakigori (shaved ice)

A summer staple in every form: convenience-store cups, festival-stall paper cones with syrup, and the kakigori senmonten (specialty cafes) of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Sapporo serving fluffy hand-shaved ice with reductions of seasonal fruit, matcha, and milk. The major Tokyo cafes run hour-long waits from late July through August.

Image: Macha kakigori snow cone by Chris 73, CC BY-SA 3.0.