Kumamoto · Castle footNo.431★★★Open in map →
Kumamoto Basashi
— Raw horse, sliced thin and eaten cold
Raw horse, sliced thin and eaten with sweet soy sauce, is Kumamoto's own. Josaien, the lane of shops and restaurants under the castle walls, is where you can order it at lunch without a reservation.
Basashi is raw horse, cut thin and served cold. It is Kumamoto's dish above all: the prefecture is by a wide margin the country's main producer, and the national register of regional cooking lists basashi under Kumamoto. The meat is called sakura-niku, cherry meat, because the lean cuts turn pink as they meet the air. It comes with sliced onion and grated ginger and garlic, dipped in the thick sweet soy sauce that Kumamoto uses for sashimi generally. Cuts run from plain red meat to koune, the fatty ridge under the mane. At the castle's foot, the Josaien complex gathers the prefecture's food into a single lane, and horse is on it.
Background & history
The origin usually given is Kato Kiyomasa, the lord who built Kumamoto Castle: short of food during the Korean campaigns at the end of the sixteenth century, his troops ate their horses, and he kept the habit once home. The documentary record for that is thin. What is documented comes later — horse eating spread through Kumamoto and the Aso highlands from the Meiji era, and became everyday during the food shortages after the war. Josaien opened in 2011 on the Sakura-no-baba ground, inside what was once the castle's outer defences.
What to look for — in walking order
- The tourist information centre
- the complex's front desk on the castle side, and the stop for the free castle shuttle
- Sakura-no-Koji lane
- an Edo-townscape row of 23 shops and restaurants, 7 of them places to sit and eat
- Kumamoto Castle Museum Wakuwakuza
- a paid hands-on museum on the castle town and the Higo domain, at the lane's inner end
- The castle's south entrance
- the way up into Kumamoto Castle, reached on the free shuttle that runs from Josaien
How to enjoy it
Shops open in the morning and the restaurants from late morning, so the easy order is browsing first and lunch after. Ask for a moriawase, an assortment, rather than a single cut: the point of basashi is the contrast between plain lean meat and the fatty koune, and one plate is the cheapest way to find which you like. Come back after dark and the lane is lit, though the kitchens shut earlier than the lights.
How to actually get there
- Kumamoto Station → Kumamotojo-Shiyakushomae (Kumamoto City Tram, about 17 minutes).
- Tram stop → Josaien (walk about 7 minutes toward the castle).
- Eat on Sakura-no-Koji; the horse specialist is on the lane, and lunch needs no booking.
- Take the free shuttle up to the castle's south entrance, or walk back for the trams.
- Kumamoto City Tram, station to castle
- Kumamoto Station tram stop →(Kumamoto City Tram, about 17 minutes)→ Kumamotojo-Shiyakushomae, then about a 7-minute walk down to Josaien. The tram runs on a single trunk line through the city, so no timetable planning is needed.
- Return from the castle foot
- Walk back up to Kumamotojo-Shiyakushomae for the tram to Kumamoto Station, or ride two stops the other way to Hanabatacho and Karashimacho for the downtown arcades. Trams keep running into the evening, but the lane's restaurants close well before the last one, so the food sets the schedule.
Before you go
- Cash
- Josaien is free to walk into and the lane costs nothing to browse. Wakuwakuza, the museum inside it, charges its own admission. The car park is paid, and a free shuttle links it and the castle's south entrance with Josaien every ten to fifteen minutes.
- Closing days
- Confirmed at the time of writing: the shops on Sakura-no-Koji run 9:00 to 19:00 from March to November and close an hour earlier from December to February; the restaurants start at 11:00. Evening use of the lane is by reservation. The complex closes over the New Year period.
- Another way
- The Shiromegurin castle loop bus leaves Kumamoto Station and stops at Josaien itself, taking about 23 minutes and saving the walk. From Kumamoto Airport, the limousine bus reaches Sakuramachi Bus Terminal, about 10 minutes on foot from the lane.
- After you get off
- From Kumamotojo-Shiyakushomae, walk west toward the castle walls and down onto the Sakura-no-baba ground; Josaien is the tiled-roof row at the bottom, about 7 minutes.