If you're walking down Minamishinmachi, Takamatsu's famous kilometric shotengai, you'll be spoiled for choices for a meal. Lined with izakayas, coffee shops, specialty one-dish restaurants
and shokudo, no matter what you choose you'll invariably come out happy and full.
We were lucky to have stumbled into the small but very neat restaurant called Domburikappou Itajirou, which was near the entrance of the shotengai. The minute we were seated, we were
given an appetiser of tsukemono (pickles) and kinpira (stewed vegetables) plus a cold towel --
very refreshing for a steamy September evening.
The restaurant was long and narrow. There were no tables and the counter had seats for about a dozen people. The restaurant's name is descriptive -- domburi refers to the rice bowl, which is the only food served, albeit with different toppings.
Loosely defined, kappou is a type of restaurant where diners are seated in front of a counter and
can watch the chef cook the meal (and sometimes even chat with them, as I usually like doing).
Kappou restaurants can range from modest and budget friendly to fine dining, sky's-the-limit places.
No nama or draft beer at this restaurant, only 500 ml bottles of Sapporo. That meant several
pourings into the teeny glass.
Jay doesn't imbibe but thankfully, there was unlimited iced oolong tea on the counter.
Right in front of us were bowls of danmuji or pickled yellow radish, cucumber tsukemono and more of the kinpira of lotus roots, carrots and burdock root. Take as much as you want, it's part of the meal.
Finally the ichiban donburi, according to the waitress this is their bestseller. It's a bowl of assorted vegetable tempura with two large prawns plus the coup de grace -- a poached egg yolk fried up
with tempura batter.
I saved it for last -- the soft yolk broke and out oozed the golden goodness of a perfectly poached egg. You can bet that I ate each and every grain of rice left in the bowl!
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