Kometarou is one of those restaurants that is first on the list if you want to impress a visitor with wonderful countryside food. The specialty of the house is kamameshi, which is rice cooked in an iron pot or "kama" over flames. The rice is the famous local Koshihikari.
The restaurant itself is almost as good as the food. It is a big, old farmhouse just off of Route 17. The entrance is a large wooden door which rather surprisingly is automatic. You walk into a dark, stone-floored room full of wooden beams. There is a square fireplace in the middle with a kettle simmering away over the charcoal. On your left are a couple of seating areas by the door with one vast table made of a huge slab of wood. Most of the seating is in a separate tatami room with large windows to let the light in. There is also a newer alcove where we sat with dividers made of well spaced bamboo, and views out onto the snowy fields. It's a great setting for a traditional meal.
The menu is extensive but as is often the case, the daily lunch is hard to beat. Nine hundred yen gets you a little dish of pickles, a bowl of home-made udon noodles in soup, a tower of tempura shredded vegetables and your own personal kamameshi set. This all arrives on a tray with the kama still cooking. A timer is placed on the table to let you know when you can lift the wooden lid and dig in. A small bowl and rice scoop are provided. Once it is ready you find freshly cooked rice topped with mushrooms, egg, and a flower-shaped carrot slice. The tempura is really crispy and there are a couple of pinch pots of salt if you need seasoning. One was a curry salt that was amazingly good - so good in fact that, heathen that I am, I couldn't help sprinkling some on my rice too. The udon were fat and tasty, providing a very welcome warmer after the snow outside. (The alcove also has a log fire which adds to the atmosphere.)
Visit here for an amazing meal and to soak up the ambience of times past.
