Eel liver is even more nutritious than eel flesh, and quite tasty too!

Sprinkled with sansho, grilled eel liver, or unagi kimo kabayaki is an excellent tsumami (snack, hors d’oeuvres) and goes extremely well with beer!

In a more gourmet application, a single eel liver is also served in Kyoto’s delicate and subtly flavored sumashi soup.

Unagi is very nutritious, but unagi kimo is even more so. Eel liver contains lots of vitamins, calcium and iron. Eel liver contains twice as much vitamin A as eel flesh.

We always try to cook a nice meal at home on Saturday night but today we were really tired from the summer heat and work, so at the grocery store we picked up some eel liver for a re-energizing and tasty snack before we started to prepare dinner.

Unagi Kimo

Opps, we forgot the sansho sprinkling for the picture.

Unagi Kimo and Beer

Actually, we split this portion, this would be a lot for just one person.

Unagi, or freshwater eel, is a very popular food in contemporary Japan and there is a dedicated ‘Eel Day’ in mid-summer (this year July 24th) on which most Japanese eat unagi.

This article tells about the development of unagi cuisine and history of the Ushinohi ‘Eel Day’ custom. This article tells about perhaps Kyoto’s most popular unagi restaurant.

Grilling Unagi at Nishiki Market

Unagi Donburi (Eel Bowl)

About Unagi
After Tokugawa Ieyasu succeeded in unifying Japan with his victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, the capital moved from Kyoto to his base, the provincial town of Edo (now called Tokyo, or ‘East Capital’). Transforming Edo into a modern capital of its day required, among other things, extensive land reclamation projects.

Reclamation projects created temporary lakes and ponds in which unagi quickly invaded and flourished. Land reclamation is low paying work so laborers would simply catch unagi ‘on site’ for free. Physical labor is very hard work and unagi which is high in fat gave laborers the required energy.

In the early Edo period (1603-1868) unagi was considered a low class and unsophisticated food due to the fact that it was caught, chopped, roasted and eaten in the field by laborers and also because of its high fat content.

By the late Edo period though this had changed due to various unagi cooking processes being developed in the capital, namely kabayaki. With kabayaki, fish, generally unagi, is boned, put on metal skewers and grilled over charcoal while being dipped in a thick, sweetened soy sauce several times throughout the grilling process.

Today, unagi kabayaki is usually served on top of rice, as donburi, or unagi-don.

Difference Between Kanto and Kansai Style Unagi
Kanto (eastern Japan/Tokyo) style unagi is first steamed, then grilled kabayaki style. The steaming process causes a good deal of the fat to be removed and the unagi flesh to be soft.

Kansai (western Japan/Osaka, Kyoto) style unagi is not steamed, and therefore it is more fatty and chewy.

Another interesting difference is the way the unagi is cleaned. Edo was the seat of the military (samurai) government of Japan and samurai sometimes had to commit ritual suicide (seppeku 切腹) by cutting their lower abdomen open and slowly bleeding to death in excruciating pain. The purveyors of unagi cuisine were sensitive to this as samurai were among their customers, accordingly they split the eel open from the back, not the stomach; Japanese love this kind of thing. Also, usually the head and tail was removed in the process, though not out of deference to samurai.

In Kansai, in the merchant city of Osaka, there was a saying, ‘talk with your stomach open’; be frank, open and honest. So, in Kansai, the eels were split down the stomach. The head and tail usually remained attached.

About the Ushinohi ‘Eel Day’ Custom
In modern-day Japan, most everyone eats unagi on the Doyo-no-ushi-no-hi (土用の丑の日). This year it is on July 24th, but it occurs one day between mid-July and the beginning of August. The simple explanation why is that this is the hottest time of the year and as unagi has lots of nutritional value and fat content, it gives you the umph to not wilt in the blazing, steamy summer heat.

Historical Development – Eat Eel on Ox Day!
The old calendar of Japan utilized the Chinese Zodiac system of a 12 year cycle with each year being named after one of 12 animals (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and boar). This is called eto (干支) in Japanese.

Doyo: Between each of the 4 seasons was a period called doyo (土用) that is 18 days in length. The doyo period between summer and autumn (mid-July to early August) is the hottest time of the year and unagi gives strength.

Ushinohi: The days of the week were also named after the same 12 animals and ushi-no-hi literally means ‘ox’s day’, ox is ushi in Japanese. Depending on the year, there could be 1 or 2 ox days during the summer doyo.

In Japan there had long been a superstition that if you ate a food that started with ‘u’, for example, umeboshi, udon, uri, unagi and so on, on ox (ushi) day, as both the day and the food started with ‘u’, you would be healthy.

During the Edo period in Edo an eel shop owner lamented his mid-summer poor sales and sought advice from Gennai Hiraga. Hiraga was a learned man; he was a naturalist, novelist, painter and master of Dutch studies (Western learning), especially science and medicine.

Hiraga said, why don’t you put up a sign that says, ‘Today is Ox (ushi) day, Eat Eel (unagi)!’ The eel shop owner did so and lamented no more and as people learned this was on the advice of Hiraga, other eel shops quickly followed suit and soon it had spread throughout the country and became a custom.

Nishiki Market – Unagi Shop

Nishiki Market – Unagi Shop

This is eel wrapped around gobo root stips and grilled.

Unagi Shop – Sold Out!

This is a very popular unagi store in Nishiki Market and it looks like they could not quite meet demand.

Unagi Shop – Sold Out!

It looks like they sold a lot of eel today!

Grilled Unagi Kimo (liver)

The ‘U’ in Unagi on Shop Sign

うなぎ is unagi, notice on the left how the う (u) is eel-shaped.

Nishiki Market – Grilling Eel

The row in the foreground hasn’t been dipped in sauce yet, so it is still very light in color.

Nishiki Market – Grilling Eel

The tub behind the dude is full of sauce and he dunks them in there several time.

Grilled Eel for Chazuke

Grilled and simmered in shoyu and sansho, small chunks are placed atop rice and eaten as is, or tea is poured over it to make chazuke. At 2,200 yen this is a good deal! Chazuke Unagi is very, very delicious. It is one of Peko’s all-time fav quick and tasty meals.

Nishiki Market – Eel Sushi for Sake

Daimaru Department Store – Eel Stand

These eel are from Lake Biwa, just over the mountain from Kyoto.

Eel Stand Offerings – Unagi Bento

Eel Stand Offerings – Unagi Tamago Dashimaki

This is a Japanese style omelet (tamago dashimaki) with unagi inside.

Daimaru Department Store – Eel Store

Daimaru Department Store – Eel Stand Offerings

Eel Store Offerings – Wild Grilled Eel

The grilled unagi on the right cost 12,000 yen, about $120 USD!!

Daimaru Department Store – Popular Eel Store

The line is at least 20 people long!

Daimaru Department Store – Eel Store Offerings

This eel is 8,400 yen, about $85 USD!

Convenience Store Poster

Eel Day promotional poster

Convenience Store Unagi Bento

Kaneyo is a long-loved Kyoto eel joint thoroughly from another time and the grilled eel dishes are excellent.

Eating Out on Eel Day
On Eel Day we visited Kaneyo, one of the most famous unagi restaurants in all of Kyoto. Kaneyo is centrally located near Sanjo-Kawaramachi (intersection/neighborhood) and the Shinkyogoku Shopping Arcade.

To learn more about the history and development of ‘Eel Day’, please see this article.

Kaneyo Storefront and Takeout Eel Day Bento For Sale

The dude on the right is selling unaju (unagi bento) on Eel Day. On the left, in the window is where the unagi are grilled.
About Kaneyo
Kaneyo opened in the Taisho period and has been in business for more than 100 years now. The Taisho period was a very interesting time for Japan because the country had technologically modernized however, culturally it was still purely Japanese (now it is not).

Walking into Kaneyo is to step back in time. The atmosphere, the staff, the service, the building, everything is from a different time. Kaneyo’s traditional sense is not at all sophisticated.

Everything is out of kilter about the place. Walking up the steps to the second floor is an unnerving experience. The second floor space itself is seriously warped with age. If you were to set a ball on the floor, it would roll away, and in which direction it may be difficult to foresee. The first floor has a terrazzo floor and columns that do not look just handmade, but hand-hewn! There is one large wooden round table on the first floor that is warped and worn and polished with what I imagined to be decades of elbows and eel grease. Bottled beer is kept in a tub of ice water rather than a refrigerator.

I had heard about Kaneyo for years, walked and biked past it many times, but I had never been inside. When Paku lead me in the only think that I could think was, ‘eel joint’ (as opposed to eel restaurant).

As unagi cannot yet be completely farm raised, unagi is not cheap. We paid 1,600 yen each for our eel bowls. The servings are not especially large, either. They do offer a lunch time meal for 950 yen. This price range is on par with other unagi restaurants though.

I had unagidon (unagi donburi) and Paku had unagi kinshi which unagidon with a big square omelet on top. The presentation is dramatic and while the unagi is excellent, we thought that the egg was rather tasteless. In Kyoto, egg cooked in this way should have lots of dashi in it for flavor.

Kaneyo cooks its eel over charcoal, which can be seen in the front window.

While this joint is a bit run down, the service gruff (but fairly friendly), there are more elegant places for unagi in Kyoto but there is a definite charm about Kaneyo. That blue-collar Taisho Japan is something that is surely not long for the world. If you are in Kyoto and up for unagi you probably want to put Kaneyo on your itinerary.

Unagi Donburi

A lacquered bowl filled with a modest portion of rice is topped with grilled unagi. This goes extremely well with beer. The little bamboo vessel on the rice holds sansho which is sprinkled on the donburi. By the way, the tsukemono (on the right) is terrible.

Unagi Donburi – detail

Notice the sansho sprinkled on the unagi.

Unagi Kinshi Don

This is a great dish, it arrives at your table just like this.

Unagi Kinshi Don – detail

Again, while very beautiful, the egg was less than delicious.

Unagi Kinshi Don – detail

The rice and unagi sort of steams under the hot, wet egg covering.

Kaneyo Interior

There is a waterfall outside in the little garden too.

Kaneyo Interior

The weirdly warped table and over-abundant staff.

Kaneyo Storefront

Kaneyo Storefront

Kaneyo Storefront – detail

We didn’t snap any piks of the second floor dining space, but if you look closely you can see how the columns and beams are not quite square with the world.

English:
English website: no
English menu: no
Location and Access: Approximately 10 minutes walk from Kawaramachi Station (Hankyu Railway), Sanjo Station (both Keian Railway and Subway Tozai Line)
Address: Kyoto-shi Nakagyo-ku Shinkyogoku Rokkaku (京都市中京区新京極六角)
Telephone: 075-221-0669
www.jin.ne.jp/kaneyo (Japanese language only)
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