A chopstick is laid
beside the offering.
Ise Jingu, the Outer Shrine. Enshrined here is Toyouke-no-Ōmikami,
the deity who prepares the food of the gods.
Twice a day for some fifteen centuries a meal has been offered at this shrine,
and a pair of chopsticks laid beside it.
At the gate, in one small shop, we grill eel with chopsticks too.
Rice in three servings, katsuobushi, fish, seaweed, vegetables, fruit, salt, water and three offerings of sake — and beside them, a pair of chopsticks.
— from the official site of Ise Jingu, on the Higoto-asayu-omike-sai. Held twice each day, morning and evening, without a single day missed, for some 1,500 years since the founding of Geku.
At the Mikeden, twice daily
Fifteen centuries. In rain, in wind.
Chopsticks laid beside the food of the gods.
At the gate, every day
116 years since 1910.
Chopsticks, turning one eel at a time.
One eel
at a time.
No two eels carry fat the same way, or flesh.
Not one of them grills like the last.
So we use no skewers — only chopsticks,
searching out the heat that suits the fish in hand.
The sauce goes
into the rice.
Laid over plain rice, sauce reaches some mouthfuls and misses others.
Fold it through the rice first and every spoonful tastes the same — sauce, rice and eel together down to the last bite. Unlike Nagoya's hitsumabushi, no dashi is poured over it. This is the way of Ise.
Regular ¥2,200 / Large ¥3,300 / Kitaya Matsu ¥7,700
Every set comes with liver soup and pickles. Prices include tax.
- Today
- Dine-in 11:00–15:30 / Takeout 11:00–17:00
- Reservation
- Not accepted
First come, first served - Closed
- Wed & Thu
Open on the 1st & holidays - Access
- 3 min from Geku
10 parking spaces · 70 seats
Cash only
Announcements
Opening days, unscheduled closures and the day's supply are posted on Instagram. Please check there before you set out.
About this place
Visiting Geku
The Outer ShrineWhy Geku comes first, which side of the path to walk, and how to plan a day that avoids the crowds.
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The Filial Eel
A tale of IseIn 1842 the magistrate of Yamada rewarded a son's devotion to his mother. The moment eel took root here.
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History
Since 1910Founded in Honmachi as a fishmonger in 1910, and standing at the gate ever since.
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Yukio Nishimura
The PitcherThis building is the birthplace of one of the defining pitchers of pre-war Japanese baseball.
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