This restaurant is located at the top of Mount Haguro, the first of the three sacred mountains of Dewa Sanzan. The first mountain represents life, the second represents death and the third represents rebirth. People have hiked these three mountains on spiritual pilgrimages.
We only hiked the first mountain, it’s a fully paved road with uneven stone steps. There are three major slopes that can be quite challenging. The mountain is filled with my favourite tree, the Japanese cedar. On the way to the top there is a 5 story pagoda, a waterfall and several small shrines. It took around an hour to get to the top. At the top, there are many great shrines and ofc the subject of this review, Saikan, is a place for lodging and a place for enjoying shojin ryori.
Shojin Ryori is traditionally the vegetarian food prepared by Buddhist monks that expresses non-violence towards living things. The food is presented in kaiseki fashion (multiple small dishes), and the choice of ingredients is to bring balance and alignment to the mind, body and spirit.
Over the years as the Japanese started their consumption of meat, shojin ryori has also shifted from being meat free to sometimes including fish or milk or eggs… therefore, we made sure to call beforehand to make sure that they were able to serve vegan food for our reservation. I would also do the same for any other shojin ryori restaurant I visit.
All the vegetables served were wild veggies grown on the mountain therefore, these dishes are seasonal and change frequently, even people who visited a day after me may have been served something different.
The bowls are presented beautifully with the largest bowls in the top two corners. I’ll write about the dishes starting from the top left, going to the top right then going to the next row and starting from left to right again.
The first is baby bamboo with miso. The top layers of the bamboo need to be removed before accessing the softer part. It was much more delicious than I imagined and a miso dipping sauce was provided. Felt like a little panda holding that in my hands and taking a bite from it😂
The next is goma tofu which is sesame tofu. The consistency is much more stickier than normal tofu and it’s covered in a sweet sauce which could make it ideal as a dessert dish.
Next is pickled mountain veggies with dried persimmons, I usually don’t like pickled things but I felt like this was lightly pickled and the persimmons helped to balance the sourness.
Next is shiso tempura with salt on the side. Probably my favourite since I love anything fried. It wasn’t oily at all but I’d accidentally tipped all the salt to the bottom of the bowl so didn’t get to sprinkle it on top🥲
Next is mountain veggies with grated mountain yam (yamaimo or tororo). The tororo is white and slimy and doesn’t really have a strong taste.
Next is more mountain veggies with a sesame sauce, one of my favourite sauces!
Next is more mountain veggies in a ponzu sauce.
Next is more warabi veggie with miso paste. I love how the last three dishes were veggies in different sauces and I could really appreciate the beauty in simplicity.
Next is more mountain veggies with stringy burdock root.
Next is pickled daikon - not bad, had some sweetness or the sourness.
Last was two strawberries. Probably one of the juiciest strawberries I’ve ever had. Idk if this was grown on the mountain but that’s alright. I’m glad we managed to catch the end of strawberry season in Japan!
Not pictured but was provided was steamed white rice and miso soup which had seaweed, small tofu cubes and mushrooms inside and the taste was very much non salty.
This was my first time trying shojin ryori so I was really excited. I might have been biased to enjoy it no matter what but in the end I did enjoy it a lot. We were pretty much silent the whole meal, just being present with the food and appreciating the flavours as well as feeling healed and rejuvenated by it since it was food grown on the mountain we were on. It was such a great way to be rewarded after climbing all those steps to the top and I’d definitely eat there again.
This meal was priced at ¥3850. Shojin ryori is known to be more expensive however if I were to go to a place in Tokyo then it could’ve been ¥10,000! So although it is expensive compared to normal restaurants, it is on the lower end compared to other shojin ryori places.
#veganjapan #yamagata #shojinryori
