Tokushima NE · NarutoNo.440★★Open in map →
Naruto Kintoki Sweet Potato
Tokushima's signature sweet potato is grown in coastal sand, which is what leaves it dry and floury rather than watery. At the roadside station in Otsu the crop is sold by the box and cooked into cake, pudding and bread a few steps away.
Naruto kintoki is a sweet potato, and what makes it is sand. Growers work the coastal sand flats of northeastern Tokushima — Naruto, Matsushige, Kitajima — ground that drains fast and leaves a root that cooks dry and floury rather than wet. Planting goes in through the spring, the first roots are lifted in early summer in a trial dig, the main harvest follows, and stored potatoes ship on through the winter. That long tail is why roasted sweet potato reads as cold-weather food here while the crop itself is on sale most of the year. The roadside station at Otsu was built on Route 11 as the shop window for that harvest.
Why it stays quiet
This is Tokushima's signature crop, not an obscure one. What the roadside station adds is proximity: a market floor stocked out of the surrounding fields and a row of counters that cook nothing else, at the point where the growing district meets the main road.
Background & history
The variety behind the name is Kintoki, a selection out of the Kokei No. 14 line that Tokushima took up after the war. The name itself is controlled: written in kana, Naruto Kintoki is a registered trademark held by the national federation of agricultural co-operatives, and only crops raised in the designated districts — Naruto, Matsushige, Kitajima and their neighbours — may be sold under it. Individual co-operatives stack their own labels on top of that, Satomusume out of Satoura and Matsushige Bijin out of Matsushige. The roadside station is far newer, a purpose-built gateway beside the expressway approach.
What to look for — in walking order
- Kyokaimae Station
- a small halt on the Naruto Line, the walk-in gateway from the Tokushima side
- The market floor
- boxes of the district's sweet potato alongside the rest of the local produce, out from the morning
- The sweet potato counters
- a row given over to the crop alone — Western cakes, pudding, wagashi and sweet-potato bread
- The canteen and fast counters
- seafood bowls and noodles, and a fast-food counter themed on the Naruto whirlpools
- The zip line
- a line strung out from the upper floor and run as part of the site
How to enjoy it
The floor keeps daytime hours and shuts earlier than a town restaurant would, so treat it as a lunch or afternoon stop rather than an evening one. Buy from the market floor first, then work along the sweet counters — the same root as cake, as pudding, as bread — and see which handling suits it. Roasted sweet potato belongs to the cold months, when the stored crop is still shipping.
How to actually get there
- Tokushima Station → Kyokaimae Station (JR Kotoku Line and Naruto Line, through service or one change at Ikenotani).
- Kyokaimae Station → Michi-no-Eki Kurukuru Naruto (walk south to Route 11).
- Market floor first, for the crop itself, then the sweet-potato counters.
- Walk back north to Kyokaimae, or take the Route 11 bus onward.
- JR from Tokushima Station via the Naruto Line
- Naruto Line services leave Tokushima Station, run up the Kotoku Line as far as Ikenotani and turn north onto the branch there; some run through without a change, others need one at Ikenotani. Get off at Kyokaimae. From the platform it is about a kilometre south to the roadside station, roughly eighteen minutes on foot, which is the walking time the site gives itself.
- Return from Kyokaimae Station
- Walk back north to Kyokaimae and take the Naruto Line toward Ikenotani and Tokushima. This is a rural branch and services are spaced rather than frequent, so fix your return train before you sit down to eat.
Before you go
- Cash
- The site is free to enter and you pay for what you buy at each counter. A roadside station this size will normally take cards, but acceptance can differ stall to stall, so keep some cash. Parking is free and there is a great deal of it.
- Closing days
- Confirmed at the time of writing: the site trades 9:00 to 17:00 and is open all year, with some counters shutting before the building does. Hours shift with the season, so check before a late arrival. The zip line is an outdoor installation.
- Another way
- Tokushima Bus runs its Naruto–Oasa route along Route 11 and stops at the roadside station itself, which removes the walk entirely. By car it is a few minutes from the Naruto interchange on the expressway.
- After you get off
- From Kyokaimae Station, head south toward Route 11. The roadside station fronts the highway, with its car parks opening straight onto the road.