Tochigi · UtsunomiyaNo.462★★★Open in map →
Utsunomiya Gyoza
Utsunomiya eats gyoza the way other towns eat noodles, and every shop guards its own wrapper and filling. Kirasse, run by the local gyoza association, pulls a set of them into one basement hall in the old centre.
Gyoza is what Utsunomiya eats at home. The city has come first in the national household survey for money spent on dumplings often enough that both it and the prefecture now sell the town on it. The shops do not converge on one recipe: wrapper thickness, how much cabbage and garlic goes into the filling, whether the pan, the fryer or the pot does the cooking, and what waits in the dipping dish all differ from door to door. Those shops formed an association, and the association runs Kirasse — a hall in the basement of a discount store on Baba-dori, in the old centre beside the shrine, a walk west of the station.
Background & history
The usual account begins with the army. The 14th Division, garrisoned at Utsunomiya, was posted to northeastern China during the war, and the men who came home are said to have brought the dumpling with them. The city offers a second, plainer reason for why it stuck: an inland basin of hot summers and cold winters, and a food people ate for stamina. Shops multiplied through the post-war decades, and in the 1990s they organised into the association that runs the hall today.
What to look for — in walking order
- Futaarayama Shrine
- the shrine on the rise above Baba-dori, first-ranked shrine of the old province of Shimotsuke
- Kirasse's permanent counters
- five long-standing Utsunomiya shops holding stalls side by side in the basement hall
- The rotating counters
- a second zone where member shops take turns, some thirty kinds of gyoza across the week
- The takeaway corner
- frozen and packed gyoza from member shops, trading before the food counters open
- Orion-dori arcade
- the covered shopping street a block away, the main arcade of the downtown
How to enjoy it
The takeaway corner opens before the counters do, and the hall runs late enough for an evening meal, with weekends stretching half an hour further than weekdays. Order small at each stall rather than a full set at one — two or three plates from different shops is the whole point of coming. Take the first plate with nothing on it, to see what the wrapper alone is doing.
How to actually get there
- Tokyo or Ueno → Utsunomiya Station (Tohoku Shinkansen, or the Utsunomiya Line).
- Utsunomiya Station west exit → walk west along Odori, past Futaarayama Shrine.
- Kirasse, in the basement on Baba-dori: eat across two or three counters.
- Carry on to the Orion-dori arcade, or walk back to the station the same way.
- On foot west from Utsunomiya Station
- Utsunomiya Station is the gateway — the Tohoku Shinkansen stops here, and the Utsunomiya Line runs in from Ueno and Tokyo. Leave by the west exit and follow Odori, the wide avenue that runs straight into the old centre. Kirasse is about 1.2 km along it, roughly fifteen minutes at an easy pace, in the basement of the large discount store on Baba-dori.
- Return from Utsunomiya Station
- Walk back east along Odori the way you came. Trains toward Tokyo run through the day and the last of them leave well before midnight, but if you have eaten late, read the departure board rather than assume.
Before you go
- Cash
- The hall is free to walk into and you pay at each counter for what you order. Card and IC acceptance can differ from stall to stall in a multi-shop hall, so keep some cash on you. The takeaway corner sells frozen packs to carry home.
- Closing days
- Confirmed at the time of writing: the permanent counters run 11:00 to 20:30 on weekdays and to 21:00 at weekends and holidays, the rotating counters to 21:00 every day, and the takeaway corner from 10:00. The hall trades year round. Weekend lunchtimes queue.
- Another way
- Tobu-Utsunomiya Station, terminus of the Tobu Utsunomiya Line, is a shorter walk from the hall than the JR station and is the better arrival if you come in on Tobu. By car, use the discount store's parking.
- After you get off
- From the west exit of Utsunomiya Station, cross the plaza and keep to Odori heading west. Where it meets Baba-dori the discount store stands on the corner, and Kirasse is signposted in its basement.