Araya Totoan — Hotel in Kaga

“Araya Totoan” written in Japanese as “あらや滔々庵” is an excellent gourmet Ryokan in Yamashiro Hot Spring village that Kitaoji Rosanjin( 1883-1959 artist, ceramicist, restaurateur, etc.) enjoyed the dinner here quite often when he was learning pottery in this village. One day he painted a legendary crow on a screen which was shown in the entrance of this Ryokan. Later he came back here and found the picture too plain and added a large sun ring behind the crow. || Yamashiro is a small village not so far from Kanazawa City nor from Komatsu airport, actually only 20 minutes drive from Kaga Inter Change of Hokuriku motorway. A legend tells that a wooden crow was cured by hot spring here 1300 years ago. In the centre a couple of large public bath in a traditional (but actually built recently) style. A little cottage where Rosanjin lived is charming and one of sightseeing attraction.|| When we entered Araya the landlady and several other people sitting on the entrance floor bowed with words of welcome. Immediately we were shown to our room where we were served green tea in a beautiful pot and a small sweet cake. There were 3 large bath rooms for common use of guests. Two were quite normal but designed well giving relaxing ambience but the one in the middle was quite strange as it showed stone objects like replica of Stonehenge in a partition with glass screen instead of garden. It was dark and temperature of hot spring was low. The maid told us that it was good for meditation!|| At the time of reservation on phone we were asked if dinner should be served in Rosanjin’s pottery at a premium charge. My wife naturally accepted the offer and I also did a moment later as we would have little opportunities for such extravagance. So the dinner was served mostly in pots and plates Rosanjin produced and they indeed deserved the excellence of the meals. No written menu was provided but instead they asked us what we would not like to have. So we tried to cover all we would not like such as rock oyster (we did not enjoy in Niigata the previous evening), carp, “Hamo”(Muraenesox cinereus), flog, wild birds, wild boar, venison and as such unusual diet.|| I should try to explain what we had alongside photographs but must say all we had were excellent. We never had such delicious meals in our whole and long life in the world. Despite the good and heavy dinner we had in the previous evening we could finish all of them. They had a good wine list and I had Chardonnay [2004] Domaine Paul Pernot 2009 in a few glasses and also a half bottle of Chateau Beausite / Saint-Estephe 2001.While Chardonnay was quite good Saint-Estephe was evidently miss choice.|| After having enjoyed bath and breakfast in the morning we checked out. When we drove our car around the public bath the maid rushed to us in the rain without umbrella and stopped us to give us a little parcel as souvenir. It was probably because we had given her a tip in addition to the service charge included in the bill. After all they were all very conscious of treating their guests at their best. We enjoyed our stay and think we should visit here again.||(The listing order of photpgraphs was distorted...

“Araya Totoan” written in Japanese as “あらや滔々庵” is an excellent gourmet Ryokan in Yamashiro Hot Spring village that Kitaoji Rosanjin( 1883-1959 artist, ceramicist, restaurateur, etc.) enjoyed the dinner here quite often when he was learning pottery in this village. One day he painted a legendary crow on a screen which was shown in the entrance of this Ryokan. Later he came back here and found the picture too plain and added a large sun ring behind the crow. || Yamashiro is a small village not so far from Kanazawa City nor from Komatsu airport, actually only 20 minutes drive from Kaga Inter Change of Hokuriku motorway. A legend tells that a wooden crow was cured by hot spring here 1300 years ago. In the centre a couple of large public bath in a traditional (but actually built recently) style. A little cottage where Rosanjin lived is charming and one of sightseeing attraction.|| When we entered Araya the landlady and several other people sitting on the entrance floor bowed with words of welcome. Immediately we were shown to our room where we were served green tea in a beautiful pot and a small sweet cake. There were 3 large bath rooms for common use of guests. Two were quite normal but designed well giving relaxing ambience but the one in the middle was quite strange as it showed stone objects like replica of Stonehenge in a partition with glass screen instead of garden. It was dark and temperature of hot spring was low. The maid told us that it was good for meditation!|| At the time of reservation on phone we were asked if dinner should be served in Rosanjin’s pottery at a premium charge. My wife naturally accepted the offer and I also did a moment later as we would have little opportunities for such extravagance. So the dinner was served mostly in pots and plates Rosanjin produced and they indeed deserved the excellence of the meals. No written menu was provided but instead they asked us what we would not like to have. So we tried to cover all we would not like such as rock oyster (we did not enjoy in Niigata the previous evening), carp, “Hamo”(Muraenesox cinereus), flog, wild birds, wild boar, venison and as such unusual diet.|| I should try to explain what we had alongside photographs but must say all we had were excellent. We never had such delicious meals in our whole and long life in the world. Despite the good and heavy dinner we had in the previous evening we could finish all of them. They had a good wine list and I had Chardonnay [2004] Domaine Paul Pernot 2009 in a few glasses and also a half bottle of Chateau Beausite / Saint-Estephe 2001.While Chardonnay was quite good Saint-Estephe was evidently miss choice.|| After having enjoyed bath and breakfast in the morning we checked out. When we drove our car around the public bath the maid rushed to us in the rain without umbrella and stopped us to give us a little parcel as souvenir. It was probably because we had given her a tip in addition to the service charge included in the bill. After all they were all very conscious of treating their guests at their best. We enjoyed our stay and think we should visit here again.||(The listing order of photpgraphs was distorted...

We were after the most traditional luxury ryokan experience we could find in Ishikawa prefecture. The prerequisite was that it be aimed predominantly at Japanese clients (why bother coming to Japan if you’re after an experience for foreigners?).||Araya Totoan did not disappoint.||We had a private bath, but one of the highlights was using the ryokan’s three shared (‘public’) onsen baths. As we stayed on a Monday night, while I can’t be certain whether there weren’t other guests around, we were very lucky to have all three onsen to ourselves.||Two of them had baths set in a Japanese outdoor garden setting. Oh, yes! This is the dream you had of Japan - sitting in the outdoor hot spring by yourself and having a drink float towards you.||Other than the excellent art, which you should read up on and appreciate, the kaiseki meal was excellent. It was comparable to ones at the high-end ryotei in Kanazawa.||Araya Totoan appeared to have the traditional management structure - we met the Okami on arrival and the Waka-Okami at check out. ||Our stay started with a tea ceremony - we apologise for our lack of manners as we didn’t learn how to do a Kaga-style ceremony until we had a lesson in Kanazawa a few days later!||One minor issue was that my request for the courtesy shuttle from Kagaonsen station wasn’t picked up. This was most likely JTB’s fault (the ryokan’s English booking agency). However this didn’t turn out to be a problem, as the local tourism officer at the train station (Alexander the Frenchman) greeted us on arrival and called the ryokan.||A quintessential experience if you are...