Daio-an Wasabi and Rice Restaurant — Restaurant in Azumino

If you can get to Daio wasabi farm while visiting Japan, you should.

Getting real wasabi in the US is hard, and expensive. At least in the South where I am. Getting to grate a huge chunk of wasabi over a rice bowl and with sashimi was a huge treat.

If you haven't had grated wasabi, it will probably keep you from ever enjoying "wasabi" ever again unless you get the real thing.

The food was fantastic, and the price was so worth it. It wasn't expensive by any stretch of the word. I'd highly recommend you come in early spring, I was too early for the cherry blossoms but seeing pictures of them over the wasabi fields are beautiful.

My one complaint is that I would have loved to bring the wasabi beer from the ice cream shop up to the restaurant, but sadly I didn't know enough Japanese to convey what I wanted well enough. Well, that or they knew what I wanted and it wasn't allowed,...

An unforgettable experience at this beautiful amazing farm in the wonderful prefecture of Nagano. I came to see wasabi farms, grate some wasabi, eat some wasabi, and I did all of that. I loved the soba here, it wasn't that different from soba I'd been eating in the rest of Japan, but we're in Nagano which prides itself on its buckwheat noodles. They were served with some miso soup, a rice dish with some mix-ins and of course a full stem of wasabi with a steel grater. I got thru a lot of the stem since real wasabi actually isn't as strong as the fake stuff you get in the US, but the kick is more subtle, earthier, even sweet to an extent. Their shichimi went well with the food too so I bought one to take home. The view of the farm while eating was also...

We travelled by train here from Matsumoto as someone said this was a nice location, and to try the locally harvested wasabi.

There was a queue at the eatery, but we managed to get a table within 30 minutes. They have a number of set lunches, featuring proteins like salmon and chicken, and the rice is cooked in huge vats that are on display.

The sets themselves were nice but not outstanding. You ground the young wasabi in the scraper provided and add it to your dishes. The wasabi smelt spicy but was actually not, so we put quite a lot of it in.

They did have a lovely chawanmushi but we only managed to get the last two bowls to be shared amongst six of us.

It was a simple meal, reasonably priced. Staff were extremely busy but...