Mori-meshi — Restaurant in Hakone

Delicious izakaya-style dinner with an easy-to-use QR ordering system in Japanese and English. We recommend making a reservation, or you may get turned away at the door as it is a small restaurant.

The salad was fresh and the dressing was delicious. The pearl oyster mushrooms are a must-try — they are bursting with buttery umami flavor.

The agedashi tofu is soft and melts in your mouth with gentle, sweet broth. The fried tofu is crisp and hot, easy to share as it is cut into 8 pieces, and it isn’t salted so it’s great with soy sauce or another salty dish. The karaage was juicy and flavorful.

The tempura with shiitake mushroom and shrimp filling was another standout dish, with a soft texture and delicate flavors. It comes with a stalk of broccoli tempura.

The ajisaidon was outstanding. It is a refreshing bowl with chopped mackerel sashimi, cucumber, daikon, and eggplant pickles atop white rice. You can add soy sauce on top. The beef bowl was also scrumptious, and comes with a soft egg. Both bowls come with vinegared mozuku seaweed and miso soup.

The mentaiko is very salty and spicy, so it’s good to eat with rice, udon, or an unsalted dish like the fried tofu. Definitely share the mentaiko with a few people though, it is hard to finish by yourself because it is so salty.

Both the hot and cold udon were incredible. We got cold sudachi oroshi udon, which comes with thinly sliced citrus and grated daikon. We recommend getting the cold udon noodles for a refreshing dish with chewier noodles. We also ordered hot kitsune udon, which has a comforting broth and sweet fried tofu.

Altogether, we ordered 2 salads, 7 small dishes, and 4 large dishes for our party of 6. It is easy to order more dishes using the QR code, but it will take them a moment to cook the dishes, so order earlier if you anticipate wanting more food.

We noticed there were some small discrepancies between the English and Japanese menu, so take a look at both. For example, we ordered the agedashi tofu from the Japanese menu and the fried tofu from the English menu. The mentaiko was only on the Japanese menu, not on the English menu. They are mostly the same, and we really appreciated the bilingual menu system. We highly recommend this spot for lunch or...

One word - wow. I was not expecting to enjoy my dinner experience here but I was absolutely blown away by the food offered, the portions, and of course, the flavor.

We ordered 2 of their crispy fish bones to start off as we were under the impression that each ¥200 is exactly one fish bone. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find out ¥200 gets you one plate of delicious fish bones. These were so delicious that we ordered another one at the end of our meal. Words of wisdom, be careful when eating because the bones do tend to stick you in the mouth! In addition to the crispy fish bones, I ordered the yuba sashimi because fresh yuba sounded pretty darn delicious. I wasn't wrong because the wasabi plus yuba combo played very well with each other and it was amazing.

For main courses, I ordered their oyster and mushroom porridge while my husband had their colorful sashimi bowl. I wasn't expecting the porridge to be the consistency of rice plus broth but that was their definition of porridge. It was tasty either way but wanted to clarify in case anyone wanted a thicker rice porridge. The sashimi bowl was definitely a sight to behold.

As we left Mori-meshi, I noticed they had a stand outside with some sort of beverage kept hot in a pot. I saw it was free so I scooped some up to drink. I'm pretty sure it was amazake and it was a nice and pleasant end to our meal here.

To folks who are driving here, please don't drive all the way up the hill! We did that and then realized when we were at the very top that there wasn't any parking - oops! We parked further down the road in a parking garage and walked up the hill to...

Be aware of the cover charge!  It is ¥500/pp (at least, they charged us two ¥1000). But, we did get a 'free' appetizer each and tea came with the dessert so on balance it is not unreasonable despite being unexpected.

Super creamy tofu appetizer with some fish and a dab of wasabi. Like no tofu I have had yet, my brother found it was delicious - I was unsure as it was cold and quite fishy.

My main, the Pork Kakuni Bowl, was an absolute delight. ¥1,900 for a brilliant slow cooked pork that fell apart with rice and a delicious sauce. It also came with miso and some brown noodly things I am not cultures enough to identify!

Soy milk and roasted green tea pannacotta for dessert. I love a pannacotta, and this one has a pleasantly strong green tea flavour with little candied something's on the top which were gorgeous. Plus complimentary tea. Also, you eat it with mini shovels!!

Brother "Very good curry Udon with pork katsu - a thinner broth than other curry udons I've had here, but it had a delicious curry taste! A generous amount of katsu, 3 large thick slices, and was very hot so I had to wait until I mostly finished the rest before eating the final 2 slices, but they...