00:00:07 John Daub: Welcome to a Michi no Eki (roadside station)! Yes, please! This is one of the specialties. It's a soft ice cream cone, but they do it a little bit differently. How you doing everybody? Whenever you're traveling around Japan, these Michi no Eki are wonderful places.

00:00:28 John Daub: Oh, here we go! What is this? This is sodabushi powder. Yes, it's a powder that has been ground. Wow! Thank you very much! Oh! Sodabushi! It looks like katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). Katsuobushi is the hardest food on earth, but this is sodabushi, so it's kind of different. Check this out!

00:01:27 John Daub: Now, Michi no Eki are famous for having usually local foods, local specialties. This is local and very special. We're going to have to give this a try. I've never had fish flake ice cream. I guess you could say in English, fish flake ice cream, right? Let's give it a try. Wow! You ever have salty caramel and the saltiness matches quite well with the sweetness? That's not this. It's meaty. But it's odd. It actually goes quite well.

00:02:32 John Daub: I've never had anything like it, first of all. But you can tell it's not like a raw sushi fish. It's more of a deeper flavored fish chips. Katsuobushi is the hardest food in the world. Sodabushi is a smaller version of that. Something that they make here in Tosa Shimizu. It has a very distinctive taste. The only way to tell is to eat it yourself.

00:03:06 John Daub: We're going to have a look around this entire Michi no Eki. I'm going to show you some of the unique foods here. A lot of it is regional foods that you can only find here in Kochi Prefecture. I think that's really cool that they build places like this, sponsored by the towns. It's also a place where you can camp in your car. You have 24-hour restrooms. So if you need a place to just crash for the night, you can't find a hotel, this is the place.

00:03:44 John Daub: So sodabushi is really great for the soup, the dashi (broth), that you can make from it. And again, it has a really deep flavor. You can use it as fish flakes. If you've ever had takoyaki (octopus balls), you also would see this on the top of takoyaki, something similar. That's katsuobushi. This is sodabushi. So it's a different taste. I think it's a little deeper than katsuobushi in flavoring. So this is, you're getting a chance to try it as a soup, and it does compliment the ice cream, which is not something that I ever thought I would put together. Oh, there's a lot on there. Oh, there's the dashi broth. Oh, a little bit nori (seaweed) on the top there.

00:04:48 John Daub: I have sensitive teeth. Oh, ohashi (chopsticks). Hai. Arigato gozaimasu. Oh, check that out. This is a great snack to have. Super healthy. Oh, you can see the sodabushi here. It's moving from the heat. It's super healthy. In the winter, this is something that'll warm you up. It's got, that's a hefty serving of it.

00:05:47 John Daub: Boshi-pan (hat bread). This is hat bread called boshi-pan. And you see around the ring, that ring is made out of custard. That is baked custard on top of, with a, like a roll on the top of it. And it looks like a hat. And this is a specialty of Kochi Prefecture. We're gonna have to get one of those. They got a ton of food here. Alright, let me put this down here. This is gonna be fun. Yeah, like an egg custard. Oh, man. That's the good stuff.

00:06:51 John Daub: Itadakimasu (let's eat). I don't have a place to put it except in my stomach. It's vanilla ice cream with sodabushi flakes. And then sodabushi powder on top of it. And it's giving it a really distinct flavor. A really deep flavor. I should have done dessert after.

00:07:39 John Daub: Okay. Let's give it a try. I see Arthur Vandeley is here. Thank you, Arthur. I'm just gonna try right off the top. Let's try the sodabushi. Oh, from the moisture it's become chewy. It's got a deep, deep, deep taste. Very, very good umami. So the dashi soup is so good. Let me just get a sip of that. You have to be careful you don't get the nori in your teeth. Wow. You know, dashi's got this such rich, salty taste to it. It really has a depth that goes to another level compared to other soup stocks like chicken or beef. Dashi, man. It's like the essence of Japanese cuisine.

00:09:26 John Daub: It's different than katsuobushi. I think there's more depth to the flavor. It's a little bit, I don't know, slightly sweeter and more bitter. If that makes sense to you. Katsuobushi, when you do it as flakes and you add moisture to it, it gives it a really chewy consistency. But it also adds depth to whatever you cook. It's like the same but it's slightly different. It's really hard to describe. But, you know, underneath all that katsuobushi, there was rice here. This was 600 yen. So about $4 for this.

00:10:14 John Daub: Which is called double fisting. You have two at once. You can... This is with a spoon or with chopsticks. Depends on your skill. I like to swirl the broth. I like to swirl it a little bit. Get it in there and then you can shuffle it into your mouth. Like that. So you don't really need a spoon if you know how to do it.

00:11:03 John Daub: Ice cream cones are great but they don't have a kickstand. I think that ice cream cones should have a kickstand. Or is that why you get it in a cup? While I finish this, check out the drive. So, Michi no Eki are basically roadside stations. And this one, when I drove in, you can see it right there on the right side. And we're going to pull into it. It's not something you can get to by train or public transportation usually. Maybe bus. But there's a sign on the top for the Michi no Eki. There's a playground for kids which is great. They've been cooped up in the car. A good place to relax. There's an electric charger right there on the left. And in the middle of the night, you can camp here. It's a free spot with 24-hour toilets right there in the distance. And this is the restaurant where you can have lunch too.

00:12:32 John Daub: So where exactly is this as I finish the ice cream? Here we are. Check it out. This is the island of Shikoku which is one of the four main islands of Japan. I'm down here on the very southern edge of Kochi Prefecture. This is called Tosa Shimizu. And you can see it's a beautiful location. Very remote. The seaside is very close. But this was recently renovated in 2023. Just April this year. And it's such a beautiful site. You can see there's the beach right there.

00:13:28 John Daub: I just want to show you a little bit of Kochi Prefecture here. It's on the south part of Shikoku Island. You can see that right there. It looks like a mini Australia, doesn't it? That means we'd be more like on the Perth side. This would be Western Australia if it were Australia. And there's Tosa Shimizu right there. It's an amazing place. What makes it amazing to me... It's not easy to get here. It's really hard to get here. It's from the airport a two and a half hour drive. It's a beautiful countryside. And when you get out of the tunnel into the highway, you're here. In Tosa Shimizu on the coast. It's so remote. And then you come to a place like this which is so modern.

00:14:36 John Daub: Alright, let's walk around a little bit. So the local farmers will sell some of their stuff here. Of course it goes to the supermarket and all that. But what makes the roadhouses easy is because you can just... Travelers can just pull right up in. You can see it's raining quite hard. And pick up a watermelon or something grown locally in this town. And you have a lot of other stuff. Let me show you what the... Those flakes look like in the form before they shred it. This is what it looks like. And you can buy them in bottles. And they're quite hard. And you shave them. And their shavings end up being what you saw on top of the ice cream.

00:15:27 John Daub: Here's sodabushi right here. You can see. This one is more... Otsumami (snack). Like you can have some of this with beer, I think. Or put that as a topping on rice. There's the powder that was on top of the ice cream too. Which is really good. That powder is good for soups. Over here, local fishermen will sell some of their fish right inside the Michi no Eki. So this becomes not just a place to stop for the restroom. It's a place to get local goods. All different kinds of goods. All different kinds of fish. Super cheap price. 1200 yen. 500 yen. 2200 yen for this katsuo (bonito). So this would be a full katsuo. So katsuobushi would be this fish that's been petrified. So what I ate was basically petrified fish. Pretty awesome. You can get hotate (scallops). And then here's some cut maguro (tuna), I think. Yeah, looks like maguro.

00:16:30 John Daub: And the restaurant's opening there. And there's Jason. Who I call Jason. I called several times yesterday. How you doing? Yay. It's a very happy place. Yesterday, I went to a temple. Did you guys see the live stream yesterday? It was an amazing sunset view. And this location is called Ryugu Jinja (Ryugu Shrine). And it's also a very hidden place. This is the reason why you would leave Tokyo. Because you find these kinds of places in just hidden corners of Japan. And it's supposed to be like that. You're supposed to be able to walk out of the forest. And you find paradise. And that's what makes traveling outside of the Golden Route, which is Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji Castle, just where all the tourists go. This is what makes traveling to the countryside of Japan so darn special.

00:17:34 John Daub: So I highly recommend you to go there. I hiked for about 20 minutes through... No, actually it was like 5 minutes. Through this forest. And then we ended up on the other side. And I found something so amazing. Look at this. It's so beautiful. That's the Pacific Ocean.

00:18:08 John Daub: Mmm. It just didn't work out good. Don't get the ice cream first. You'll learn your lesson. So that's Michi no Eki. I think it's a really cool place that always stops. You know, when you come to Japan, a lot of people will go to the convenience stores. They stop at every single one. Lawson's, Family Mart, 7-Eleven, Yamazaki Daily Store. But for me now, I've been here for 25 years, I stop at local roads, Michi no Eki, because I find stuff like this. And that's what makes it really special. And here in Kochi, they got a ton of them. I think they got more Michi no Eki than convenience stores in this town. Because there's a couple of other ones. But you get a slice of the local life. You get a slice of the area when you come here, which is really great. You can get pamphlets, tourist information. You get to see what some of the events that are going on are like. Eat local cuisine over there in the restaurant. And get a vibe for the city. And if you don't have time to go to a place to get gifts, you can come here because it's got pretty much everything, including the weather. It gets blue skies over there, so it's clearing up.

00:19:47 John Daub: But that's it. This one is called Michi no Eki Meiji-no-Sato [?]. And I did put a map in the description of this video, so you can go and check that out. Any questions? I'm driving now to Kochi Castle. And I'm going to film a couple of scenes in front of Kochi Castle. And then I go to the airport and fly back to Tokyo. Yesterday was such a crazy busy day. I'm so happy that I came here and filmed this episode for the main channel. Probably going to come out in November, a little bit later on. But it's been an incredible time here. The weather was good until this morning. And we had massive thundershowers. I saw some lightning strike the town I was in. And the crackle and rumble shook the windows. It was pretty incredible.

00:20:39 John Daub: This is the local seafood. They didn't have the menu when I got here. But you can see in the back, a kaisendon (seafood rice bowl). This is a magurodon (tuna rice bowl) that they serve. 1,600 yen. So that's about $12 for that. That's pretty good. Maybe like $11.50. But you're getting some good local food here. And that's what it's all about. To be here in the middle of Kochi. I don't even want to go back to Tokyo. Except Leo and Kanae are there. So I have no choice. I have to go see my family. And I miss them. I was doing FaceTime with them earlier.

00:21:19 John Daub: Let me go back here. I want to say thank you to Kamen Rider Rogue. Do you know what fish is used for the fish flakes on the ice cream? It's sodabushi fish flakes. So sodabushi is the same powder. So basically they shave it like the flakes. And then they also can shave it into powder. So that was what was on the ice cream as well. And if I go back to earlier. I think I missed something here. Yeah. Shujin John Michael writes in here. Hello John. I missed it. I got to say thank you to everybody. Hello from Little Rock, Arkansas. Wow. How's Kanae and Leo? They're doing good. What's the word on the tropical storm that came through last week? It's gone. Everything looks like it's okay. My friend that's in the U.S. Air Force said that she was stocking up on items. Yeah. It came and went and didn't do much damage that we heard on the news. But I've been out and about traveling. So I didn't follow up too much on it. But it looks like it was okay.

00:22:33 John Daub: I think a mosquito just got me. Thanks for that. Thank you. That's my coffee money to get back home. I'm going to grab a coffee from here later. All right everybody. Thanks so much. This is the Michi no Eki. And if you have any questions you can leave them in the comments below. And I hope that you do stop by and take advantage of it. And now that you know a little bit about Kochi Prefecture. Maybe you'll want to take the trip. Get off of the beaten path and stop by to see beautiful sights like this. Because it is just one of the most naturally beautiful places that I went to.

00:23:08 John Daub: Wow. That's where we were yesterday. That's where we were yesterday in the live stream. That's Ryugu Shrine. And this is what's called a strangled tree. And you can see all these vines strangling this massive tree. It's one of the most hideous and beautiful things that I've ever seen. There's like a tree inside of all those vines. Look at that. It's craziness. And they got manhole covers too. All right everybody. See you on the road. Matane (see you later). Or as they say in Kochi, matane. Thank you Tor Toro Poko. I need to play on behalf of Michael Sassano. Aloha to both of you. Bye bye. Bye guys.