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Long valued for its medicinal properties, the East Asian stone fruit ume appears in Japan’s oldest pharmacological dictionary, written in 918. Something between a plum an apricot, the ume is more acidic than both and rich in antioxidants. The first mention of umeshu, a liqueur made by steeping ume in usually distilled spirits and commonly translated as plum wine, came centuries later in a book of Japanese cuisine published in 1697. Ume’s medicinal value appears to have carried over, though, as this later work claims that the flavorful tonic both spurs the appetite and counteracts poisons.

Considering the drink’s palliative past, it makes sense that Umeshu Dining Myoujou, tucked away on the third floor of a nondescript low-rise in Tokyo’s Iidabashi neighborhood, has built its entire menu around the concept of therapeutic food. The restaurant’s motto is that if you’re eating well, it’s the same as taking medicine.

Walking into Myoujou feels like stepping into a treasure box. Patrons are greeted by a small greenhouse full of herbs and spices to the left and, to the right, a long, high shelf of glittering umeshu bottles. Myoujou’s 104 offerings of umeshu are organized by type, with white liquor base on the top, shochu base in the middle and blended below. Whiskey- and brandy-based umeshu are located on a smaller shelf around the corner.

After being seated on our most recent visit, we briefly perused the menu before ordering the house specialty, yakuzen hinabe, a medicinal herb hotpot with more than 15 kinds of fresh vegetables. As for drinks, we paid a mere ¥1,500 for the 100-minute umeshu nomihōdai (all you can drink). As our waitress retreated to the kitchen with our order, we stood and, trying not to look too overeager, ambled back over to the shelf we’d passed on the way in. Myoujou’s nomihōdai is self-service, and with so many bottles on offer we didn’t think too hard about where to start. For our aperitif we settled on Baba Umeshu, a traditional type of plum wine made from shochu, mainly because we liked the label. Our favorite of the night was Kokutō Umeshu, another shochu base made rich and sweet with the addition of brown sugar.

Unadulterated umeshu is mostly sweet and slightly sour with an alcohol content usually between 10 to 15 percent, though the alcoholic elixir provides an expansive palette for more inventive producers. Adding fruits and spices during production can achieve a dizzying array of flavors. Bottles at Myoujou promise vanilla, banana, mango, tangerine, lime and ginger, apple, sweet potato and sansho (Japanese pepper), just to name a few. The restaurant produces four kinds of its own umeshu, one of which is flavored with spicy chili peppers. This concoction’s pleasant sting is an excellent compliment to Myoujou’s rustic cooking.

Back at our table, a feast was taking shape. At one end of the table was a selection of house-made pickles and miso. At the other, a plate of thinly sliced pork pushed against another heaped with enoki mushrooms, burdock and other vegetables. In the middle, our hotpot was warming up over a portable gas stove. When the broth began to bubble, our waitress returned with Myoujou’s full selection of medicinal herbs for us to augment our yakuzen hinabe as we saw fit. After hearing a full explanation of each herbal additive, we settled on laurel, Chinese date and wolfberry to ease our tired eyes. Throughout the meal we made several trips back to the shelf, barely leaving room in our stomachs for the fresh noodles made from nutrient-rich euglena that rounded out the hotpot. By the time dinner was over, we still had a good 30 minutes left on our nomihōdai, plenty of time for a few digestifs.

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Davey Young

Published on July 18, 2016

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