Hot Springs with Delicious Food (Focusing on the Landlady's Home Cooking) ②

Likes: Hot springs, local cuisine, alcohol

I love rustic hot springs, so the inns I stay at inevitably end up being small ones run by couples or families. At such inns, the meals are basically prepared by the landlady, and occasionally by the husband, son, or daughter.
While I do admire the luxurious kaiseki meals prepared by distinguished head chefs, I prefer local cuisine, so I am happy with home-cooked meals that use seasonal ingredients and local specialties. I get excited about things I see and eat for the first time.

Based on my own personal bias and judgment, I will introduce hot springs that are great and have delicious home-cooked meals by the landlady.

Click here for ①.

Nagano Prefecture, Gake no Yu Onsen, Yamajo Ryokan

Gake no Yu Onsen is a hot spring near Matsumoto. There are only two inns in operation. It is a very quiet hot spring area. 'Yamajo' is how you read the name. Yamajo Ryokan is run by a married couple.

It is an old inn, but you can feel the history in every corner, and it has a very nice atmosphere. The rooms are named after birds. My room was 'Cuckoo'.
Furthermore, the landlady's homemade cooking is very delicious!

Dinner. This is the cheapest plan at 9,000 yen.
The vegetables are home-grown, and the landlady goes to pick the wild vegetables and bamboo shoots herself. The tempura features seasonal wild vegetables every time. The asparagus had a rich flavor and was delicious!
The presentation is also very careful and beautiful.

Breakfast. There aren't many dishes, but each one is very delicious. The rolled omelet was also homemade and had a very gentle flavor. There was also blanched kogomi (ostrich fern). The only store-bought item was the nori seaweed.

The hot spring is heated mineral water. It might be underwhelming for hot spring enthusiasts, but when I turned the faucet, the source water came out (though it didn't come out the second time I went).
It is soft water.

The furnishings are also retro and cute, making it fun to explore the inn. You can feel the landlady's sense of style.

In any case, it is incredibly quiet and a very relaxing inn. Wi-Fi only connects in the lobby, so teleworking might be difficult.