Nombe

cost estimate: dinner 2,000-3,000 yen
closed Wednesdays, the first and third Thursdays (open if the next day is a holiday)

The perfect combination of sake and tanuki?!

Exquisite yakitori and giant egg rolls are signatures of Nombe, a restaurant that opened in 2000 when Hideaki Furuwada left office work behind and followed his love of sake to start an izakaya. He has been in this current location since 2018. Mr. Furuwada is originally from Ayabe's nature-rich Kamibayashi district, and he uses local "Kamibayashi chicken" he gets from Takuya. The chicken is so fresh that it can even be served as sashimi. The egg yolks’ and chicken fillets’ light texture are paired with a rich tasting special sauce, and perfectly match the complexity of sake. The restaurant also serves eleven types of yakitori skewers. For those wanting to try a variety, it’s cheaper to order sets of five and ten skewers. Customers making their first trip to Nombe may want to let chef Furuwada choose as he knows which cuts go best with salt and different sauces. No one can miss the local bottles of “Nombe” lined up in the restaurant as well.

I added the name "Nombe" {meaning heavy drinker} when I transitioned into operating as a restaurant for sake lovers. There are quite a lot of tanuki (raccoon-dogs) pottery pieces lined up inside and outside the restaurant. These were all gifts from customers. I even received a piece of pottery that looks just like me; I call him “General.” Ayabe is a quiet city at night, but if you come here, you might be surprised at how lively it is by comparison. But the restaurant is not just about sake, we also use rice grown by my family and I, so it feels a bit like home cooking. I am always trying to find new, delicious local ingredients to incorporate into my cooking.