We visited Azumino Daio Wasabi Farm in Nagano

With my friends, today I went to Daio Wasabi Farm in the city of Azumino, Nagano, the prefecture situated next to Niigata Prefecture where I live. Taking an expressway, it took a few hours to get there by car.

Azumino Daio Wasabi Farm

Azumino Daio Wasabi Farm is Japan’s largest wasabi farm and is nationally famous as a popular sightseeing spot in Nagano. Actually, this time was my 7th or 8th (I don’t remember which) visit to the wasabi farm.

Although today was a weekday, there were a lot of people visiting there. In fact, in the wide parking lot, quite a few cars from various areas in Japan were parked.

Food Court

Soon after entering the wasabi farm, this roofed food court welcomed us, where several food stands were selling various kinds of dishes and each had its specialty food featuring wasabi.

For example, this ice cream parlor’s specialty was the soft serve with wasabi flavor.

Another shop was selling a wasabi-flavored croquette as their specialty. Afterward, I heard that this food court is especially popular for these 2 wasabi-flavored specialties.

Souvenir Shop

There was a souvenir shop right next to the food court, where you can choose souvenirs and gifts from a wide range of foods using wasabi.

Highlights 

Passing through the souvenir shop, we reached the entrance to the wasabi field, where there was an information map, so we decided where to go next.

From the place where there was the map, we had a distant view of the wasabi field and enjoyed the full picture.

When you head to the left side from the entrance, in a few minutes you can find the famous brook and water mills that appear in the film directed by Akira Kurosawa “Yume (夢 : Dreams)”.

If you go to the right side from the entrance, you can soon arrive at an open space with a bronze statue of wasabi, next to which there were some restaurants.

One was offering buckwheat soba noodles with plenty of wasabi.

And another restaurant’s specialty was a rice bowl dish topped with hon-wasabi called “Hon-wasabi Don (本わさび丼)”.

After we enjoyed the sightseeing tour there, we left the farm and headed to a popular soba restaurant in the city center of Azumino to eat buckwheat soba noodles, where I ordered the “Ten-Zaru (天ざる : Tempura Zaru Soba)” above. It tasted great!

Wasabi-Zuke Pickles

After I came home from Nagano, I enjoyed the “Wasabi Zuke (わさび漬け)”, the pickled wasabi that I purchased at the souvenir shop in Azumino Daio Wasabi Farm, together with chilled beer. Today was a very satisfying day for me!