Miyajima Restaurants

Aside from the shrine, Miyajima is very famous for momiji manju, a delicious sweet traditionally filled with bean paste but are now sold with a variety of fillings. While momiji manju is definitely tasty, the Momiji-do found a way to take it and make it even better!

Instead of just selling momiji manju, Momiji-do takes theirs, puts it on a stick, and then fries it, coating it in a delicious, crispy batter. It's called age-momiji. Since it opened, it has become a must-taste for visitors to the island, because unlike momiji manju which you can buy in other places in Hiroshima Prefecture, you can only get age-momiji here! There are two locations on the island and they can get very busy, with long lines forming at times.

The flavors of age-momiji are bean paste (anko), cheese, and custard cream. They cost 150 yen each. If you want normal momiji manju to eat here or take with you, they also sell those but you should definitely try age-momiji while you're here on the island!

Miyajima Coffee is a nice, modern cafe with meals that are both delicious and affordable. They have great sets of Butter Chicken Curry and Omurice, both of which tasted excellent. I was surprised with the curry. It's not an Indian restaurant, yet the curry was good and tasted Indian. The Omurice was topped with beef and tasted reminiscent of a sloppy joe, which was rather nostalgic for me, since they don't make sloppy joes in Japan.

Of course, as a coffee shop, they also have a variety of coffees and lattes. There are some cakes and desserts to go with it, too.

The 1st floor seats allow you to people-watch if you're interested but the 2nd floor is quieter and has a nice ambience with wooden tables and beams that feels both modern but homey.

The meal sets are 950 yen, which is more affordable than many of the other restaurants and the food they offer here is different, too, which I was thankful for.

At the ferry pier on the mainland side, there is a restaurant filled with people. So we decided to check it out and had our lunch there.

The specialty of that restaurant is Anago Meshi ( Grilled Sea eel on rice.) And it turned out to be extremely delicious. For about $10USD, I thought it was a good deal.