In search of dumplings

I felt bad about going all the way to Nagasaki and not really getting a good feel for the place. On the morning I left, I dashed about following a few random tourist brown signs to temples this and that - which incidentally brought me to the world’s largest camphor tree; now I can die a sated woman - and then I remembered dumplings.

According to Lonely Planet (for someone who loathes their food reviews, that’s twice I’ve ended up listening to them) “Ueyutei, tucked away at the end of a side street, only seats six and specialises in cheap and tasty dumplings which are excellent with beer.” I walked every side street close to the map marking (the book gave no address and the maps had no street names) and I couldn’t find it or a place that seated six.

Disappointed I tried the food stalls at the train station. I managed to stutter the words “what is in this?” to a stall holder and point hopefully at something looking like a dumpling. It was pretty pointless because I only know the word for pork in Japanese. She looked at me blankly, realising that any answer would be meaningless. I got half way through trying to say “I am allergic to shellfish” (this being a coastal town, it’s a pertinent point), when she fished around in a big pot full of delicious looking soup and held a loft an octopus tentacle with suckery squelchy thing on the end. “Ah,” I said, “is that right?” (I know how to say that in Japanese) and sadly signalled for her to put the thing down.

In the end, with the train about to depart and nothing looking safe in sight, I ended up taking a well known fast food brand because it offered salad and some crispy strips. I know the Japanese are not good at doing Western food but I thought you can’t go wrong with crispy strips.

They were the foulest thing known to man. They were covered in thick batter which I picked off in chunks. Maybe I should have gone the octopus. Technically it’s not shellfish.