We made a stop here during our New Year’s Road Trip. We had been on the road for quite a while and were looking to take a short rest. Roadside Station Kirara-Taki in Shimane was conveniently located right off of National Route 9 and just behind Kirara Beach. The waves at the beach were a little calmer, thanks to a series of wave breaking barriers. The roadside station appeared to be the center of commerce as there were only a few scattered restaurants and accommodations in the area.

Just outside the main buildings they had this beautiful logo. With the ocean and setting sun in the background, it made for quite a beautiful scene. They also had this nice photo spot. It was cold and pretty windy, so we didn’t dilly dally for too long.

Roadside Station Kirara-Taki Local Products Store

Inside the main building of the roadside station they had an omiyage and local products store. One of the local specialties was figs. They had a number of fig related products including fig sherbet and fig soft serve ice cream. There was also a quick service food stand that sold Takoyaki, karrage, and crepes. We could imagine that it was absolutely packed during the summer beach months. They also had a bakery and ramen restaurant that were located in outside standalone buildings.

Inside, we noticed a special poster board advertising some unique manholes that had been created. It looked like five local attractions had banded together to create their own unique manholes with the goal of increasing tourism and awareness for themselves and each other. Unfortunately, we were a little short on time, but in the future we’d like to check out some of these smaller less well known attractions.

Restaurant Goen

We were getting a little hungry, so we decided to get some food at Goen (ごゑん) which was the attached restaurant. The restaurant itself was pretty big, there were a lot of tables and chairs arranged in an open room. Many of the seats had a great view of Kirara Beach and the Sea of Japan. We got in around an hour before closing and largely had the whole place to ourselves. The menu included soba, udon, curry, and a wide selection of sashimi seafood bowls. We appreciated how one whole section of the menu was dedicated to different set combinations. We were looking for a little variety and decided to share a soba, tempura, and tuna sashimi set and a sauce katsudon.

Our food came out shortly after. The sauce katsudon was delicious. The katsu was cut thick and the breading was nice and crispy. The sauce was a nice balance of salty and sweet. The soba broth was dark and had good flavor. The tempura was battered lightly and crispy. Some of the vegetables were cut a bit thick and were not as soft on the inside as we would have liked. In addition, there was no tempura sauce, so we just used the soba broth as a substitute. The tuna sashimi bowl was very good as well. We poured the shoyu and mixed in the green onion, shiso, nori, and a bit of the wasabi. The fish was fresh and the combination of all the different flavors was wonderful.

Final Thoughts

The sunset view from Roadside Station Kirara-Taki in Shimane was very beautiful. We later learned that this sunset in particular was on a list of the Top 100 Sunsets in Japan. We enjoyed our meal at Goen (ごゑん). The food was good and the prices were fairly reasonable. We can imagine that this roadside station and the beach are absolutely packed during the warmer months of the year. In the future we’d like to come back here when it’s warmer and stay at one of their affiliated cottages just down the road.

More to Come…

Here is the link to their website.