Tsuyama Horumon Udon

**Offal here is fresh, not frozen, and that is the argument.** Tsuyama has its own butchers and the shops buy same-day. If you have written off horumon on the basis of a chain izakaya, this is a different ingredient. **Every shop's sauce is different.** Sweet, hot, garlic-heavy, miso-based. Locals choose a shop by sauce rather than by offal, and asking which cuts go in is a normal question. **Lunch shops and evening shops are different places.** Check which kind you are heading for. **Tsuyama has been a beef town since the Edo period.** The domain kept producing yosaku medicinal beef through the centuries most of Japan did not eat meat, which is why the offal trade exists here and not in the next town. **Tsuyama Castle is the other reason to be here.** The stone walls are among the largest surviving in Japan and the cherry blossom in April is one of the top displays in the country.