If you need a place to grab lunch while visiting the Decorated Tumulus Museum or the adjacent flower garden, a short drive from the city of Yamaga, look no further than the on-site restaurant of Yasuragikan. It won't take you long to spot it - it's housed in a unique geodesic dome.
The soaring ceilings give the restaurant a spacious feel, and both table and tatami sections accommodate diners. The menu is only in Japanese but has clear pictures of all the choices on offer. The focus is on set meals, many featuring local ingredients. The most expensive lunch set on the menu is only ¥1,100, and features a variety of vegetable-based salads, soup, a small fried dish, sashimi and a unique red rice. Other choices involve the local specialty of dango-jiru (a chicken broth chock full of hearty veggies and thick chewy flour dumplings) and sakuradon, a rice bowl with ground horse meat. I opted for the refreshing hiyashi udon, a bowl of cold udon noodles topped with a plethora of chopped up vegetables and doused in a soy-based sauce. Best of all, it came to an affordable ¥600, and the staff even slipped me a free piece of watermelon as a dessert. Cold tea and water is always freely available.
The restaurant occasionally offers special sets to highlight the blooming season of the nearby flower garden. In May, a wisteria set was on the menu while July and August will feature a special "lotus lunch". The food is much the same as the other sets, but it comes at the bargain price of ¥500.
Next door, in a twin dome, you'll find the Fureaikan. It houses mostly wooden crafts, local foods and tourist information for the surrounding region. A side section of the building is set aside as a gallery to showcase regional crafts. On the day I visited, they were displaying the pottery from the nearby Tamana area.
Parking for the restaurant is at the bottom of the hill just across from the flower garden. It's worth wandering around the grounds of the garden in any season, especially since admission is free.
