ocean good table Ishigaki

An essential part of the Okinawa beach experience is the barbecue; there’s nothing like being seated around a table, talking and laughing in good company, taking in the smell of grilling meat and vegetables carried by the sea breeze. That’s exactly the kind of experience visitors to beachside Ishigaki restaurant ocean good table can expect. The restaurant needs no introduction — its value proposition is entirely encompassed in the name: beautiful ocean, good food, farm-to-table. Perched on the southwestern tip of Ishigaki Island in the remote Yaeyama Island chain, ocean good table features a bevy of Ishigaki ingredients in its menu, ranging from meat to seafood to local produce. Ishigaki wagyu beef may be lesser known than the Three Great Wagyu Beef of Japan — Kobe, Matsusaka and Omi — but it is no less delicious. It is also extremely rare, with only 600 to 800 cattle being reared every year, and with 80 percent of those cattle being exported to the rest of Japan and the world. Ocean good table offers a chance for visitors to enjoy this hyper-local Okinawa delicacy just kilometers from where it was farmed. Another highly sought-after delicacy served up in the restaurant’s kitchens is Agu pork. A breed of pig native to Okinawa that almost went extinct after World War II, the Agu is so rare it has been given the nickname the “phantom pig”, and is all the more valued for its fatty texture and particularly high glutamic acid content, giving it a more intense umami than other pork. Growing slowly and only achieving a maximum size about half that of other typical livestock breeds, Agu pigs are said to be as delicious — if not more — as the legendary Hungarian Mangalica and Spanish Iberian breeds.