WA-RA at InterContinental Kaohsiung | Straw Fire and Sake

01 · THE SHORT ANSWER

The straw fire is the star, and the October menu puts autumn on every plate

WA-RA's signature is the straw fire. The October Kannazuki set runs seven courses, from persimmon to chestnut, and the season is easy to read on each plate. None of the seven is cooked over straw, so the dish that gives the restaurant its name has to be ordered separately. We shared one set between two, added straw-fired wagyu, eel rice, a flambéed ice cream and the sake flight of the month, sat down at 6:30 p.m. and left after the 8 p.m. light show. The bill came to NT$4,322 (about US$133) including service.

02 · THE NAME

Wara means straw, and straw-fire cooking comes from Tosa

WA-RA's menu says it on the first page: the kitchen's signature is warayaki, an Edo-period technique of searing food over a fierce fire of rice straw so that it carries the straw's aroma.

The best-known warayaki dish is Tosa's katsuo no tataki, seared bonito. Tosa is the old name of today's Kochi Prefecture, a center of pole-and-line bonito fishing. Even in Japan, nobody is sure how the dish began. One widely told story says raw bonito was banned in the Edo period after cases of food poisoning, so people seared the outside before eating it. It is one story among several. In Kochi, many people still eat it with nothing but salt, a style called shio tataki.

03 · THE ROOM

Fifth floor: an izakaya under a rattan dome

WA-RA has two parts, the restaurant and a Japanese bar. The menu describes the bar as a new take on the izakaya, the Japanese pub, serving Japanese spirits, whisky and cocktails, with a light show in the evening. Our table sat right beside the rattan dome; this photo was taken as the sake arrived.

04 · THE OCTOBER SET

Kannazuki: seven courses, from persimmon to chestnut

Kannazuki is the old Japanese name for the tenth month. Folk tradition says that in October all of Japan's gods gather at Izumo, leaving the rest of the country without them, so in Izumo the month is called Kamiarizuki, the month with gods. Another reading holds that the "na" in Kannazuki is an old possessive, which would make it simply the month of the gods. WA-RA turns the month into a seven-course individual set.

The appetizer came on a long green-glazed plate. On the left, a square cup with a blue wave pattern held persimmon and white radish. In the middle, one silver skewer held the conger eel sushi and a block of dengaku spread with dark miso. On the right sat half a soft-boiled egg with a runny yolk. Two maple leaves and one ginkgo leaf, all cut from vegetables, were scattered across the plate.

Dengaku is said to take its name from performers who once danced on stilts at rice-planting festivals. Skewered food standing upright looked like them.

05 · THE SOUP

Hagi shinjo: an autumn flower in a bowl of broth

In a kaiseki meal, the soup course is where the broth is judged. This bowl centered on hagi shinjo: white fish and shrimp blended to a paste, folded with edamame, wood ear and carrot, steamed and set in clear broth. The menu calls it a grilled mushroom soup, and strips of grilled mushroom were laid around the dumpling.

Hagi is bush clover, one of Japan's seven flowers of autumn, which blooms in small red-purple sprays. Hagi shinjo takes its name from the small pieces folded into the paste, which look like fallen clover blossoms. In this bowl the edamame showed through the paste bean by bean, the mushroom strips ringed the edge, and an orange maple leaf sat on top.

06 · SASHIMI AND GRILLED FISH

Three slices of salmon, a piece of yellowtail and a radish chrysanthemum

The grilled course was yellowtail yuan-yaki. Yuan-yaki means marinating fish in soy sauce, sake, mirin and yuzu before grilling; the method is credited to Kitamura Yuan, a tea master from Omi in the Edo period. Yellowtail starts to fatten in autumn, and kan-buri, winter yellowtail, is the fish at its richest.

It came on a gray comma-shaped ceramic plate. The skin side was grilled almost black, with a chrysanthemum of sweet-pickled white radish beside it, two flecks of red chili at its center, and half a small citrus. The Japanese menu calls the citrus shikuwasa and the English menu calls it kumquat; on the plate it looked like Taiwanese calamansi.

The sashimi came before the fish: three slices of salmon on a shiso leaf and shredded white radish, with a dab of wasabi. That is the full sashimi course in the set. For more variety, a platter of five kinds is NT$1,180 (about US$36) à la carte.

07 · WARAYAKI

Straw-fired wagyu, three ways: salt, mustard, wasabi

We added 100 grams of straw-fired wagyu for NT$1,360 (about US$42). It arrived sliced, pink at the center and charred at the edges, on a deep blue glazed plate. On the left were three small mounds: flaky salt, whole-grain mustard and wasabi. On the lower right were grilled zucchini, asparagus, shimeji mushrooms and two pale grilled stalks.

How does warayaki taste? A diner on OpenTable in April 2023 put it simply, singling out the traditional straw-fire method for keeping the natural flavor of the ingredients.

Every dish in this table is straw-fired. Prices are before the 10 percent service charge, from the printed menu of October 2026.

08 · TEMPURA

Ebi genmai-age: shrimp in a coat of rice

The fried course came in a black woven basket lined with white paper. Two shrimp were coated in puffed grains of brown rice, next to tempura of lotus root, pumpkin and a cluster of shimeji, with a small cup of grated radish in front.

Genmai-age uses fried, puffed brown rice the way other kitchens use breadcrumbs. Served beside light tempura batter in the same basket, the two styles are easy to compare. Okunomatsu, the brewery behind one of the three sakes of the month, recommends its Adatara Ginjo with sushi and tempura, so that glass can wait for this course.

09 · RICE AND DESSERT

To finish: a box of eel rice and an ice cream set on fire

In a black lacquer box lined in red, glazed grilled eel lay on the left and a roll of Japanese omelet on the right, over white rice. The set's rice course is salmon and mushroom rice; on our night we switched to eel rice.

The set's dessert is a choice of chestnut red bean soup or monaka, ice cream in a crisp wafer shell. We added a brandy-flambéed ice cream for NT$350 (about US$11), set alight at the table. We did not get a photo of the flame.

10 · SAKE

Three sakes of the month: Chiba, Kochi and Fukushima

The sake flight of the month is three glasses, listed on the menu as 90 ml, for NT$480 (about US$15). The bottles change monthly. October's, left to right, were Fudo, Tosa Shiragiku and Okunomatsu. By the breweries' own descriptions they go in three directions: one full, one soft, one crisp.

Fudo is the strongest of the three at 17 percent and undiluted; Okunomatsu, at +4 on the sake meter, is the driest. Check the back label for the exact specification of each batch.

11 · THE LIGHT SHOW

Look up at the sea: Sea of Abundance

The atrium above WA-RA's bar is more than 30 meters high. In the evening the lights go down and Sea of Abundance (豐沃之海) is projected from the top of the atrium, with music and the sound of waves, moving between the ocean, the seasons and the city.

When the hotel opened in 2021, the first version was made by three teams: DKBK, which designed animated visuals for the singer A-Mei's world tours; Lin Keng-nung, a Golden Bell Award winner for sound design; and a Kaohsiung recording studio. It had four chapters, on the origin of all things, the ocean of the universe, the four seasons and the smart city, and the first began with water.

We saw the 8 p.m. show. According to Mirror Media in July 2026, the current version opens with the atrium going dark, music and the sound of waves on the shore, and light flowing down from the ceiling. Reviews on OpenTable are split: a 2023 diner praised the show, while one in March 2025 found it too loud. Showtimes also differ by source: Supertaste lists 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. nightly, the Kaohsiung tourism bureau says twice a day, and the 2025 review mentions a show every hour.

12 · HOW TO ORDER

Ordering for two: one set, one warayaki dish, one sake flight

There are three ways to eat at WA-RA: the individual set, the kappo counter, or à la carte. For the season and the straw fire in one meal, the set plus one warayaki dish is the most direct. If two people share one set, add dishes to make it a full dinner.

13 · THE NIGHT AND A CHECKLIST

From sitting down to the light show, in order

From the first photo to the tempura took about thirty minutes, so the courses come quickly. If you want a slower meal, say so when you order. The order below ends with the 8 p.m. show.

A good fit

• You are staying at the InterContinental Kaohsiung and want a seasonal dinner without leaving the building
• You are curious about straw-fire cooking and sake, and want to try several sakes in one flight
• You are hosting friends from out of town and want a show after dinner

A weaker fit

• You want an extensive sashimi course: the set served only salmon on our night, so order the five-kind platter or book the kappo
• You want a long, very quiet meal: the bar is next door and the show comes with music