Daikon No Hana

Amazing stay. Thank you so much. Service was amazing and we would absolutely come back. All the staff was perfect! Mikki was so friendly and made our stay even more enjoyable! The 4 private (open access) Onsen were wonderful and the in room Onsen was also perfect. The breakfast were plentiful and with full of different taste profiles. The dinners were also great although slightly lacking in terms of protein (maybe we just eat more protein in the west). The pictures do not make this accomodation justice. Everything felt so peaceful and luxurious in a very natural kind of way. I know Japanese hospitality is very high but the staff here went beyond any expectations and were always friendly, positive, courteous, and ready to help.

Despite having a long delay in our shinkansen trip to Daikon no Hana, the customer service was handled superbly. I truly appreciate the effort all of you put in to accommodating us. The room we stayed in was immaculate. Peaceful and beautiful resort. Very relaxing. Food was great, servers were amazing. Wish I were able to have stayed longer. I will definitely be coming back hopefully longer than one day next time. Thank you very much for making our stay an unforgettable and wonderful one.

You know the hotel is doing something right when you have kept thinking about it since your stay. The stay did not start on a promising note. From the outside, the location of the hotel was far from promising. It is along a non-descript country road next to a random restaurant leading to a resort. As I approached it, I kept wondering how can the setting of the hotel be as beautiful as shown in the pictures at a location like this? I was in for a surprise. Once I was in the lobby, I was immediately put at ease by the tranquil atmosphere. I asked the front desk to book a taxi for me for the next day and that was taken care of immediately. I was then led to the room, which required me to walk through the outdoor corridors. The environment was idyllic and the scenery soothing. I had read online that they have very nice outdoor onsens. That's where I rushed to immediately upon check-in. And they did not disappoint. After overcoming the initial trepidation about taking off one's clothes potentially in full view of anyone who happens to be there, I was able to enjoy the experience. One thing great about an outdoor onsen is that the water is slightly more tepid. It is quite an incredible experience to be bathing surrounded by trees and next to a stream. The highlight of my stay was the dinner. I have stayed in a few onsen hotels before and this was by far the best meal I have had. This was easily a Michelin two-star meal. Everything was exquisite. You can tell that they use the finest ingredients and every dish was prepared to perfection. While most of the dishes were outstanding, the dish that has left a lasting impression was the steak. It was one of the most tender pieces of steak I have ever had. And it was not as fatty as the typical Wagyu. It is not too difficult to make a piece of fatty steak tender. But it is much more challenging to do so with a relatively lean piece of meat. And they succeeded. Another worthy mention were the drinks, which were included (there are chargeable wines you can order). The apple juice was from a local farm and it was probably the freshest apple juice I had ever had. You are then invited to have dessert in the lobby. Usually you get fruits after a Japanese meal. But here I was served a bread pudding, which was an excellent surprise. There were only 18 rooms in the entire hotel. So you hardly run into other guests outside of the meals. There was four private onsens, two outdoors and two semi outdoors, which are first come first serve. Trying to get into them is the only time you may feel the presence of other guests. Sometimes you have to wait. Most guests, including myself, stay for one night, which is understandable given the cost, but which I think is a mistake. With the four outdoor private onsen and a public one, a lounge, and everything else, you really need two nights to enjoy the place fully. Plus you will get to enjoy the hotel all by yourself after the guests from the previous night have checked out at 11 but before the next batch of guests check in at 3. I double checked with the staff and was assured that your dinner would be different on the second night. The last thing I should mention is that the service is top notch, as one would expect from an onsen ryokan of this calibre. It was attentive without being intrusive. It is the intangibles that make the overall experience so special. You can try to break it down to the individual components but put together, the whole environment just makes you so relaxed and at ease. It is often said that a hotel can make you forget about your daily life, even if only momentarily. This is one of the few places that genuinely achieve that. I remember I had seen a YouTube video by a Japanese influencer saying that this is one of the best onsen ryokans in Japan. I was skeptical. But now I am fully convinced and can't wait to go back again. For those who don't drive, there is a bus leaving from the Sendai JR station stopping at the Mercure Resort about a ten minute walk from the hotel. It's only an hour.