Korokke from Hayama Asahiya: thirteen minutes and a Sunday queue

11:49 on Sunday 10 August 2025. The first place we parked in Hayama was not the beach and not a shrine, but a shopping plaza on the main road. There was one thing we were there for: korokke.

Hayama Station. A low building painted deep navy with a single white square sign: a mark of a wave and a leaf above the words “SHOPPING PLAZA HAYAMA STATION,” and cut letters spelling “HAYAMA” on the single-storey wall in front. At a glance it is a supermarket. It does not present itself as somewhere to visit.

The sky was cloud from edge to edge that day and the road was still damp. People were queuing beside the entrance anyway — someone pushing a trolley, someone holding a bouquet, someone with a child. Roughly half local shoppers, half plainly from out of town. Traffic cones and a red-and-white bar had been set out to shape the queue, which told you at a glance that this place gets busy.

What we came for: korokke from Hayama Asahiya

Of all the shops in the plaza, the one with the queue is Hayama Asahiya Gyunikuten — a butcher dealing in Hayama beef, which sells fried food from a counter beside the meat case. In Hayama it is apparently the place for korokke.

We queued and bought two things: the special Hayama korokke, and a menchi-katsu.

12:02, back at the car, pack on the dashboard. The label reads:

• Special Hayama korokke — 2 pieces, ¥216 incl. tax (¥200 before tax)
• Menchi-katsu — 1 piece
• Both best before the following day (11 August)
• Sold by Hayama Asahiya Gyunikuten, inside Shopping Plaza Hayama Station

Even through the clear pack you can see how dark the crumb has gone. The korokke are flat ovals, properly fox-brown; the menchi-katsu is a size larger with a coarser crumb. Picking them up, they are still warm.

And then we could not wait.

Despite having a lunch booked at Hayama Marina immediately afterwards, we opened the pack there in the car. The wish to eat it while it was hot won outright. Holding a korokke in a cramped car and biting into it is the worst-mannered fifteen minutes of any trip. It is also, usually, when things taste best.

The consequence was that twenty minutes later we sat down to a starter, a main and a dessert. The order of events was clearly wrong. I do not regret it.

Notes from the day

• Visited: Sunday 10 August 2025, 11:49–12:02. Cloudy, roads wet from earlier rain
• Shopping Plaza Hayama Station, Hayama-machi, Miura-gun, Kanagawa. On the main road; it assumes you have a car
• Crowds: already a queue beside the entrance before noon on a Sunday. They set out cones to manage it, so at peak it must be longer. Leave yourself time
• Price: ¥216 including tax for two korokke (as of August 2025). An easy price for a gift
• Best before the next day — this is not something to stockpile
• The main business is Hayama beef: sukiyaki, steak and shabu-shabu cuts fill the case
• Hours: the main Asahiya shop is 09:30–19:00, closed Wednesdays (per the Hayama town website). The Hayama Station branch follows the plaza’s hours, so check before going
• Takeaway only, no seating. If you came by car you will be eating in the car — and if you have a meal booked afterwards, watch the quantity (we did not)

Thirteen minutes, for a stop made solely to buy korokke. Even so, standing in the same queue the locals are standing in has a texture that going round the sights does not, and I like it.