matcha

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Kyoto is for Eaters, Again

As Dan reported, our recent trip to Kyoto was livelier than expected. While wriggling fish haunt his dreams, all I can think about is this:

Parfait perfection.

Maybe we need to look at that again…

This was lunch. I’m not ashamed. I also wasn’t alone — this is what my father-in-law ordered:

We’re like two peas in a pod sweet beans in a parfait.

But let’s back up. After we arrived at Kyoto station, Dan and I used our keen instincts — we found the only restaurant with a line and stood in it — to track down some seasonal soba.

Clockwise from the top left — pickles, tempura mushrooms and green peppers, warabi (a soybean-powder-covered mochi dessert), soba noodle soup with mushrooms, tempura dipping sauce, yuba (tofu skin, a Kyoto specialty), mushroom rice (kinoko takikomi gohan), and more pickles (another Kyoto specialty).

Nishin soba, another Kyoto specialty.

After lunch we went for a hike. At the peak there was a restaurant serving beer and ice cream, of course. What do you think this shop owner’s commute is like?

When you climb a mountain and meet a guy wanting to sell you ice cream, you can’t refuse. This one was kinako.

Our weekend wasn’t all about food, I swear. We did some sightsighing, and a little more sightseeing. And then after an especially rainy afternoon, we found a charming little omurice restaurant. Maybe not the haute Kyoto cuisine my in-laws were expecting, but it was perfectly placed comfort food for a chilly evening.

And, to round out the weekend (and our waistlines), we ended with a trip to Kyoto Ramen Street.

With a belly full of noodles and a cold beer in-hand, we hopped on the shinkansen for a sleepy trip back to Tokyo. Ah, how I love Japan in the fall.

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Food Porn

In preparation for the Azabu Juban Noryo festival happening in our neighborhood this weekend, where I plan to eat my way from street-to-street for 3 straight days, I thought I’d clear some space on my camera and share a few food pics I’ve had in the vault.  I’m not sure our hurry-and-take-the-photo-so-I-can-shove-this-in-my-mouth photography really deserves the label “food porn,” but in any case, I thought these few photos were worth sharing.  Itadakimasu! *

A few weeks back, I was wandering the streets of Kappabashi (the kitchenware district, this site does a great job of describing it) and it was sooo hot and I was sooo hungry.  I stepped into the only restaurant I could find, where, alas, there was no English to be had, so I ordered the daily special, which was a gigantic plate of tempura.  Luck be a fried shrimp! (Two actually, along with mushrooms, okra, eggplant, and shiso.  This meal was also served with rice, soup, pickles and tea.  Oofdah.)

Dan and I discovered this place while wandering the streets of Shimokitazawa, a hip neighborhood of Tokyo that has been compared to Williamsburg in NYC.  May I present a ball of rice wrapped in bacon (!), sort of like a meat version of onigiri.  I may have put mayonnaise on mine.

Last weekend we found the ramen shop Gogyo, where the ramen is served black!  I had the kogashi shoyu, Dan went for the kogashi miso.  Both were “burnt” ramen, and I’m not sure how they got it that way, but the open kitchen had big flames and the ramen had that delicious almost-burnt, grilled-meat flavor.  We’re definitely going back for the black (alliteration is irresistible!).

Tokyo summers — the bad part is that it’s hot, the good part is that there is kakigori, a shaved-ice mound of sweet deliciousness much like the slushie I wrote about a few weeks ago. Kakigori is seasonal, so I plan to eat as much as I can in the next month.

I went for red bean and green tea, and Dan had fresh strawberry with a sweetened condensed milk glaze. These poor guys really didn’t stand a chance.

There you have it.  Don’t get me wrong, we eat a lot of weird and perhaps not-so-good things too (including the random mystery vegetables I try to cook at home), but those aren’t as fun to share.  Or are they?

* Your language lesson for the day: Itadakimasu いただきます roughly means “I humbly receive,” and is a traditional greeting before a meal.

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Sweet, Sweet Slushie

Seriously, this was so good.

It didn’t look like much from the photo I pointed at on the menu (I had limited choices and the other one was all green), but it turns out this ice is slightly sweet, and underneath the ice was azuki 小豆 (red bean), which is also slightly sweet, and it was the perfect treat for a hot rainy-season day.  I’m not totally sure what the little green and white globs were, but everyone else was dipping them in the sweet slushie juice, so I did the same.  The rose tea and matcha were a perfect complement.

The other great thing about this whole experience was that I successfully read (sort of) the sign out front, ventured inside even though it was on the second floor (gasp!), traded words in Japanese with the waitress, and then was rewarded with a delicious red bean slushie.  Victory is mine!

So who else thinks this thing looks like a panda?  I don’t totally see it, but Dan insists… perhaps I was just too focused on the deliciousness.

Kanoko 鹿乃子 5-7-19-1, 2F Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo