Chicken Tsukune Nikomi Udon: Udon, Japanese-style chicken meatballs and vegetables simmered in chicken stock-miso soup

Hobo Nizakana: Red Gurnard Simmered in Sweet Shoyu-sake Broth

Nanohana: Lightly Steamed Rape Blossoms with Sesame Sauce

This is a wonderful, late winter dinner that starts with a rich, bone warming hearty soup. Second an slightly uncommon little red fish simmered in sweetened shoyu broth. And ends with fresh, lightly steamed greens announcing the coming of Spring. We enjoyed this seasonal dinner with a high powered, unfiltered, unpasteurized, undiluted sake from Kitagawa Honke Sake Brewery.

The Dinner

The Ingredients for Udon

Broth, nama-udon (fresh udon noodles for simmering), chicken meatballs, veggies (carrots, daikon radish and negi – scallions) and some miso for final flavoring.

Chicken Soup Stock

Peko bought some 50 yen chicken carcasses and broiled and boiled them for our soup stock. Yummy!

‘Nama’ Udon Being Added to the Soup

After the veggies have cooked for about 15 minutes Paku added the nama, or fresh udon. It is not dried, just like ‘fresh pasta’. This very wide udon is for simmering, nikomi (煮込み) in soup. It has not been boiled prior to adding to the soup. Usually, for Japanese noodle dishes the noodles are boiled separately and added to the soup just before being eaten. This is the case for soba, ramen and most udon noodles, the exception being nikomi udon. The miso has not yet been added.

Last Step: Add the Miso and Negi (scallions)

Finally, add the miso and scallions. At this point about half of the soup stock of the had been absorbed by the udon. Yummy!

Chicken Tsukune Nikomi Udon

Healthy and hearty.

Hobo (Red Gurnard)

We hadn’t heard of this fish, the hobo (ほうぼう、魴) before but apparently it is not uncommon. The Red Gurnard is a tasty fish. We affectionately named this one ‘The Dude’. Paku thought that the dude was really cute, even cuter than Peko! In Japan, large ones (40cm+) are especially sought after for sashimi and command high prices. Smaller ones (20-30cm) are used for nizakana, (fish simmered in broth).

Nizakana

Place in a sauce pan, then add the broth ingredients.

Nizakana: Simmering the Fish
Water, cooking sake, mirin, shoyu and sugar. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Super delicious.

Hobo Nizakana Served

Serve in the broth.

Nanohana, or in Kyoto, Hanana – Rape Blossoms
This late winter green is a very well loved veggie in Japan and Kyoto. Claimed by some as a Kyo-yasai (Kyoto vegetable). A little later in the spring nanohana will have dainty yellow blossoms. We love it steamed or blanched and served with sesame based sauce. Nanohana-zuke (lightly pickled in salt Nanohana) is a popular spring pickle.

A Fine Dinner Served with Fine Sake

We enjoyed this dinner with Muroka Nama-genshu (無濾過生原酒) from Kitagawa Honke Sake Brewery (Part 1) that I picked up on a recent visit. This unfiltered (muroka) sake is both namazake and genshu, unpasteurized and undiluted with water. This uncontrived, high-powered sake is straight out of the vat — this is my kind of brew!! (Peko)

How to Prepare?

We think that it would be difficult to prepare the udon dish outside of Japan. So we did not detail the ingredients. If you are reading this blog, you can probably figure it out just from the photos.

If you can get dried, nikomi udon in your county, you can probably pull this one off. The chicken meatballs are just ground chicken, often flavored with some onion, scallion and a little garlic. Sometimes katakuriko is added, even finely cubed konyaku or nagaimo. (Peko says NO katakuriko, as it makes the meatballs too rubbery.)

Paku decided to do a nizakana series and will detail how to make various nizakana dishes — Peko can’t wait!!

Any questions? Let us know!

Toriyasu serves several donburi (ricebowl) dishes that are unbeatable. This tiny and charming restaurant with about 50 years of history is an offshoot of the 120 year old poulterer just next door.

Toriyasu serves three classic donburi dishes and the most famous of which is karaagedon.

Toriyasu is located on Karasuma Street just north of the Oike Street intersection. It is within easy walking distance of the Imperial Palace and Imperial Gardens (Gosho) and is right across the street from the new Kyoto International Manga Museum.

Toriyasu’s donburi are unsurpassed in taste, generous in portion and are very reasonably priced between 680 and 780 yen. Surely the cheapest shinise I have visited. By the way, the ‘yasu’ in Toriyasu means both ‘cheap’ and ‘peace of mind’ (safe to eat).

Karaage Donburi (からあげ丼)

Kaage is deepfried food, usually chicken. And donburi is a rice bowl with various ‘toppings’. Toriyasu’s Karaage Donburi is unique because the karaage is served over rice (as usual), but then on top of all this is a generous serving of egg cooked with dashi (soup stock) and tender Kyoto scallions. Karaage Donburi comes with red miso soup and tsukemono.

Karaage Donburi

Served with miso, tsukemono and tea.

Karaage Donburi

Notice the pieces of deepfried chicken under the layer of egg. The brownish powder on the egg is sansho.

Toriyasu Interior

This restaurant is tiny. The counter seats about 6 people and there are two tiny tables to the left, out of view in this photo. You might have to stand in line but customers usually move through in a timely fashion.
The restaurant interior is about 50 years old. The cook told me that they was an older interior, but that was before the war when the restaurant was smaller — being smaller than this is a little difficult to imagine.

Toriyasu Menu

Toriyasu lunch set
Oyako-don, Karaage-don, Tamago-don
Sake, Beer
Other chicken dishes

Toriyasu Exterior

Don’t be put off by the exterior.

The Original Toriyasu Poulterer Exterior

If you want to buy fine chicken meat for cooking at home, this is the place to come! This tiny shop is probably the most well known place to buy chicken in Kyoto. It is so tiny that they don’t even have chicken and eggs on display. You tell them what you want and they bring it out from the back room.

All the dishes at Toriyasu are cooked and portions are generous, so we have included this in our ‘budget’ category.

Famous Dishes:
Oyako-don 親子丼 (chicken and egg simmered in dashi) 780yen
Tamago-don 玉子丼 (egg) 680yen
Karaage-don からあげ丼 (deepfried chicken and egg) 780yen

English: No English menu, no website, staff does not seem to speak any English. The cook is a warm and polite young man and the staff is very friendly.

Hours:
11:30 – 2:00
5:00 – 8:00

Closed: Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays and National Holidays.

Near Sightseeing Spot: Gosho, Kyoto International Manga Museum
Also, just south of Honke Owariya

Access: Two minute walk from Karasuma Oike Subway Station