Kinana - Kinako Ice Cream

Kinana - Autumn Chestnut Parfait

Kinana ‘Dekitate’ Ice Cream and Kodawari
Kinana makes six flavors of ice cream; kinako (roast soybean flour), azuki (sweet red bean), kurogoma (black sesame), kuromitsu (black sugar syrup), maccha (powdered green tea) and yomogi (mugwort), all real traditional Japanese flavors! To get the real Kinana ice cream experience, I really recommend the just made ‘dekitate’ ice cream as it is heavenly, impossibly soft and creamy. Once ice cream is frozen it loses this fantastic texture. I think that the kinako flavor is the only fresh, ‘dekitate’ ice cream that is served. If you just ask the friendly staff what the ‘dekitate’ flavor is, they should have no trouble understanding. (Many customers eat the dekitate ice cream while standing at the counter on the first floor. Try this if the sit down area on the second floor is full.)

Kodawari is an essential concept in Japanese culture, especially in culinary culture and all kinds of product development. Kodarari means picky or particular. Owner, ice cream chef Omoto-san is very picky about what goes into his ice cream. He uses no additives, fillers or artificial ingredients. His kinako powder is a original blend of roasted ‘kuromame’ black beans from the Tamba region of Hyogo and Kyoto and ‘daizu’ soybeans from Hamanaka-cho in Hokkaido. He traveled to both regions to inspect producers before selecting the best.

Any business in Japan that isn’t into kodawari really isn’t worth patronizing. If you like Kyoto culinary culture, it is probably due to kodawari.

Kinana - Autumn Chestnut Parfait

Kinana Parfait
Kinana has three parfaits that are available throughout the year. There is Kinana Hapon (warabi mochi), Berry Berry Kinana (yogurt and frozen berries) and Kinana Italian (tiramisu). Then there is a seasonal parfait that changes every few months. All use several flavors of Kinana ice cream and Western-style baked confections like cookies and biscotti, all baked in-house at Yakitsukasa Kinana, Kinana’s second location. The fresh-made ice cream is not used in the parfaits because it is too soft for layering other ingredients upon. I tried both the Berry Berry Kinana and Kinana Italian and thought that they were fine but not exceptional. Two foodie and chef friends agreed with me on this. I can see how these parfaits would appeal to Japanese women that visit Kinana fairly often or want to try something non-Japanese.

The autumn seasonal parfait was quite another story. Now, Japanese are really into parfaits and I have had a lot of great Japanese-style parfaits in Kyoto but this one was the most memorable and original. It was over-the-top amazing!

Chestnut Autumn Parfait
The seasonal Kinana Chestnut Parfait features two kinds of ice cream, mochi, anko (azuki paste), soba boro (buckwheat cookie), two chocolate cookies (actually more like little cakes), a chocolate and kuromame biscotti with lots of chestnut mousse all topped with a candied chestnut.

The chestnut mousse topping was amazing, thick and rich, just overloaded with chestnut flavor. The nuance of the biscotti really got me, like all the other baked items it is made at Yakitsukasa Kinana. It is dry and crunchy like traditional biscotti, it has some chunks of rich chocolate but the kuromame black beans, though baked and encased in crunchy biscotti they are still soft and chewy! There is some kodawari at work here. This contrast in texture and attention to detail really impresses me. The chocolate cookies are really moist and dense, about a mouthful each. The soba boro are cracker-thin and very crunchy. I have never had sobo boko like that.

Kinana only makes 20 of the autumn parfaits everyday and usually runs out of the key ingredient, chestnut mousse by 2 pm, earlier on weekends. This parfait will only be available in October and November. I am looking forward to the winter seasonal parfait, and the autumns to come!

Gion Kinana Owner Ice Cream Chef Katsuji Omoto

About Kyo Kinana (京きなな)
For many years owner chef Katsuji Omoto had a French restaurant near Kitano Shrine, which is a somewhat outlying area of Kyoto. In 2002 he decided to move into the center of town and to close his restaurant and open something like a cafe with baked sweets. He rented a space in Gion but after he signed the lease and moved in he was told by the owner that he couldn’t use heat or flame in the space. He was quite shocked and felt deceived. Nevertheless, he took the high road and persevered. He cooly thought about what he could make without cooking and decided that it would have to be ice cream. At his French restaurant he had made his own baked desserts and ice cream, so this wasn’t entirely new territory for him.

His initial location was not ideal and it was tough going, however his ice cream was soon noticed by the media and he was featured on a television program and from there Kinana started to get very busy and develop as a new Kyoto brand.

In 2004 Omoto-san moved to his current location which has become a Gion fixture and is a very popular destination in the neighborhood for visitors to Kyoto. It is even popular with the neighborhood maiko and geiko (geisha), you can see their traditional fans displayed on the wall.

Based on Omoto-san’s original intention to do baked sweets in Gion, in 2006 he opened Yakitsukasa Kinana. (I haven’t been here yet but the baked goods served at Kinana are made here. And, they are great!) Yakitsukasa Kinana is located near Kiyomizu Temple in the scenic Higashiyama district.

Kinana is a very popular and seating is only available on the second floor. If you can’t get seated upstairs or you just want ice cream, you can have that at the standing at the ice cream counter on the first floor. Don’t go away without some dekitate kinako ice cream even if you cannot get seated!

Foodie Souvenirs
For take out Kinana offers milk jams, cookies, biscotti, candies and a few other yummies. I haven’t tried any of them but they look very interesting. I think the milk jams would make very novel ‘omiyage’ souvenirs for visitors to Kyoto.

Kinana Souvenir - Kinako Milk Jam

Kinana Souvenir - Kinana Cookie and Kinako Candy

Kinana Interior - Gion Maiko Fans

Kinana Staff Making Parfait

Gion Kobu Neighborhood (祇園甲部)
Kinana is located in one of Kyoto’s most scenic and historic neighborhoods: Gion Kobu.

Kinana Storefront

Kinana Neighborhood in Gion

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brand name: Kyo Kinana (京きなな)
Gion main store: Gion Kinana (祇園きなな)
Kiyomizu store: Yakitsukasa Kinana (焼司 喜七)

Gion Kinana in English (Main Store)
English Menu: no
English Website: none (Japanese language site: www.kyo-kinana.com)
Service: friendly
Hours: 11am – 7pm (6:30 pm last order)
Address: Kyoto-shi, Higashiyama-ku, Gion-machi Minami-gawa 570-119 (京都市東山区祇園町南側570-119)
Telephone: 075-525-8300

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Japan’s Answer to ‘Cookies and Cream’ Ice Cream: Soba boro is a crunchy cookie made of soba flour, sugar and egg, a little bit like a Japanese version of biscotti. Chibeta makes a delicious ice cream flavored with soba boro.

In Japan, soba boro is something like a graham cracker or sugar cookie in Western culture, one of the slightly prosaic, common, cheap sweets that taste pretty good.

Soba boro is made with the same buckwheat flour used for soba noodles, you might not think of it as an ideal flavoring for ice cream, but the soba boro is a nice flavoring for ice cream. This flavoring is pretty clever (though not unheard of) and originally might have been a riff on cookies and cream, which is a very popular Häagen-Dazs flavor in Japan.

Soba Boro Ice Cream

Notice the bits of broken soba boro in the ice cream, those darker bits.

Trypical Soba Boro Package

Soba Boro ‘Cookies’

Soba Boro – detail

Chibeta Soba Boro Ice Cream Package

Soba Boro Ice Cream Served

Kyoto Handmade Ice Cream Shop Chibeta
Chibeta is located on in the Nishijin district of Kyoto on Senbon-dori, just south of Imadegawa-dori. From the intersection of Senbon and Imadegawa Streets, you just go three (short) blocks to the south and Chibeta is located on the east corner of Senbon and Sasayacho Streets intersection.

Chibeta Storefront

Chibeta Interior

Sobo Boro Ice Cream and ‘Cookies’

The presentation in the ice cream case at Chibeta is great, they have whole soba boro cookies on top of the ice cream.

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Kyoto Handmade Ice Cream Shop Chibeta: While Japanese love ice cream and Häagen-Dazs is big here, handmade ice cream shops, the likes or which there are several in my hometown, are a rarity. Chibeta, located in Nishijin, the old weaving district of Kyoto, makes great ice cream in very novel flavors. Inspiration for flavors are either traditional Japanese foods or ingredients or seasonal fruit. When I first walked into Chibeta several years ago, it was spring and I was astonished to see sakura mochi ice cream in the ice cream case. It was quite an amalgam of flavors!

While there is no mochi in this ice cream it is flavored with the salted sakura blossoms (shiozakura) and leaves that flavors sakura mochi. It has the pronounced perfumy fragrance identical to sakura mochi that is provided by the blossom and leaf. The taste of the ice cream is very rich and creamy (low fat diary products are not common, I drink 4.4% milk here) and it is salty. Quite unexpected!

Sakura Mochi Ice Cream

‘Sweet’ plus ‘salty’ is a delicious combination. In the US we have salt water taffy (but the taste is not particularly salty, as I recall from my childhood). Sweet and salty are not uncommon in traditional Japanese sweets. I am unaware of it in ice cream though.

I thought that the combination of creamy, sweet (not too sweet), sakura and salt was well worth writing home about. Salted sakura blossom and leaf ought to be easily obtained abroad, so this ice cream ought to be available throughout the world in the near future, I am hoping! (Aspiring sakura mochi ice cream makers abroad can click the ‘Source Delish!’ link above for help sourcing shiozakura.)

If you are in Kyoto and planning on visiting Chibeta, please keep in mind that sakura mochi ice cream is only available in the spring. There are plenty of other wonderful flavors to try though!

More about Sakura Mochi on KyotoFoodie
Sakura Mochi (History and Kanto-style)
Sakura Mochi (Kansai-style)

Sakura Mochi Ice Cream

Sakura Mochi Ice Cream – detail

Notice the pink fleck on the left center and the bits of leaf on the right.

Sakura Mochi

Again, sakura mochi looks like this.

Chibeta Sakura Mochi Ice Cream Package

Kyoto Handmade Ice Cream Shop Chibeta
Chibeta is located on in the Nishijin district of Kyoto on Senbon-dori, just south of Imadegawa-dori. From the intersection of Senbon and Imadegawa Streets, you just go three (short) blocks to the south and Chibeta is located on the east corner of Senbon and Sasayacho Streets intersection.

Chibeta Storefront

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