Since I started KyotoFoodie I have received numerous inquiries from people asking where to go for teppanyaki in Kyoto. I rarely eat teppanyaki but do like it. I go to the Himorogi teppanyaki restaurant at Brighton Hotel sometimes for business dinners (when I am not selecting the restaurant). It is good but I can never justify the cost of the meal. I guess I cannot forgive bad cost performance. Hotel restaurants in Japan have uniformly bad cost performance and often the food is mediocre.

Wagyu Sashimi

Grilled Duck Breast and Foie Gras

Lobster and Vegetables

Teppanyaki and Kappo
Teppanyaki is usually beef, seafood and vegetables cooked on a hot steel grill in front of the customer. Teppanyaki is perhaps the second most well-known Japanese cuisine in the West. While it was developed in Japan, it was more popular with non-Japanese, until more recently. Kappo is very popular in Kyoto and features a counter seating arrangement in which the chef cooks and arranges the dishes on one side, and the customer enjoys them immediately on the other. Kappo is very intimate and offers the customer a chance to converse with the chef. A good chef quickly discerns the tastes and inclinations of the customer and prepares dishes accordingly. The combination teppanyaki with kappo is the sort of dining you expect to experience in Gion. Nice!

Owner Chef Tsukada Grating Wasabi for Wagyu Sashimi

Teppan Kappo Sou Owner Chef Tsukada (鉄板割烹 爽)
Chef Tsukada started working at a shinise teppanyaki restaurant in his native Kobe when he was 19 years old. He then came to Kyoto and worked at a teppanyaki restaurant at the Granvia Hotel for 10 years and opened his restaurant in Gion in April of 2007.

I asked Chef Tsukada why he decided to do a teppanyaki Japanese wagyu beef restaurant. Being from Kobe, known for some of the finest wagyu in Japan, of course played some part in his decision. However, he said that he really wanted to offer diners the best wagyu available without the prohibitive price of the famous brands like Kobe beef. To do this, he uses non-brand name wagyu. There are 14 grades of beef in Japan and the top grade is A5, the best Matsuzaka beef and Kobe beef are A5. Using A5 non-brand gives the same brand name taste, but costs about 30% less.

In addition to quality at a reasonable price, is individualized customer service in an intimate setting. Chef Tsukada said that he likes the simplicity of the kappo counter format and the direct contact with the customer. If the chef is alone in the kitchen, even if meals for 100 people are prepared, they all will taste identical. Chef Tsukada observes, listens to and gets to know each customer and adjusts the flavors and ingredients for them and recommends seasonal dishes.

He ends his course meals with some contemporary Japanese homecooking, curry rice. At Sou, curry is made with wagyu and an original roux and spice medley that he developed. I am not a big fan of Japanese curry, but many wagyu beef restaurants have their own signature curry dish, which I often like very much – hey, it’s gourmet! – and Chef Tsukada’s could not be topped.

Shark Skin Wasabi Grater

In Action – Photos from the Teppan Grill

Chef Tsukada at the Teppan

Chef Tsukada at the Teppan

Teppan: Mugwort Namafu, Atsuage Tofu and Wagyu

Teppan: Abalone

Teppan: Abalone

Teppan: Final Course, Curry Rice

Teppan: Final Course, Curry Rice

Meibutsu: Wagyu Katsu (Deep-fried Cutlet) Sandwhich

Sou Interior

Highly Recommended
• Teppan Kappo is located in extremely picturesque Gion Shinbashi, one of Kyoto’s geiko (geisha) entertainment districts.
• These districts are known for their very high prices and snobbery but Sou is open, friendly and quite reasonably priced.
• The quality of the wagyu beef is the highest grade available.
• Sou offers an excellent selection of wine, both Chef Tsukada and the manager are sommeliers.
• An English menu (with correct English) is available. The owner chef and manager worked at an international hotel for 10 years so can communicate a little in English.
• Get the meibutsu wagyu katsu sandwich for take out.
• Teppan Kappo Sou is even open until 2 am!

A dinner reservation is recommended. Ask your hotel concierge to make a reservation for you or use the email address below (simple English, please, the manager requests!)

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Teppan Kappo Sou in English
English Menu: yes
English Website: none
Japanese Website: www.teppankappou-sou.com

Service: Very good
Price:
dinner course: 8,400～ (10,500 or 16,000 yen course recommended)
ala carte also available
Reservations: Please make dinner and lunch reservations via email at least 3 days in advance.
Hours:
dinner: 5:30pm – 2:00am (1:30am last order)
Closed Sunday
Reservations: Please make lunch and dinner reservations via email address below at least 3 days in advance.
Email Reservations: teppankappou-sou (at) kki (dot) biglobe (dot) ne (dot) jp
Location and Access: Gion Shinbashi. Teppan Kappo Sou is located on the east side of Nawate-dori street, about 2 blocks north of Shijo Street.
Address: Kyoto-shi, Higashiyama-ku, Nawate-dori Shinbashi-agaru, Nishino-cho 216-2 Onishi Bldg II 1F (京都市東山区縄手取り新橋上る西之町216-2 大西ビルII 1階)
Telephone: 075-551-4515

Map

View OpenKyoto/KyotoFoodie Map in a larger map

Hyuganatsu is only available in Kyoto for a few weeks in the late winter and early spring and most Japanese have never eaten it. This spring I was inspired to some truly exquisite marmalade with hyuganatsu.

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu

Renowned Foodies in Kyoto from NYC
Marc from NoRecipes.com, a foodie blogger friend was in Kyoto this week and we finally got a chance to meet in person and ‘foodie’. He brought along Stephane from ZenCanCook.com, Stephane is a real French chef. The night of their arrival we did Japanese beef at Hiro, then sake at Nihonshu Bar Asakura then sumashi ramen at Takaraya. A few days later we did the wholesale food market and Kyoto-style sushi lesson at Kichisen with Chef Tanigawa.

Hyuganatsu Wagashi Omiyage
Marc was in Miyazaki, on Kyushu, before he came up to Kyoto and he kindly brought some omiyage souvenirs for me including Miyazaki’s undisputed meibutsu, the hyuganatsu in the form of a whole candied hyuganatsu filled with hyuganatsu flavored white yokan from a shinise in Miyazaki. It was a foodies dream come true.

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori Box and Wrapping

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori Inner Wrapping

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori

Hyuga-no-Kaori Yokan (七万石 日向のかほり)
There are a number of wagashi confections in Japanese cuisine that use a whole citrus fruit peel as a container for mochi, jelly or yokan flavored with the fruits juice. Some of my favorites are steamed yuzu filled with mochi, a cold season specialty of northern Japan and a bitter summer orange filled with jelly served chilled in the summer.

According to the Japanese Wikipedia article, hyuganatsu citrus (citrus tamurana) 日向夏柑橘 suddenly appeared in the Miyazaki garden of Yasutaro Magata in 1820. He didn’t know what the fruit was but did eat a few every winter but they were too sour for his taste. One summer a carpenter named Chibei Takazuma who was repairing Magata’s thatched roof helped himself to one of the mysterious fruit that was just left on the tree and he thought that it tasted pretty good. He took home a branch and grafted it onto a tree in his garden. From there cultivation of the fruit spread and by 1887 the name ‘hyuganatsu’ was in common use. It is thought that the hyuganatsu is a mutation of the yuzu citrus fruit.

Nanaman Goku (七万石) is a shinise in Miyazaki that developed this delightful confection in 1873. The confection is called Hyuga-no-Kaori which literally means the ‘fragrance of hyuga’. Development required 4 years of endeavor. To make it the flesh of the fruit is removed and juiced and used to flavor yokan jelly. The peel is candied and filled with yokan. The whole citrus fruit being candied makes this one rather unique, I think.

To serve, the confection is sliced into wedges reminiscent of the fruit wedges themselves.

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Slicing

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Sliced

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Sliced and Served

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - Served

Hyuganatsu Yokan: Hyuga-no-Kaori - detail

How did Hyuga-no-Kaori Yokan taste?
Nanaman Goko says that they make this confection all year and with the seasons the taste changes quite a bit. I am a fiend for hyuganatsu so I was very excited to try this. It is absolutely beautiful and I felt that the packaging is certainly of a bygone and more pure era, like a Norman Rockwell painting. On the whole, I found it a little too sweet, but I was able to fix that with some Yankee ingenuity: I washed it.

There was not much hyuganatsu taste in the yokan but the peel is overflowing with flavor and fragrance. The yokan is a prefect balance to the sour of the peel. My only criticism is that it is quite sweet. Wagashi that is intended to be enjoyed with bitter maccha is often very sweet, so this is not unusual. Most of the sweetness comes from the sugar that is adhered to the candied peel. I tried scraping away some of the sugar with a knife but it is really stuck. I then tried running water over a slice for a few seconds, once to melt the sugar and a second time to wash it away. That removed a good portion of the sugar and that made the sweetness perfect for me.

Eating Hyuganatsu Fresh
You can see how to slice the hyuganatsu for eating fresh on this Sake Chat and Hyuganatsu Kyoto Diary article.

Hyuganatsu Marmalade Article Tease:
This was a beauty to behold, cook and eat! Hopefully I will get to it soon, until then..

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu

Miyazaki Citrus Hyuganatsu Ready for Making Marmalade

This meibutsu tsukmono is from Kamekura a shinise in Kameoka, a small and quaint town west of Kyoto. Kamekura is perhaps best known for its senmaizuke, a Kyoto winter favorite and favorite omiyage for visitors to the ancient capital.

Chrysanthemum Turnip Tsukemono Package

Kiku Kabura (Chrysanthemum Turnip) from Kamekura  亀蔵の菊かぶら
The white flesh of the turnip is meticulously cut to simulate the thin petals of a chrysanthemum flower and naturally dyed yellow with gardenia seeds, called kuchinashi in Japanese. The greens of the turnip are used as the leaves of the chrysanthemum. These are both pickled in a sweet brine. I was surprised at the sweetness of this pickle, but some tsukemono can be quite sweet, especially in Kyoto.

How to Eat
Like all tsukemono, this goes especially well with rice and generally as a side dish to the whole meal. Drinkers may enjoy tsukemono with beer, sake, shochu, wine, etc. However, tsukemono that goes well with drink is usually saltier than sweeter.

Chrysanthemum Turnip Tsukemono

Kabura Turnip Starts Out Looking Like This

Chrysanthemum: Not quite the right variety, but I will keep looking for the right flower.

Chrysanthemum Turnip Tsukemono - detail

Chrysanthemum Turnip Tsukemono - 'Bottom' of the Turnip

Chrysanthemum Turnip Tsukemono - 'Top' of the Turnip

Chrysanthemum Turnip Tsukemono - Served

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Wagashi: Sendai Meibutsu Zunda Mochi 仙台名物 ずんだ餅

Soft and Chewy Mochi Covered in Sweet Young Soybean Paste
Sendai is in the northern part of the main island, Honshu. This region is called Tohoku, literally ‘north east’ and is famous for many tasty things such as seafood, beef, sake, soba and apples, to name just a few. Zunda mochi is made with eda mame, young green soybeans. Eda mame are grown all over Japan but only in the Tohoku region is zunda mochi ubiquitous. It is part of the history and tradition of the region.

Eda mame, literally ‘stem bean’ because it is usually sold in bunches while still on the stalk, became popular in the Edo era about 250 years ago with the rise of the urban merchant class. It is usually a snack or appetizer and boiled, salted and chilled goes well with beer in summer. (I like to use eda mame to make this rice dish.)

To make zunda mochi, young eda mame soybeans are harvested about 3 months before the normal harvest time. They are blanched and shelled and then ground into a chunky paste in a suribachi mortar. The paste is simply sweetened with sugar and a little salt. Fresh, soft and chewy mochi is covered with the thick chunky paste. Very simple! If you can get fresh mochi abroad, you ought to be able to make this dish easily.

Sweet Young Soybean Zunda Mochi

Sweet Young Soybean Zunda Mochi

Zunda Mochi – detail

How Does Zunda Mochi Taste?
The fresh, young, green soybeans don’t taste anything like mature soybeans or tofu. The taste is just like the color: green! While the paste tastes somewhat ‘beany’, it is more fruity and fresh in taste than you might expect. The point is fresh ingredients, quick preparation and a bit of sweetness, but not too much. The salt that is usually added cannot be tasted.

The chunky texture of the paste is a wonderful contrast to the soft mochi.

This is another Japanese dish that I think we could adopt and adapt to Western cooking and tastes.

Sendai Omiyage
At omiyage shops all over Sendai this mochi is for sale. For tourists and business travelers it is packaged frozen and by the time you arrive back home in several hours to half a day it ought to be thawed out and perfect for eating. Mochi starts to harden soon after being made and the zunda fresh green soybean paste starts to discolor soon, so this omiyage should be eaten as soon as you arrive home or to the office.

The zunda mochi producers have taken their traditional regional mochi, developed modern handling and packaging techniques and made this omiyage into quite a business for the local economy. In that sense it is similar to Kyoto’s famed omiyage: Yatsuhashi. However, zunda mochi is enjoyed by locals too (unlike yatsuhashi in Kyoto) and freshness is of the essence.

Zunda Mochi Package, Fresh from Sendai

Zunda Mochi Package

Zunda Mochi Package

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Learning to Make Kyoto-style Sushi from Chef Tanigawa

About Helena Chlepnac and Sushi Fusion
Helena is lives in Switzerland and does Sushi Fusion, a sushi catering company and now offers sushi classes which are very popular. Helena has over 300 students learning to make sushi in Switzerland!

Prelude to Sushi Lesson: Furosen Sake and Funazushi Day Trip
Before learning to make Kyoto-style sushi from the Iron Chef defeater, we went up to Shiga Prefecture for a day to experience a bit of Shiga’s culinary culture.

First we visited Uehara Sake Brewery to see the how they make the world’s greatest sake: Furosen. We were given a tour of the brewery and a generous tasting. Uehara Sake Brewery revived the tradition of using wooden barrels for brewing sake and Helena remarked that her favorite champaign maker is the only one that continued to use wood while everyone else changed to stainless steel. Now, how is that for good taste!

Uehara Sake Brewery and Sixth Generation Owner Mr Uehara

Uehara Sake Brewery Tasting Furosen Sake

This is the greatest sake in the world.

Two Year Old Funazushi

In the afternoon we visited a tsukemono maker called Marucho that has been making tsukemono with Shiga vegetables since the Edo era to see how they make their pickles and Shiga’s meibutsu (famous product): funazushi. Funazishi is made from a special variety of carp from Lake Biwa that has been salted and fermented with rice for 2 years. It is a variety of narazushi (fermented fish ‘sushi’) which is the origin of modern-day sushi. Fermented fish is not popular even among many Japanese foodies for reasons that you can imagine. It is not bad though.

At Marucho they make the real deal; funazushi that has been made with the finest wild carp from Lake Biwa and fermented for 2 years. (The cheaper funazushi is made with aqua-cultured carp and only fermented 1 year.) This proper way of making funazushi is called hon-jikomi (authentic production). This requires frequent washing and changing of the rice. This is what separates the good funazushi from the bad. Additionally, the bones of the carp are quite robust and the two year fermentation process softens them to nearly the same as the meat.

Marucho generously offered us a sample of their best, hon-jikomi funazushi. Helena remarked that if she didn’t know that it was fish, she wouldn’t have known from the taste. Funazushi made the old-fashioned way is not fishy and is surprisingly sour. If you like cheese, you would probably like funazushi. The best funazushi is nearly bursting with eggs. The taste of the eggs really reminded me of mimolette cheese, both in flavor and in texture.

It was a fun and interesting day, but I sensed that Helena was really looking forward to her sushi day!

The Main Event: Sushi Lesson at Kichisen

Helena went to the Kyoto Central Wholesale Market with Chef Tanigawa bright and early and selected fish with him. From mid-day the lesson began in the kitchen. Helena learned how to make most all the summertime Kyoto sushi styles from Chef Tanigawa. Miwa translated and I only joined the party late in the afternoon, just in time to eat.

This is what Helena learned:

1. How to Clean and Prepare Fish

• Ayu (Sweetfish)
• Tai (Sea Bream)
• Saba (Mackerel)
• Hamo (Pike Eel)
• Ika (Squid)
• Akagai (Red Shellfish)

2. How to Make Kyoto-style Sushi

• Hamozushi
• Sabazushi
• Sasamaki Zushi
• Ayuzushi
• Isomaki Zushi
• Ryuhimaki
• Temarizushi (ball-shaped, similar to nigiri sushi)
• Kikuzushi (chrysanthemum flower-shaped, similar to nigiri sushi)
• Komakizushi (Kinzanji Miso, Shiso and Cucumber)
• Tsukemono Sushi (also nigiri sushi)
• Inarizushi (deep fried tofu pockets stuffed sushi)

Cleaning Fish at Kichisen

Sea bream ‘tai’ for several kinds of sushi.

Cleaning Fish at Kichisen

After cleaning the tai for sushi, the head is split for soup or rice. Nothing is discarded.

Making Sushi Rice

Chef Tanigawa kindly gave Helena his recipe for sushi rice — I got a copy of it too.

Helena Shaping Rice for Hamozushi

Chef Tanigawa Demonstrating Cutting Hamozushi

Chef Tanigawa Demonstrating Cutting Sabazushi

Finishing-up in the Kitchen

Epic Sushi Plate One

From top to bottom; hamozushi, sabazushi, inarizushi, sasamaki.

Epic Sushi Plate Two

From top to bottom, left to right; ayuzushi, kikuzushi, temarizushi, isomaki, komakizushi, tsukemono (nigiri) sushi, ryuhimaki sushi.

Assortment of Kyoto-style Sushi

My fav was the one on the bottom right, it is called ryuhi maki. It is a ‘bozushi’ made with tai on rice with sansho leaves wrapped in soft and chewy kombu and has slices of raw green yuzu between each piece. At the back right is one of Kichisen’s exquisite homemade umeboshi. On the lower left is ayuzushi.

Hamozushi (Pike Eel Sushi) – detail

Hamo is only eaten in Kyoto.

Sabazushi (Mackerel Sushi) – detail

Sabazushi is perhaps Kyoto’s most common and popular sushi.

Sasamaki (Sasa Bamboo Leaf Wrapped Sushi) – Wrapped

Sasamaki (Sasa Bamboo Leaf Wrapped Sushi) – Unwrapped

This is kodai, literally ‘small tai’ (young sea bream).

Temarizushi (Ball-shaped Sushi) – detail

This is squid (ika), notice the sprig of green kinome sansho leaf under the squid.

Q&A with Chef Tanigawa after the Feast

Chef Tanigawa said that he is open to doing such lessons occasionally for chefs from abroad. If you are a chef and going to be in town and want to learn from a Kyoto master chef, feel free to send us an email.

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Classic Japanese Candy: Sweet Potato Caramel さつまいもキャラメル

This unique caramel is made by the same Kyushu based company that makes bontan ame, another meibutsu (meisan) product. It indeed has a ‘caramely’ taste but is not as sticky and chewy as Western caramel. It still has a tiny hint of the granular stringiness of sweet potatoes. As bontan ame, it is not that sweet, probably about the right sweetness to satisfy a sweet tooth but not enough to affect the waistline.

This soft candy, like bontan ame is wrapped in the edible cellophane called oblaat that came to Japan with Western medicine at the beginning of the Meiji era. The oblaat immediately melts on contact with the tongue.

The ingredients are; mizuame (lit. ‘water candy’, a traditional sweetener), satsuma imo sweet potato, butter, sugar and condensed milk. Sweet potato makes up about 1/3 of the volume of each soft candy.

This, like bontan ame is very fascinating to me because it is made with Japanese ingredients and to Japanese tastes, but it was very obviously inspired by Western candy. In the Taisho era (1912-1926) Japan was heavily influenced and inspired by the West but was still distinctly Japanese. Much of the art, design, fashion and products of this era are very interesting to Westerners because they are modern, but not quite exotic. There is a connection to us but also there is something unique that we could not have come up with. I think that this era was Japan’s modern ‘Golden Age’.

Nostalgic Package Design

Sweet Potato Caramel with Oblaat Wrapping

Satsuma Imo (Sweet Potato)


Sweet Potatoes in Japanese Culinary Culture
Sweet potatoes are more ubiquitous in Japan than you might imagined. They are used in all sorts of dishes, especially confections. Sweet potatoes came to Japan from South America through Southeast Asia, China and the Ryukyu Kingdom, present-day Okinawa and landed in Kyushu about 300 years ago.

Production of satsuma imo soon flourished on the southern tip of Japan (called Satsuma then) because of the volcanic soil and hot climate. Kyushu’s famed imo-jochu, the shochu distilled alcohol of the region, is made from these same sweet potatoes. Farther north in Japan wheat and rice is used.

Production of sweet potatoes was limited to the Satsuma region for some time until a horrible famine swept Japan. The people in present-day Kagoshima and Nagasaki prefectures fared significantly better than other areas because they had an abundant supply of rich and hardy sweet potatoes. After the famine, satsuma imo production was promoted by the Tokugawa Shogunate in Tokyo and quickly spread throughout the country.

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Sea of Japan Heshiko Furikake へしこ ふりかけ
Heshiko is a specialty of the Sea of Japan side of Japan, the other side of the island from Kyoto. It is a preserved dish made of fish, usually mackerel or sardine. It is preserved in salted rice bran for at least a year. It is usually very salty and goes well with beer or sake.

I recently made blog friends with a blogger who is the okami-san, or proprietress, of a nice ryokan inn and restaurant in Fukui prefecture, on the Sea of Japan. They make handmade furikake from their local meibutsu (famous product), heshiko.

I ordered several bags and they arrived this morning. I opened on up and had a sniffy-sniff, and wow, it was high powered stuff! My first reaction was ‘Sea of Japan!’, their culinary culture is really different from Kyoto. It is still pretty close to Kyoto, so we have quite a bit of heshiko in Kyoto. This is preserved, not fermented fish, but it is pungent, but not in an overly challenging way. I think that most Western folks, especially foodies could handle this.

I decided to cook up some rice for lunch. To go with gourmet furikake, I knew that it had to be excellent rice cooked in the donabe earthenware pot, which tastes better than made in an electric rice cooker.

The main ingredients are: mackerel heshiko powder, daikon radish leaf powder, sesame seed, katsuo powder, shiitake powder and ichimi chili powder.

Heshiko Furikake

Iwashi Heshiko

This is what heshiko looks like when you buy it. This is sardine heshiko. To prepare heshiko, you simply wash the rice bran-salt mixture off and saute it in a bit of oil. It is very salty and pungent, so a little goes a long way. It can be put on plain rice or used as the flavoring for ochazuke. It is also a favorite tsumami (hors d’oeuvres) for drinkers.

Furikake on Rice Cooked in Donabe

Furikake on Rice Cooked in Donabe – detail

Ayugashi, one of my all time favorite wagashi is available now. It, like the actual ayu sweetfish will be in season for another month or so. I had my first of the year today from perhaps my favorite ayugashi maker, Heianden.

We did a very exaustive article last summer about ayugashi, also called wakaayu and our favorite shops in Kyoto, so I will not go into great detail on that here. You can read that article right here. (It is, I think, my favorite KyotoFoodie article.)

Heianden: Ayugashi

So, I was over near Heian Shrine today visiting the Kyoto Museum of Traditional Crafts giving them another opportunity to convince me that a tree trunk can be protected by copyright for an article on OpenKyoto.

Afterward I zipped around the corner and down the street to Heianden intent on getting my first ayugashi of the year, which I did. I also bought their meibutsu (famous product) kuzuyaki, which was quite good. Their other meibutsu, whose name I cannot recall, I did not buy, which I now regret. Next time. I did take a picture of it in the show window though.

Heianden: Ayugashi

This is the storefront of Heianden, it is just down the street from Heian Shrine and all the museums in Okazaki Park.

Heianden Store Window: It’s Early Summer

Heianden Meibutsu: Heian Mochi

I had this awhile back and really liked it, I can’t recall exactly what it tasted like.

Heianden: Ayugashi Package

I do love this package, and it isn’t too excessive.

Heianden: Ayugashi

Not the most beautifully articulated ayu sweetfish, but pretty good.

Heianden: Ayugashi

Heianden: Ayugashi

Bubbly soft gyuhi mochi filling, yum!

Kuzu Yaki
People in Kyoto are into kuzu. Remember, kuzu is the starchy root from rural Nara prefecture that Japanese love to make summer sweets with. This is azuki kuzu that has been coated with an egg white mixture then cooked a bit. Yaki is to bake, cook or grill in Japanese.

Heianden: Kuzu Yaki

I am not always a big fan of azuki paste, usually it is too sweet for me. Of course ‘too sweet’ isn’t ‘Kyoto’, ‘Kyoto’ is subtle, sophisticated and delicate.

This was my first time to have this. (I think there is a tiny wagashi shop in my neighborhood that I have seen it at but you had to order like 10 peices minimum or something like that, so I never got it.)

How did it taste?
The surface is pleasantly al dante and offers some resistance as you bite through it.  That must be from the egg coating. The inside is firm but not too firm like jelly. It is spongy but a little bubbly too. Not chewy bubbly like gyuhi mochi though because somehow while it isn’t dry and crumbly it feels like it almost is. I didn’t get that at first, then when I did, I thought that the feel, the sensation of chewing it was very ‘Kyoto’. At first I was disappointed but then I realized that this was the real deal, real Kyoto. I had missed the point in the first bite. This is what things in Kyoto are supposed to taste (and feel) like! You’ve got to be aware as you eat in Kyoto or you might miss the point. But don’t get all uptight about it though, it is Kyoto brand hedonism, but it is still hedonism. And I say, BRING IT ON!

Heianden: Kuzu Yaki

Heianden: Kuzu Yaki

Heianden: Kuzu Yaki

Do check out our definitive ayugashi article from last year. It has a link to the Google map for the Heianden location.

A bowl of udon with only two noodles? Is it a rip-off or a find? Though Tawaraya’s famous udon dish is a bit gimmicky, it does have that special and refined ‘shinise’ taste. This is a dish that has been enjoyed, across the street from an ancient shrine, by several generations of locals and pilgrims.

Today I visited another Nishijin restaurant that I had only heard about but had never been to: Tawaraya.

Tawaraya ‘Two Noodle’ Udon

Tawaraya is located just down the street from the main gate of Kitano Tenmagu Shrine in a very old and beautiful Nishijin Machiya. Tarawaya’s famous ‘meibutsu’ dish is called Nihon Udon, literally two noodles udon. You only get two noodles, so you know that they have to be substaintial. Tawaraya’s udon isn’t just thick, or even really thick, it is unbelievably, ginormously thick!

In Japan, you normally slurp noodles, but not there. Of course you still eat them with chopsticks but instead of slurping up a mouthful at a time, you bite off a mouthful at a time, from a single noodle!

Nihon udon is served with a very rich and rather salty dashi broth and shredded ginger, which you add yourself. I only used about half of mine.

The noodles of course taste like udon, but the feeling is more like eating mochi, very interesting.

Numerous other noodle dishes are available, but I didn’t try them. It looked like the other udon dishes are not served with the super thick udon, but ‘standard’ thickness udon.

Tawaraya Storefront

The machiya is especially beautiful, inside and out. The thick wooden columns and lintels are painted blackish brown. In the genkan entry there is a huge well with a bamboo cover. The floor is made of huge stone slabs, generously sprinkled with water. (Japanese love sprinkling water on pavement, stones and so on.)

While the price of 700 yen is reasonable for a tasty, shinise lunch in Kyoto, if you are a famished traveler the nihon udon probably would not be a substantial enough meal for you. The meal is classic Nishijin style, not a large serving but it is just enough to keeo you going for . If you want to try something novel and a Kyoto meibutsu that many Kyotoites haven’t sampled and you are visiting Nishijin or Kitano Tenmagu Shrine, this is a great place to lunch.

Lunch is quick here and it is not the kind of machiya dining experience in which you can really take your time and enjoy the atmosphere and the food.

Tawaraya Noren Curtain

Tawara means ‘straw bail of rice’, depicted in brush and ink on natural Japanese linen here on the Tawaraya noren curtain. ‘Ya’ means store, or shop.

Tawaraya Storefront ‘Menu’

This shows the other dishes available, having them all pinned to the traditional woodwork is rather unfortunate, not very ‘Nishijin’, too in your face.

Tawaraya ‘Two Noodle’ Udon – Served

The small plate on the lower right is grated ginger. You add as much as you like. For me, half was enough. I drank all my dashi, which you really aren’t supposed to do because of all the salt content. But, it was excellent!

Tawaraya ‘Two Noodle’ Udon

Tawaraya ‘Two Noodle’ Udon

Tawaraya Machiya Interior

This little room, off of the genkan entryway is for show and dipicts what a traditional Nishijin machiya room looks like.

Tawaraya Machiya Interior

Sorry, I didn’t have my usual camera today and was unable to get good photos of the interior.

Tawaraya Machiya Storefront

On the right side of Tawaraya is a small shrine where pregnant women come to pray for a safe delivery. If you are traveling in Japan, and pregenant, you can do lunch at Tawaraya and pray for a safe delivery! What a deal!

English and Service
Tawaraya たわらや
English service: No English menu, but the menu does have photos. You can just point. The staff is friendly and reports that foreign guests frequent the restaurant as it is right down the street from Kitano Tenmagu Shrine.
tel: 075-463-4974
Kyoto-shi Kamigyo-ku Onmae-dori Imakoji-sagaru Bakuro-cho 918 (京都市上京区御前通今小路下ル馬喰町918)
hours 11am-4pm (closed Tuesday)

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The other day I was up in Shiga Prefecture, just over the East Mountains from Kyoto, on the shores of Lake Biwa and I was given a package of whole sugatani ayu, a trout-like sweetfish from Lake Biwa as a gift.

Itadakimono: A Gift Humbly Received
The giving of small gifts in Japan is an important part of the culture and gifts are very often food. Ayu, the sweetfish that inhabit rivers in Japan and Lake Biwa are prepared in a myriad of ways. Ayu Sugatani 鮎姿煮, is whole ayu simmered in sweetened sake and soy sauce with sansho. The small, 15 cm fish have been simmered a very long time, so you can eat everything; the head, bones, fins, internals. There is no bitterness from the internals and I didn’t even notice that I was eating bones. In Japan it is said that eating the bones of fish is very nutritious.

Whole Simmered Ayu on Jukkokumai ’10 Grain’ Rice

Jukkokumai Rice
I made some rice (also some itadakimono) with jukkokumai 十穀米, literally ’10 grains rice’. Jukkokumai comes in small packets and contains 10 kinds of grains that can be added to the rice cooker to make white rice more hearty and nutritious. There are lots of variations, 5, 10, 15 grain, and each company’s mix usually contains a unique assortment of grains.

I was intending the jukkokumai to be for breakfast but as I hadn’t eaten much today I decided to have some with my simmered ayu itadakimono for a midnight snack.

It just took a minute to prepare and tasted wonderful. I took one ayu out from the vacuum pack and cut it into thin sections. I simply placed it atop the rice and voilà! The gokokumai would have been a little bland all by itself and the simmered ayu would have been too salty alone. This was the perfect combination.

Oyu-wari Imo-jochu
I washed it down with some sweet potato shochu (imo-jochu) in hot water (oyu-wari). On a cold winter night, just before bed, shochu with hot water really hits the spot! The imo-jochu variety has a very strong and peculiar taste and bouquet. Imo-jochu is popular with older men in Japan. Women, as a rule, can’t stand the stuff.

Whole Simmered Ayu – In the Package

Whole Simmered Ayu – Sliced

The left side is the head and the right is the tail.

Whole Simmered Ayu on Jukkokumai Rice

Whole Simmered Ayu on Jukkokumai Rice – detail

Whole Simmered Ayu on Jukkokumai Rice – How to Eat

Sorry about the horrible photo, I was eating with one hand and photographing with the other. So, you just scoop up some rice with a piece of ayu.

Other Ayu Related Articles on KyotoFoodie
Wagashi: Ayugashi or Waka-ayu Sweetfish Shaped Confection
Wagashi: More Kawaii Father’s Day Wagashi