I have been blowing my budget in Japan, my food budget that is. There are so many delicious things to try here, and almost everything I taste is marvellous! While in Osaka, I was heavily influenced by social media, and ate things I had seen or heard of before. The best Japanese food I ate in Kyoto was far more unfamiliar and local.
Onigiri
Of course I had seen multiple people trying the onigiri from 711. And I did in fact try one in Bangkok, it was way to spicy for me so ended up in the bin.
Whilst walking the streets of Kyoto, I found a place on a street corner, where locals were lining up, to select their favourite flavour of onigiri for lunch. I joined the queue and ended up with two pieces that I scurried home with to try.
Oh wow, beautiful delicate flavours, neither overpowering. One was perilla & miso and the other, fish-egg and pickled radish. Cost was 370 yen or $3.30 CAD.
Breakfast
Being out and about most mornings, means if there is one meal of the day I am usually looking for, it is breakfast. I found out here in Kyoto, that many locals have a simple brekkie of coffee/tea, a boiled egg and a piece of toast. Simple and perfect.
Interestingly, bread here in Japan comes in sizes! Yes, at any bakery and the grocery store, you will commonly see sizes 4, 6 & 8, with 8 being the thinnest slices, a little bigger than what I am used to in Canada. Size 4 is down right huge and is what all of these restaurants was serving for breakfast.
The boiled egg was always room temperature, never hot, the coffee was average at the chain restaurants and amazing at the one off places. Sometimes, little salad was in accompaniment with a delicious light and tangy dressing.
It was super fun for me, to sit inside these places (Sizuya Bakery, Ogawa Coffee & Hoshino Coffee), surrounded by locals, all cracking their eggs on the table, munching their toast and usually reading a news paper! How quaint and lovely.
Japanese Spaghetti?
Yes indeed! The best thing I ate in Kyoto was hands down, Japanese spaghetti. I saw a line of locals standing outside a restaurant called Pound Shijo Kawaramachi. Having a look inside the window case, I saw a multitude of plastic dishes, each representing a type of spaghetti made with local Kyoto traditional vegetables.
I ordered the ‘half & half A’, getting to try two dishes instead of one. Both arrived on a tray with a small cup of soup. The first dish was ‘tamba chicken and tamba shimeji’ and the second was ‘red snow crab, shrimp and karasumi peperoncino’.
I dove into the chicken spaghetti with the egg yolk on top. My gosh, this is one of my top 5 pasta dishes I have ever had in my whole entire life. Right here in Kyoto Japan. The flavours were perfect, creamy goodness with bright notes of fresh pepper and salty chunks of ham.
The second bowl was seafood extravaganza, perfectly cooked eldente pasta. Not saucy or creamy at all, so don’t tell anyone, but I poured the left-over sauce from the first bowl into this one. 🫣🫣🫣 Cost was 1,750 yen with the iced tea, or $15.70 CAD. A steal.
Tea House
Last but not least, I dearly wanted to experience a traditional Japanese tea house while I was in Kyoto. I found one located not too far from my Airbnb called Nishinotoin Tea House. At the front is a small exclusive bakery and at the back, facing a sweet little Japanese garden were four tables.
I was seated and provided with the menu, a glass of water and a warm white cloth to wipe my hands. I wanted to drink matcha, the real matcha, so I ordered ‘Matcha Miabi No In’ which came with a sweet as well. After being offered a choice of three sweets and not being able to decide, I selected two instead of the one. Greedy girl.
When my matcha arrived, I was asked to drink it while it was hot. It was just a tad past warm, foaming and so pretty. The flavour was so much better than western matcha. Earthy, grassy and sweet, and with a hint of dirt. Not the strong, overpowering, nose squinching liquid I have tasted previously.
Sweets
The first sweet I tried with the matcha was the Sakura flower. It was pleasantly sweet but didn’t have any distinct flavour, even though filled with white bean paste. The second sweet was a super star, a two-layer jelly, the top being made from cherry blossom petals and the bottom layer from the leaves.
It tasted exactly like you would envision, the top layer perfumy and the bottom a bit grassier. Absolutely divine.
I did have dinner at Chao Chao Gyoza, who have won best gyoza two years in a row. It was crispy and salty if a little on the burnt side. Super delish with an iced cold Asahi beer. My meals in Kyoto were nothing short of amazing. Exactly what I had hoped food in Japan would be. There were some other snacks here and there, but these were the biggies. Happy tummy, happy travels.
