Only two of the meals we ate in Kyoto are worth recording for posterity, due in part to our continued indulgence in the hotel breakfast (H. especially enjoyed the omlets cooked in lard).
Gontaro, Homemade Noodles
Sunday night we ate at a homemade udon and soba place a few blocks from the hotel. The first sign of the meal's quality was the superiority of the cheapest sake on the menu to anything we'd had in the US. We complemented the sake with some fresh homemade tofu, a small ball about the size and consistency of a decent-sized piece of buffalo mozzarella that was more texture than taste, leaving a clean creamy sensation in the mouth. A Teriyaki sauce added flavor as we ate closer to the bottom of the dish, but the first bite did a lot to redeem tofu in my mind (alas, Monday's lunch erased some of that goodwill).
I followed up the tofu with soba noodles stewed with chicken and leeks in a perfect bonito broth (A. and W. opted for Udon). The leeks added a mellow onion-y flavor which gave a richness to the broth. The noodles themselves had a gentler buckwheat taste than those we had had in Tokyo, and a wonderful melt-in-your mouth chewiness. Coupled with the courtesy of the staff and the adorableness of the restaurant, it was a very delicious, very Japanese meal.
Restaurant at corner across from Daikoji temple
The thing to eat in Kyoto is kaiseki, an elaborate meal of small courses of beautifully prepared food, and its vegetarian Buddhist cousin, shojin-ryori. These meals can range from $50/person into the hundreds, with the lunch sets generally being a bit more reasonable. Because A. is not a huge meat person, we opted to go for the vegetarian option. Too bad we didn't realize she wasn't a huge tofu person either...
The hotel sent us a to a lovely place pretty far to the West of the town. Despite our late arrival (as evidenced by this post, the hotel didn't give us the restaurant's name and we got lost), the family running the restaurant greeted us with excitement, and led us to our private dining room. Here, in the relative cool and calm, we positioned ourselves at low slung black lacquer tables, ready to eat.
The first tray of food, beautifully presented on red lacquer servingware, was a bowl of rice, a plate of various marinated vegetables, and a dish of an eggplant, sesame and edamame spread. The spread was the highlight of the selection, the chunky, chewy texture of the vegetable being complimented by the sesame and offset visually by the green of the shelled soy beans. It was by far the best babaghanoush I've had. The marinated vegetables were also quite good, with a lotus root in a sweet black marinade, mildly sweet picked ginger, and some well-cooked mushrooms and eggplants. Midway through this course, we were also brought a dashi broth flavored so mildly with bonito flakes that the scallions and ginger gave it an almost dirt-like earthy taste. Floating in the broth were two dumplings, one potato and one of the unidentified gelatinous variety.
The next tray was three types of marinated tofu – a dark, a light and a medium intensity, topped by a green star-shaped "savory marshmallow." This garnish would reappear on subsequent dishes. I didn't particularly care for this selection. There is a certain Japanese flavor, a sweet-sour brine that is usually paired with food of a squishy, slimy nature, that I really don't care for. Paired with tofu, also not a must-eat, I passed my plate to H.
The tofu extravaganza was succeeded by a small half eggplant, roasted, sectioned like a grapefruit and coated in a flavorful orange paste that tasted vaguely citrus-y with a chalky aftertaste. The sweetness of the sauce paired well with the slight bitterness of the soft eggplant. We all spent most of the course kicking ourselves, trying to identify the vaguely familiar taste (Children's orange chewable motrin was my best guess). Despite the medicinal association, I very much enjoyed this plate.
The final savory course of the meal was a dish of tofu simmered in lime-scented water, accompanied by ginger fried rice. Shojun-ryori is about highlighting a single taste and dialing down every other ingredient to the bare minimum. The tofu, simmered in a broth scented only with nail-clipping sized shaving of unripe lime peel, was the prime example of this, tasting of almost nothing in an interesting way. Unfortunately, I like my food like I like boys – brash, complicated and in small doses (at this point on the train between Kyoto and Tokyo, A., reading over my shoulder, burst out laughing). Thus, the subtlety of the tofu, which resembled a wet sponge, was totally lost on me. I did like the heavily gingered fried rice (H. pointed out Jean-Georges did too, basing a minimalist column fried rice recipe on something similar).
We finished the meal with slices of perfectly ripe Asian pear, served on frozen glass trays that mimicked ice slabs, green tea flavored sweetened rice paste wrapped around red beans, and bitter, frothy matcha. Overall, it was quite an experience and an enjoyable one, but I came out really craving the one-two flavor punch of a big mac and fries. Maybe that's why we had convenience store soft serve for dinner – also a simple taste, but one we identified with home.
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