Dinner in Kyoto

At the end of our trip we spent 1 night in Kyoto. We wanted to have a nice meal in Kyoto and so went to Pontocho where we had eaten with Heather and Jeremy in the summer. It didn’t seem like as many restaurants were open and it wasn’t very bustling so we opted to go to the geisha district of Gion. We actually got to see a couple of geisha again this time. During the summer we were lucky enough to see a geiko and a maiko waiting on a taxi outside of one of the restaurants and we saw a geisha go into the same place this time. We decided to go in too and see if we could eat there. We were seated at the counter and ordered the seasonal course dinner.

It ended up being quite an entertaining dinner. A drunk salaryman in his 60s who was obviously a bit of a regular there was seated next to us and was eager to practice his English. Due to his inebriated state he couldn’t remember a single thing we said from minute to minute and we ended up being from Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and the US during the course of the meal. Not long after the salaryman sat down, a guy on holiday from Hong Kong came in and then a young Japanese guy sightseeing in Kyoto. It was a strange mix of English dialects, Japanese and cultures.

The food was beautiful and delicious. The most interesting dish was served in a special kind of teapot but it was actually soup. They had to show us what to do with it. Squeeze a lime into the soup. Turn the lid over and use as a cup to drink the broth. Eat the vegetables and seafood out of the pot with chopsticks after drinking the broth.

There were several tofu dishes, wonderful sashimi and sushi. Rice with autumn wild mushrooms called matsutake. And a delicious jelly type dessert with nut powder. The mama-san of the restaurant I think felt sorry for us having to deal with the drunk gentlemen and didn’t charge us for one of our sakes. It was a very interesting evening.