A mini-tour of Kyoto dining

Recently, my friend Aki came to visit from Nagano for a few days. She asked me to show her around Kyoto, so one of the things we decided to do was to eat lunch at a restaurant called Ume no Hana (梅の花), which features authentic Kyoto cuisine for lunch at a reasonable price.

The restaurant is pretty high-class, at least judging from the atmosphere and the excellent and extremely polite service, so I felt silly and touristy taking pictures of everything that came out, but I did take five shots with my cell's camera with the intent of blogging about it.

I ordered the Ume no Hana Lunch (梅の花ランチ), but there were some dishes that contained egg and fish. As I am vegan, I explained this to our server, who immediately reassured me that she would have replacements arranged. This level of service in regards to special dietary needs is somewhat rare in Japan in my experience. As my friend Taka explained to me, a Japanese restaurant's mission is to serve its guests the most delicious food possible. Service is important too, but can offend a chef if you go against the recommended/established dishes, as he has worked hard to create a unique taste for you. Putting salt, pepper, or other spices on a dish without tasting it first is considered in extremely poor taste, and although most chefs will politely ignore the infraction, some will evidently become very upset and even berate you. I'm sure that's very rare, and I've never experienced such wrath, but then again, I'm not wealthy enough to frequent high-class restaurants with renowned chefs.

Above is the replacement they gave me for a sort of egg custard with seafood embedded in it (I think it was called chamushi but I can't find any references on the web so I may have misheard. The replacement was a tōfu and potato croquette that was delicious. It was light and not at all too oily. I was also impressed with the classy lemon-squeezer they gave me. I had never seen one before...am I just a country bumpkin, or are there others out there who didn't know such tools existed?

Next on our tour is grilled nama-fu (生麩), wheat starch, served warm in two different flavors, matcha (powdered green tea) and yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit similar to lime). It was divine, and if you ever want to get an awesome, delicious present from Kyoto, I highly recommend skipping the ubiquitous Yatsuhashi/yūko and grabbing some of this nama-fu instead.

Above is an earthenware pot filled with tōfu and yuba (a dried, tōfu-like food). The translucent broth you can see is nigari (苦塩), or brine, and turns white as it cooks, which serves as a signal for when you can eat it. The flowers are made of nama-fu. We ate it with soy sauce, crushed sesame seeds, and ginger, and it was delicious. Below is a shot of some other assorted dishes that came with the lunch: an okara (雪花菜) puree to the left and fresh yuba "sashimi" with wasabi (山葵) at center.

It doesn't look like much, but there was also rice and other dishes which I didn't take pictures of, and I was plenty full by the time the final course was served. For anybody new to Kyoto, I definitely recommend this lunch set at Ume no Hana -- it will set you back about 2000 yen, but is well-worth the expense.