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.

Konquering the Kimono

Apologies for such a long absence from the blogosphere. Since it's been a while, I'll break up the recent news into several posts for readability.

This one is to celebrate Anna's recent victory! Loyal readers already know that Anna and I have been learning how to put on kimono for the last three months, but some of you may not have realized that the end for all this preparation was to compete in the Kansai Regionals of the All-Japan Kimono-Wearing Contest (a rough translation of 全日本きもの装いコンテスト・関西大会). This contest is, to my understanding put on every three years by the Japanese National Association of Kimono Consultants (全日本きものコンサルタント協会).














Yesterday we spent the whole day at Kyoto Kaikan, as we had to arrive at 9:00 AM to attend the orientation, do several rehearsals, etc. Anna and I had entered the Foreigner's Division. Kyoto Kaikan is a big event center with several large auditoriums, and the Kimono-Wearing Contest was held in Hall #1, shown at left as seen from the stage. It's a cavernous space with a capacity of over 2,000 and fancy things like acoustical tiling and a remote-controlled microphone that comes up from the stage floor through a trapdoor. I didn't have a chance to take any photographs myself, so I grabbed the picture from Kyoto Kaikan's website.

We ordered two copies of the contest on VHS (unfortunately they didn't offer a copy on DVD), and our friend supposedly videotaped the whole thing, so I will try to digitize the footage and post it here or on my website as soon as I get the tape. In the meantime all I can show you are pictures of the certificates and awards we received.















Anna won first place in the Foreigner's Division! I didn't place in the top three, but my certificate shows that I came in fourth place. This is not exactly true, as every contestant who fails to make the top three received a 4th-place certificate. I'm not sure whether that system is unique to this contest, or if it's common in Japan...I will look into the issue. I know the picture is small, but the text "第１位" to the left of "ANNA DYPOLD" is the part that shows her finish...I think it's a beautiful certificate, but it would have been nicer if they had written her name phonetically in Japanese.

Below is mine...it looks identical to hers except for the name and the fact that the ranking shows "4" instead of "1." The text is a bit hard to read so I'll type it up. In English:

"In recognition of this individual who has taken to heart the culturally different ways of traditional Japanese attire, participating in this Festival of Japanese Spirit and Beauty / The All Japan Kimono Dressing Contest Regional Finals / For high marks and an excellent showing, with due praise, this award is presented."

Moving on to the goodies we got for participating! I still haven't taken pictures of everything, but by far the biggest steal for Anna was receiving the beautiful purple silk kimono she has been using to practice for the last three months. It was brand-new when our teacher, Taniguchi-sensei lent it to her. When Anna started showing a lot of potential early on, she issued a challenge that if Anna could win 1st place in the regionals, she would give Anna the kimono. We suspect it would have cost a fortune, so we're both really happy for the gift/prize. The only thing is, a kimono by itself is not very useful, as many other garments and accessories are needed to wear a kimono in the style that Anna did in the competition. Aside from the obi (帯), a.k.a. kimono sash, which can be extremely expensive, there are also undergarments called nagajuban (長襦袢), a form for tying the obi called a biyō-sugata (美容姿), and a variety of clips, plastic pieces, ropes, cords, and collars. We will try to collect a full set for her before we leave Japan, and with hope we can get some reasonable deals on this equipment since our teacher also runs a wholesale kimono business.















I didn't win anything worthy of mentioning, but Anna also won two beautiful furoshiki (風呂敷), Japanese-style handkerchiefs for wrapping presents, a pair of zōri (Japanese-style shoes), a purse, and a trophy.

On a technical note, although Blogger's easy publishing is convenient, I'm frustrated with the lack of options for layout and editing pictures. The text-wrapping features are extremely difficult to use with their WYSIWYG editor. Maybe I'll just write my own blogger and host it on my website.