The following are a gastronomical travelogue, written in the style of Good Eats episodes, during a trip to Kyoto in August 2007.
Welcome to the first installment of our new series, Feasting on Rice. Join me as I munch my way across Japan, from the shopping districts of Tokyo, to the Convention Center of Kyoto, and back again. This episode, we consider the possibilities of quick picks: eating on the run in the Japanese culture of many contrasts. Consider that Japan is one of the few places where a fine night out can involve 10 courses and as many giesha serving them, but where nearly everything - from hot cans of coffee to cold 'water salad', to fine scotch, to alkaline batteries - are sold in automated vending machines on nearly every street corner. Last night, as I began my journey, I wandered the Picadilly Circus of Tokyo, its Shibuya shopping district, where huge intersections are filled to capacity with shoulder-packed pedestrians at red lights, and where you can get everything from pizza, to sushi, to McDonalds 24/7. Last evening, I wandered through a half-covered facade renovation to find a cold noodle shop not much larger than a phone booth. Back in the US, this would nearly qualify as a box-car diner in size, with one long counter of about 15 seats, and a handful of 2-person tables opposing it. Behind the counter, the staff and kitchen, peeking through a service window, broiling, steaming, and frying colorful bouquets. Perched at the counter near a Burton-bespectacled goth and his doily date, my own selection was a typical, modest early-evening snack - cold noodles with tempura. Typically this would consist of soba, the fine, squared spaghettini with an earthy hue, but this shop's specialty was soba-esque udon - squared, like its counterpart, but white and a bit translucent, in the spirit of raw squid. The rubberiness of the typical udon can be a surprise to a Western palate, especially when cold, but these were a welcome, wriggely delight when dipped in their light soy/teriaki sauce laced with ground golden daikon and garnished with sliced green onion. For contrast as well as depth, a pickup-stix pile of tempura, a sausage of a (paradoxically-named) shrimp and a matching plank of whitefish, a ruler of eggplant and a wedge of sweet potato, and two stringbean crisps round out the selection, all washed down with an icy blast of deep buckwheat tea. I returned to the steamy streets refreshed, investing only 15 minutes overall. --- Morning blazed through pleated linen, and the newly-minted N700 shinkansen awaits. A modest, overly-digitized pump soaked a pouch of darjeeling; green tea doesn't take to sweetening, and won't match my pre-breakfast snack - a pair of pancake sandwiches, hugging a nondescript but sugary white cream, picked up last night at the AM/PM minimarket. From the outside, the familiar Old Glory-colored logo beckoned, but inside a different world greeted. All manner of dried flora and fauna - tentacles included - in richly decked bags, teas of every nature and some not so natural, a geometrists' dream of inori-wrapped ricecakes, and cellophaned cakes. Snack cakes in Asia represent the wide variety of cultures, but they represent only a few canonical styles: the pound cake, the bread bun, and the flaky pastry. Most are iced, in a manner - lightly tinted, thin strokes of glaze, more for the eye than the tooth, especially if that tooth is sweet. Fillings include white, red, and brown pastes, some of cream, some of bean, with the bean the most sugary. I chose pancake sandwiches, two rounds of what tasted like fried versions of poundcake, each with a sliver of cream paste between. That worked for a 5-am treat, but the bullet train is half a day and several blocks of slogging a stack of luggage away, so off to the coffeeshop I strode. Japan has many coffee bars, cousins to the celestial American offering, many serving as quick breakfast and lunch stops. The 'breakfast setu', or breakfast set, consists of a sandwich and coffee, and can be had for roughly the price of a cuppa. Although java is quite pricy in these parts - $2.50 for regular Joe - a set is a steal, including what we Yanks would call a brunch sandwich. A somewhat undercooked egg, slice of passable preprocessed chedder-ese, and another of ham sat nestled in a warm square ciabatta, a steal for the extra $1 of the set. The rich iced coffee was a milky counterpoint to the savory sandwich, diluted ever so slightly by gum syrup, or what our fans know as a simple syrup, which powered me through a few paper reviews and a nice freon chill. Shigeya met me later that morning, back at the hotel, waiting in the lobby as he had when he'd greeted my arrival the evening before, with a hearty grin and equally hearty hug. We went back to the same coffee bar, which is nearly enough to be called a regular here, and secured two iced maple concoctions. The froth of US equivalents was replaced by a dollop of dense whipped cream, suspending a woven mat of Canadian glaze above its caffienated doom. It took three pots of syrup to compensate for the maple's facade, however. We had more pressing matters, as our ride was due in about 30 minutes. Train fare can be had, but, as always, often galactically preserved. Instead we descend into the lower sanctum of the department store, the take-away zone. A kalaidescope of sushi, obento boxes, and yakitori beckon, but I'm drawn to a chest of sticky rice with vegetables and fish, while my guide raves over a favorite of his youth - a pork katsu patty, layered in teriaki glaze, pressed between meaty shakes of dense whitebread and cut into soldiers; like everything down here, they resemble modern art more than a midday meal. We gather our booty, and head for the platform; lunch at 280 Kph awaits. Whether it's breakfast on the run, a noontime feast, or a light dinner, Japan offers the impatient a variety of tasty, healthy, and hearty alternatives, all served with a wink and a nod, and all,... (cut to music)
It is said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, an encouragement to the weary traveler that no matter how imposing the trip, they all start alike. The same is not as true for gastronomical trips, especially when the guest of a local here in Japan. To describe the journey, we must begin by describing the transport - in this case, a combination ryokan (Japanese-style hotel) / restaurant nestled around the corner from an otherwise nondescript business district in the heart of Kyoto. The building sits low, nestled below a streetlamp lumbering with a disconcerting array of transformers and insulators. The roof is tiled in Japanese style, peaks capped with glistening representations of bamboo, with dark tan walls and with brown trim; it could easily be mistaken for the entrance to temple grounds. We enter, and are greeted by a pair of hostesses dressed in modest kimonos, who help us exchange our street shoes for somewhat flimsy bathroom slippers. We enter, and leave the Westernized Japan behind. We enter our eating area by a door, to a closet-sized anteroom, where we leave our slippers. We enter past a sliding ricepaper door, to a private dining room the size of a small bedroom. The floor is covered with tatami mats, and a small black lacquered table hovers over a sunken area on whose edge we sit - a nod to Western preferences for dangling legs down, rather than folded. Another nod is the legless chair, covered in dense beige pillows, whose short backs frame the table in opposition. We sit, and gaze out wooden-framed sliding glass doors, opening onto a deftly manicured garden, a woodland in miniature, with a bubbling brook hosting a dance of orange and silvered coi. We turn our gazes back to the table, each place set with a lacquered tray, onto which is placed a lowball glass serving as the vase of an artificial lily pad, on top a scoop of bouquet de mer - a delicate fish broth gelatin encasing small slices of okra, corn, and green onion, nestled around bits of fish and shrimp, glazed in a thin, spicy, cocktail sauce. Our hostess returns with beer and cold tea, the former (and sake) being more traditional, but the latter a welcome refresher from the day's husky heat. The tea is deep and grain-tinged, a combination barley and pekoe combination that is favored here. It joins a white plate with a trio of sashimi, including a light halibut with skin, thin strips of clam, and a delicate flounder. The plate includes whisps of pumpkin and a small flowered stalk, both intended to contrast the fish. Two dipping sauces are brought - a circle of traditional soy, and a square of a very light, clear sauce for the flounder. The flounder is worth noting - a few thin folded slices reveal a delicate undertone, especially present in the dime-sized square culled from the most fragrant area, hovering on top of the pile. Our third course brings a raft of steamed whitefish, bathed in a light broth, supporting a pair of smoked eggplant wedges and a translucent slice of lime. The fish yields gently to our chopsticks, almost tofu-like, as the smoke wafts through the broth. This is followed by a woven read box rendered in resin, hosting a choir of treats. Two slices of Kyoto mackeral, less oily and light, wrapped around rice, an inverted sushi roll. A dollop of avocado - crunchy and dull white, not green - in a whipped tofu base. A small square cup of marinated wood mushrooms, with small slices of yellow and green crunch. A heavenly aspic of fish broth, its square bottomed by crumbled bits of flesh, sits aside a poppy-like paper cup with two wedges of steamed yellow fig. A quill of ginger, its base bright pink, changing to deep red at its tip, helps clear the palate for the next round. A clear crystal bowl, edged in etched scallops, and bottomed in glistening bubbles of glass, hosts a stand of green bean and a cowlick of shredded ginger. Steamed purple eggplant spears support two steaks of herring, oily and smokey, in a thin smoke broth. Next a shallow earthen dish with a slab of red snapper, its scales hoisted for running by a quick glance of a torch, protecting its delicate roasted skin for our delight. Our hostess marvels at my gaigin (foreigner) chopstick skills in removing the scales intact. I have failed to note that we have come to a tempura house, one of three primary specialties of the Kyoto region -- the other two being eel and the 'hot pot': half soup, half stew. Our previous six courses make us wonder, but now comes the house specialty. A long wedge of eggplant, a lotus root slice, and a hollowed round of zucchini circle two elegant candles of shrimp, their tails blazing skyward. An abalone-shaped bowl of the typical sauce sits below a stoplight of garnishes: go for a golfball of grated daikon, wait for a puff of coarse salt, and stop for lemon juice with a small wedge of its mother fruit. I stop several times for the novelty, but hold off on the wait on doctors orders. A green weave of ceramics cradles a fan of eggplant, a dark mushroom cap, and a spear of zucchini. On the side, an aloof blade of flat fish, tail fluttering above the plate, hovers over a crescent of squash. Most unique is a medallion of squid, walleted in a leaf, presumably to secure the delicate batter. At this point, my guest and I are realizing that small can be misleading; we're starting to reach our fill. He, infamous for his 'sushi stomach' - an extra hold into which he can consume vast volumes - has no tempura equivalent. We're overwhelmed by an entire tray of contrasts: a battered fish and vegetable hash slathered over a bed of sticky rice, dipped glancingly in tempura sauce, something I've never seen before, but my host notes was a childhood favorite; a bowl of red miso soup, bottomed in a bundle of paper-thin tofu. A square dish of pickled watermelon rhind, first hinting of cucumber, next to a bundle of purple pickle whose crunch shakes the windows, both nestled by a pile of nearly microscopic smoked fish. These fish - it'd take two to span a penny - look more like dark, shredded ginger, and are more commonly used as a garnish on plain rice. A cup of barley tea rounds out the set. We wonder, at this point, whether we have room for any more courses, or the will to decline them if they appear. One more for the road, a dessert course, grouped on a cut crystal plate: an eyeball-sized peeled and lightly roasted green grape, two wedges of Asian pear, and a gelatin square, zebra-striped in white coconut and deep green grape. The pear is surprising, it being mid-August, and pear being a fall delight. This final set comes with its own, Kyoto-special tea. Most teas are simply dried and brewed, but a few are dried and then smoked. This one inverts the process, being smoked first, and is new even for my native host. It smells a bit of cigarette ashes - not something a Westerner would expect or welcome - but I sip it cautiously. It's odd indeed, but its smoke grows on the palate, and provides a novel counterpoint to the sweetness of the plate (noting that such sweetness is very rare here, so cutting the saccharine would be expected). Our hostess is surprised that I compliment the combination; most westerners, she noted, skip the drink. We rise to leave, and are met at the egress by several hostesses, all enthusiastic about our visit, all following us out onto the street, bowing all the way. We bow many times as well, as it strikes me that it we who should be thankful for the journey we have shared. We return to the bustling streets, thankful for our local's recommendation. Traveling halfway around the world, we note that it's the local favorites that have the power to surprise, and that all journeys begin at home. This home took us on a tour of many sites, and was definitely... (cue music).
Most Japanese restaurants focus on pure Japan-style cooking; tempura, sushi, etc., but a few lend a distinctly Japanese style to the cuisines of neighboring areas. Tonight, we explore a Sino-Japanese combination, near the Kamo River in Kyoto, famous for its lazy walks and the periodically-spaced couples courting on its banks. We depart the subway station onto a nondescript business district. Turning the corner, we follow a small tributary that hugs the feet of modern office buildings, and walks alonside a small surface street hemmed in a cacophony of take-out food and shops, crowned by arching footbridges and mortarboards of streetcrossings, slim willows raining down. Shifting left into a yawn's-width of back alley, we arrive at our destination, fronted in bamboo and roofed in decorated tile. A winding path through a blast of air-conditioned welcomes, and we exit to the back deck, hovering a story above a paved banks of the parent river. We sit on pillowlike mats on the floor, our feet dangling beneath a long banquet table, below an open sky showering us in remnants of the searing midday sun. A round of beer and sake rapidly appears. Our first course follows shortly after, a narrow white tray of nibbles nearly masquerading as petit-fours in rich lipstick red, bright lime green, and deep forest browns with paradoxically delicate flavors. Most unique is a tofu cube, wading in a sake cup of light brine, with a marshmallow texture. A cold pumpkin soup follows, with a pinch of parsley, laced more in garlic and zucchini flavor. A beef bite campfire rests on a flat envelope of ceramic, with a dollop of grated daikon and a lilliputian lime slice sitting watch opposite; these are eaten more like tempura, dipped in a shimmering citrus-soy ponzu bath. Next, we're greeted with tempura-enrobed green beans and fishcake nuggets, blanketed in paper tofu. A golden foil daisy cup with dipping salt guards a small, deep-fried anemone of pink extruded pasta. A striated glass bowl cradles a block of wintersquash, its top nicked into a slanted checkerboard. Two conger eel diamonds rest above, ribboned in cold fish-stock gelatin, beneath a gang of ikura (salmon eggs). Most dishes thus far are equally at home in Japan and China, but the next are distinctly foreign: a ring of disemboweled shrimp and a scallop rest under two asparagus sentries and a blanket of seeded chili sauce, with three okra-slide tealamps on perimeter duty. Two potato dumplings - more like chewy ricepaste than gnocchi - flank the sea fare. An earthen bowl of savory rice porrige laced with saffronlike dried fish and butterflies of toasted bread rounds out the main courses. A final upended cup of floury flan, peppered with vanilla bean, meaty and dense, with a bud of whipped cream on a black plate concludes our tour. We gaze out upon the riverbanks, with an eerie Christmas glow of sparklers, as the sated meander along with the rippling current, hopscotching over slumbering pebbles. Back through the gauntlet of sionaras, donning our street feet, and back to our hotels we go, secure in the first-hand knowledge that, when East meets East, we're surely in for a fusion of... (cue music)