The very small old cafe between Kodaiji temple and Kiyomizudera temple was a Japanese famous artist Yumeji Takehisa's favorite place.

Kyoto Higashiyama is one of the most famous place to visit for sight-seeing.

Walking along the stone steps road called Ninenzaka, between Kodaiji temple and Kiyomizudera temple, there is a small sweet café “Ninenzaka-Kasagiya.”
I love this old rustic small shop especially in summer season, because you can have “Tokusei-Siruko Shake,” made by red beans and white gem, and this is the only shop where you can have it in Kyoto.

“Amatou-no Sudoori Dekinu Ninenzaka” is a famous Senryu, shortest poem in Japan, saying that “With sweet tooth, you can’t walk through Ninenzaka with non-stop.” J
I am sorry to say again but it is a small and rustic café and foreigners, or even young Japanese will pass by, however, rustic appearance also indicates its tradition in Ninenzaka street.

Yumeji Takehisa is a famous artist who liked to draw a woman in his unique style, some of Japanese Manga writers were affected by his pictures.

Yumeji was living in the house just the vicinity of this café, and this Kasagiyais well known as a favorite café of Yumeji and his wife.


This is the “Tokusei-Shiruko shake.”





Frozen Oshiruko with white gem topping.

If you say it in Starbucks style, it is Azuki Frapecino with Shiratama.

Just as looking, it is a cup of gelato and not too sweet, it is very easy to have it. In a menu, you will find some other attractive sweets, Ohagi or Zenzai made by Tanba-Dainagon red beans.

I can’t stop ordering everything if I do not make a decision before entering the shop.

Because most of the tourists do not know this shop, and usually it is occupied with local customers around Ninenzaka, I will recommend you to visit this sweet café, if you want to have a cup of sweet beverage in hot summer Kyoto.

Kyototravel

“ Kasagiya”
Kodaiji-Masuyacho 349, Higashiyama, Kyoto regular
holiday: Tuesday if it is national holiday, open
Open：11:00～18:00
Phone：075-561-9562

Enjoy Japanese Traditional Fast Food Udon in Kyoto as A Healthy Dinner Omen

Udon is a white thick noodle made with wheat, and usually served as a noodle soup style in Japan.

In the film “Blade Runner”, you will find Harrison Ford is eating two cups of udon at a stall of udon noodle in the opening scene. But it is not difficult to eat this fast food in Japan, for example, you can often find udon stand by platform of the railroad as a fast food.
Cheap and quick fast food the udon is, but it is loved by many Japanese people.

Taste of udon noodle is however, quite different from region to region, and I wanted to introduce you Kyoto original style udon noodle.
However, Kyoto was a capital city of Japan for long years and Kyoto cook with proud basically paid no attention to fast food cooking, I could not find any Kyoto specific udon taste as far as I searched.

So here I will introduce you “Omen” as a very good udon restaurant in Kyoto, but the taste and eating style was arranged from that of Gunma prefecture, at the north side of Tokyo.
But I strongly recommend “Omen” as a best shop for your fine udon noodle experience not only in Kyoto but also in Japan. It is really sophisticated and healthy udon eating style.


Near Ginkakuji temple, just beside the road of philosophy, there is a restaurant for cooking udon and seasonal organic foods, “Omen.” In Japanese, men means noodle, and if you put o- or go- at the top of the name of any stuff, it means you call it politely.

This restaurant udon eating style is that of Isezaki city of Gunma prefecture and is different from that of Kansai region including Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe.
You will eat udon as a tsukemen style, dressing udon the hot soy sauce broth with many seasoning or boiled seasonal vegetables. The name of “Omen” derived from the name “Gomen” that was originally used in Isezaki city.
The color of this udon noodle broth is dark, because in Kanto region, including Tokyo, usually use koikuchi soy sauce, black and salty.
On the other hand, Kansai people, especially in Kyoto, like to use usukuchi soy sauce with light color and lower salt concentration.
So it was quite strange eating style for Kyoto people at first, however, I think the combination of tsukemen style and a lot of boiled vegetables as a seasoning made Kyoto people to accept to use koikuchi soy sauce in udon broth, I think.

Yes, having almost the same amount of boiled vegetables seasoning with udon noodle in this restaurant, I thought I was just eating a kind of salad with noodle.
Vegetables included Hakusai, carrot, egg plants, Gobou, bamboo roots, lotus root, etc, and every vegetables were boiled and decollated on the flat dish in Japanese cook style.

Dark brown broth made with Konbu & Katsuo dashi and koikuchi soy sauce was salty.
You should better to think about whether you will put every noodle and vegetables into broth, or just putting noodle only and eat vegetables with those noodles free from soy sauce.

Udon noodle itself is was elastic and delicious, so the salty broth is very good combination with this type of noodle as you know, but I recommend you to choice the latter style, if you have to be careful about your blood pressure ;-).
In lunch time it is so crowded with sight-seeing people, so I recommend you to visit the restaurant at late afternoon from 15:30 to 17:30.
Not only udon, but also some seasonal food dishes I recommend you to try with a combination of Atsukan, hot sake in Tokkuri bottle.
You will also enjoy watching folkcrafts collected by owner. I do not know whether he can speak English or not, but if you have a Japanese guide or friend with you, and the restaurant is not so crowded, you can ask the owner to meanings of those folkcrafts or words on them.
He will be glad to explain it.
You will also find a few other branch shop in Kyoto, Omen-Shijo or Omen-NIPPON.


Kyototravel


“Omen Ginkakuji-Honten”
Jodoji-Ishibashicho 74, Sakyoku, Kyoto
open：11:00～22:00
holiday：Thursday（If it is a national holiday, Wednesday will be a holiday of this shop ）
Phone: 075-771-8994

You can eat the powdered green tea cake in Ochaya while looking at Shirakawa river that is the symbol of Gion. “Kanmi-dokoro Gion-Komori”

There are a lot of my favorite sweets café, “Kanmi-ya” in Kyoto. That’s the reason why I put the blog title “Kyoto Sweet Tottering” as it means I totter from Kanmi-ya to Kanmi-ya ;-).

Here I introduce you one of sweet café “Gion-Komori” as I note it one of the best sweets café in Gion area.

At first, you will find the shop standing beside Shirakawa river, therefore you can always listen to the murmuring in the brook during tasting sweets. What a fresh place it is!

I do not know whether this shop was previously a Ochaya (bar with Geisha girls) or not, but you will find similarities with those Ochaya and this house.

On tatami mats, you will have sweet desert at Japanese table, just like you do in traditional Japanese hotel, Ryokan.

This is a cup of Komori powdered green tea parfait.

Maccha ice cream is covering everything, so you have to dig the ice cream to encounter another sweet stuff, but this ice cream is not too sweet, probably most of Americans will suspect whether Japanese cooks have missed to calculate the sugar dose while making. So do not mind about your failure to reach to another stuff inside.

The powdered green tea pudding is just beneath the green tea flavored ice cream ♪.

White rice dumpling, the powdered green tea jelly, the chestnut, the banana, and
the raspberry are put under green tea pudding. What a happy time I encounter!

I do again say, they are not too sweet for you, so it is very easy to have two or three cups of parfait if you want. You won’t feel sugar sticky in your mouth after eating.
But if you feel Azuki, red beans paste is too sweetie, you should avoid it. I myself may be addicted to its taste and do not feel it too sweet .

This is a sweet café for adults. And I also recommend this café to go with your boy friend who does not like to eat sweet desert after dinner. I think he can enjoy sweet parfait here.
In fact, I saw many male customers in this shop anytime I visit this shop.

This is a cup of Komori green tea & Azuki & Bavarian parfait.

You can find various sweet stuff with red beans paste inside. Most of the parfait have green tea ice cream on the top, however, you will find various taste in each menu, under the green round top.

Yes, I was always at a loss for ordering which parfait ;).

During summer season, you will find Kakigori cup in this shop. Although I recommend you Gyokuen as a best kakigori café in Kyoto, it is attractive to try kakigori and parfait at the same time in hot Kyoto summer.

Yes, let’s visit Komori next summer!

Kyototravel

“Kanmi-dokoro Gion-Komori”

Gion-Shinbashi-Motoyosicho 61, Higashiyama, Kyoto
Open: 11:00～21:00（LO.20:30）, on Sunday, close at 20:00（LO.19:30）

regular holiday：Wednesday

Phone:075-561-0504

Reasonable restaurant where you can enjoy Hanamachi Ochaya style in pontocyo area Kyoto “Shiki-Yoshina”

It is narrow, long and having many sideway, it is always crowded with many customers and tourist, Pontocho street is the representative of Kyoto downtown for night enjoyment. This bar restaurant “Shiki-Yoshina” is at the center area of Pontocho street and face to Kamogawa river, this is one of the best restaurant you can enjoy Kyoto traditional style bar restaurant in reasonable price.

Previously, Pontocho was famous as a street with many Ochaya, a place where you can drink, eat, and have a fun talk, listen to songs or watch dance of Geisha girls. Nowadays only Hanamachi street in Gion or Nanahomnmatsu have those Ochaya in Kyoto.

This bar restaurant Shiki-Yoshina uses an Ochaya house in Pontocho keeping traditional ochaya style interiors, so you can watch and enjoy traditional ochaya style house and furnitures here. That is one of the reason why I recommend you this restaurant.

After walking through narrow front garden and when you walk into the entrance, you will find "Chouba", traditional Japanese counter you often but usually only watch in Japanese TV program Jidaigeki, like Akira Kurosawa's film or so.

It is also interesting that you can see "Tansukaidan" you scarecely watch the real one in use. This old-fashoned chest of drawers under stairs is also a rare item most of the recent Japanese people have never seen, because it was typical furniture in Ochaya in Kyoto, but more than 99% of Japanese people have never walk into Ochaya, Geisha house in their lives.

These house style and furniture make this restaurant Yoshina very attractive for foreigners.

The dish of this restaurant is a creation Kaiseki dinner dish designed based on the Kyoto style cooks.
Any dish are made with full of originality and everything is attractive piece for me. I always wonder which dish to eat or which dish to give up to order.

Tonight, I ordered following dishes.

Kyoto-Mizuna, Maitake and Ikura Ohitashi, it means soaking of Kyoto-mizuna greens and hen of the woods, garneshed with soy-sauce flavored salmon eggs.

Sashimi of Kuromutsu (Gnomefish, Scombrops gilberti), fished in Kushimoto, Wakayama.

Lack deep-frying of pearl oyster pillar and Kujou spring onion.

Kyou-Namafu no Dengaku, Baked bean curd daubed with miso of capital wheat gluten. After all, it is a wheat gluten you must eat whenever you coming to Kyoto.

Tataki, Surface roasting of combination duck sirloin.

The menu of dessert are original, unique and attractive, so you have to keep your stomach room for them J.

This is "Japanese style ice crape tailoring of soybean flour and black honey. "

Surprisingly, I found the wheat gluten encompassed in the crape. It was my first experience to eat the wheat gluten with crape and ice cream. Here is "Tart style balsamico source of a fresh fig tree and the custard. " of recommended desert.

All dishes of the Yoshina are being made from the orthodox technique of professional cooks.

Because it is called as a creation tea lunch dish style, the cooking method and the seasoning are twisted , however, you can understand it is made by traditional capital dish taste when you taste it.

I always mind about visiting Yoshina, when I visit Kyoto. One of my favorite restaurant in Kyoto and, in honestly, I hesitated to write about this restaurant here.

The terrace in open air is built in the banks of a river of Kamogawa at the summer season. Then, you can eat the dish while seeing the town in Kyoto of the evening. It is called “Kawayuka” and held from May to September, so you can ask customers, “ Do you open Kawayuka this evening? .“

I recommend you to try any season of Yoshina taste.

「Shiki　Yoshina」Pontocho tori Sanjo kudaru Higashigawa

open：17:00-23:00

Phone: 075-213-4471

Do you want to watch the secret scene that no one knows? "Yasaka-no-Tou"

This Five-Storied Pagoda is “Yasaka-no-Tou”a tower in Yasaka.
A formal name is Five-Storied Pagoda in Hokan-ji Temple.

The photograph of this tower is so often used for the cover page of the guide book of Kyoto and the pamphlet etc. found in the travel agency to Kyoto.

The TV drama filmed in Kyoto also use this “Yasaka-no-Tou” in opening as a typical landscape of Kyoto, or use the place where this tower is seen in behind appears as a place that immoral lovers meet.

Do you know Japanese actress Nanako Matsushima? I was so impressed with a TV drama starred by her, and I remember the scene she run to the lover waiting in front of the “Yasaka-no-Tou.” It was so romantic… .

Oh, I am sorry for tottering in my day dream. ;)


I skip describing a detailed explanation of this Five-Storied Pagoda in this article.
I will introduce you to enjoy this tower in unknown way, but don’t laugh at me. After paying admission fees of Hokan-ji temple, though you can see the main temple at first when entering on, when it is me, I will directly go to Five-Storied Pagoda and walk into the pagoda.

Although I am a skinny Japanese woman and it is easy to walk inside pagoda, It may be troublesome for you to walk in pagoda, because it is very narrow inside Five-Storied Pagoda, and you often need to twist you body making a room to passers walk.
In addition, you should go up the stairs that do not rise considerably easily, so you should better not wear a miniskirt.
But I promise you it is valuable to walk in the pagoda.

From the 3rd stairs, you can watch Kyoto town or Higashiyama mountain beautifully and you can imagine the ancient people’s life in Kyoto, but it is too ordinary, and I recommend you to try one other watching style ;). You can find a several small holes on the wood made wall of pagoda, and you can watch outside from those halls gently. The scene itself is just the same as normal window, but you feel like as if you are a small animal watching outside from the nest in the tree.


Squirrel's child?
Owl’s chicken?
Dormouse that awoke from hibernation?
You can imagine the view of those small animals watching human being from the tree halls from ancient age to now. I love this style watching whenever I visit Yasaka-no-tou.
Why don’t you try to be a squirrel's child?


…Yes, I know I’m too childish and far away from immoral love romance.

To eat this powdered green tea parfait, many people come from various place of Japan "Ito-Kyuemon-Honten"

Ito-Kyuemon in Uji, Kyoto is well known shop for Uji green tea and Maccha, powder green tea flavored sweets.
You need 5 minutes walk from Keihan-Uji station to visit “Ito-Kyuemon-Honten” locating along the big street.
So usually most of the local people will visit the shop by their car.

What a strong and various attractive gravity of many sweets displayed in this house!
No, no, encourage me not to buy every sweets in this shop!

…Thanks, I resisted against the gravity and walked to café area in the right side of front gate ;-).
I ordered "Set of the powdered green tea parfait and this bracken rice cake".

The most popular menu powdered green tea parfait is a little bit smaller than another parfait you see. Probably it’s a half size of USA size.

But do not mind, it means that you can enjoy various kind of sweet dishes in this shop…Oh! I just found that it’s the tactics of this sweets shop ;).

The powdered green tea rice cracker, powdered green tea cream, the powdered green tea jelly, the white rice dumpling, and the red bean paste, everything flavored with the powdered green tea have gotten on up as a topping of the parfait.

In the parfait, the powdered green tea agar, the vanilla ice cream, and the green tea flavored ice cream have been tightly blocked in. The powdered green tea fun comes to want to dance gladly at a glance of it ;-).



You can eat lightly without getting tired on the way even in case of being more in the parfait because no powdered green tea jelly no powdered green tea agar-agar is too sweet completely.

In spite with strong sweetness, It is easy to eat the parfait quickly, because there are strong bitter taste of powdered green tea, which will keep you off from boring with simple sweetness.

This parfait is just an article of the sweetness of pleasant. You will come for another to want to eat instinctively. This is indeed the most popular parfait at the Ito-Kyuemon.

Here is a bracken rice cake cup set with the parfait.




Black honey is garnished to the bracken rice cake. However, even if you do not put black honey on the bracken rice cake, you can eat it delicious. It feels relieved when eating after a cold parfait because this bracken rice cake is a simple, easy taste.

The powdered green tea parfait of Ito-kyuemon was a delicious powdered green tea parfait that did not fail to live up to the expectation like the reputation it. (*^-^*)

By the way, there is green tea counter that can sample favorite Uji tea in the inside of a store, too. Therefore, you can make it to the souvenir by selecting the Uji tea of the taste, and setting powdered green tea sweets sets.



“Ito-Kyuemon Honten, Sabo”Endoh-Aramaki 19-3, Uji
open：10:00～18:30（café L.O.18:00）
regular holiday：none
Phone :0774-23-3993 (Be careful, this is outside of Kyoto city, so you need to push location number 0774 at first when you call from Kyoto city.)

Shop that sells the best traditional confetto candy in Japan "Ryokujuan-Shimizu"

Ryokujuan-Shimizu was established at Kouka 4 (1847), the only one shop for traditional Konpeito, Confetto candy making.
As you know, Confetto candy was originally created in Spain and its making method came to Japan with missionaries during Edo period, and it was at first a special sweets only eaten among aristocrats and high ranked samurai soldiers.
Recipe for Konpeito was not clarified for long time, and Konpeito maker was proud of making Konpeito and presenting it to noble people.


Therefore, expert workmen in Ryokujuan-Shimizu make Konpeito strictly tracing the traditional style spending a few days to make a bowl of confetto candy. The taste of those traditional confetto candies is different from those mass-produced by sweets maker companies.


Once you try a piece of Ryokujuan-Shimizu Konpeito, you will miss it whenever you eat another makers cheap confetto candy.

If you are lucky, you will find seasonal assortment, though regular candies are good enough to taste. I like seasonal or limited assortments, like you ;-).


In March, salty cherry blossoms are used to taste and flavor the confetto candies, it will take your mind to the Hanami season Japanese garden filled with Someiyoshino cherry flowers everywhere.

If it is difficult for you to select the best Konpeito, I recommend you to buy “Cha-Kaiseki” set in the bamboo basket. The bamboo baskets are the top and bottom two steps. There are five kinds of house-chosen confett0 candies that put in the bag in steps above. In basket below, there are five kinds of confett0 candies of limited goods.

It is my pleasure to see the beautiful color, taste and enjoy a variety of flavors. It would be nice for you and your families too.I

love confetto candy of cherry flavor.

Pretty pink colored tiny candy had a faint but lovely flavor and took me to the cherry garden at May fine day I have visited with my dad. This is the rare candy you will not always see it in theshop.

Confett0 candy flavored by brandy, though it is sweet and do not have a smell of alcohol.The brandy Konpeito is in the glass ware with a lid and put into the Washi-made box.

It is surprising that the image of confetti candy is a cheap ordinal candy for children, however, Ryokujuan made it to luxury item for souvenir.

I cannot say you can buy limited item always, but I do recommend you to visit this shop filled with sweet smell of sugar and various fragrance of fruits or herbs, sometimes with liqueurs.

「Ryokujuan-Shimizu」

Sakyoku YosidaIzumitonocho 38-2, Kyoto

open：10:00～17:00（to 18:00 during summer season）

regular holiday：Wednesday

Phone：075-771-0755