“Are you supposed to eat that?” We’re peering at something poking out of something else covered in delicious tempura batter. My dining companion shrugs and it’s gone. Five minutes earlier, he broke a chopstick vigorously attacking aubergine. Consider this a warning. In Japan, you will turn into a voracious eating machine - only a downside depending on your point of view.
We’re in Kyoto, having first visited Japan two years ago
with a packed itinerary. This time, we’ve scaled back to two cities – Kyoto and
Tokyo – to sweep up that food and drink we may have missed. We head to Sake Bar Yoramu.
The bar is small, serene and quiet, with just one other customer. Our initial intimidation at not being sake-savvy dissolves while owner Yoramu dispenses wisdom through tailored tasters, sinking three glasses each for around Y3000 (approx. £17) and marvelling at the perceived change in taste when urged to sip again after a bite of cheese. Multi-lingual Yoramu is in the guidebooks, but hardly overflows with drunken tourists. He tells us, “People who find me want to be here.”
He calls us one of the city’s numerous immaculate taxis, and
we take his regards to our next host at Sake
Bar Asakura. We first met Yoshi in 2012 when he shut early to drink with us
and we’ve been friends ever since. He introduces customers to sake with
bubbles, sake clear and cloudy, dry, sweet, smoky incarnations, savoured
alongside tiny dishes of cured meat and fish. His softly-lit bar, like most, is
a squeeze with counter seating and few tables. Yoshi is always on hand to
advise without condescension, such a ‘ninhonshu’ expert he teaches classes at
Kyoto University.
He turns us on to a new opening reflecting the growing
popularity of craft beer in
Japan. Without an English-language online presence, we possess only Yoshi’s handwritten
directions to Craftman. However, we soon learnt the neighbourhood and his dog will turn out
to help a lost tourist traversing Kyoto streets, so in all seriousness, head to
the intersection of Ayanokoji-dori and 367 and you’ll get there.
Back in Tokyo, it’s time for our somewhat embarrassing overexcited
chair dances as we disappear piece after piece of the most incredible lightly-fried
fish and vegetables at tempura specialist Miyagawa,
Y2,500 (£14) per lunch set. No surprises, the place is cosy – just two wait staff
and the chef himself taking care of the counter – and we were lucky to nab the
last two spots at 1pm as walk-ins. We left sated, clutching their card with
both hands and reluctant to leave the calm atmosphere.
Then it’s our last night, led again to our destination - Yorozuya Okagesan - by passers-by
pitying my hobbling the hot streets in high heels. Have you ever eaten in a Michelin-starred
restaurant while chatting to the head chef? A chef who laughs loud and
frequent, serving you some dishes himself at the bar of his relaxed izakaya. A
chef who turns off the lights to personally bring out a birthday cake, and who
sees you taking pictures and calls you over for a better view as he sears
bonito on an open flame. We opted for a continuous stream of recommended sakes
to accompany our omakase set meal, exquisite fish and vegetable dishes. We
nodded, mouths full, to all extras. We wobbled out with the place in hysterics
over the chef’s attempts to speak English, my husband having made his mark as
only the third person ever to eat the fish eyeball in the very last (optional) dish
and not regretting for an instant the not-very-Michelin Y20,000 (£112) spent.
Yorozuya Okagesan is not the only place mentioned to have
been lauded somewhere or other, but all still feel undiscovered and intimate. Special
but not inaccessible, buzzy but not overcrowded. You are welcomed everywhere, involuntarily
grinning at the shouted greetings and farewells from the whole team in most
establishments.
One evening in a backstreet izakaya, we wondered for the
first time whether we were out of place amongst the boisterous regulars and jarringly
abrupt waitresses. Minutes later, our surly server cracked a smile bringing
us a seaweed dish, sent over by the grinning, red-faced salarymen in the corner.
Sake Bar Yoramu, Nijo
Dori, Higashinotoin Higashi-iru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto. 75-213-1512
Sake Bar Asakura,
518-2 Kamiosakacho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto. 75-212-4417
Miyagawa, Palace
Aoyama 1F, 6-1-6 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo. 03-3400-3722 Yorozuya Okagesan, Matsumoto-kan B1, 2-10 Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. 03-3355-8100
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