Heading out into town for dinner
The sad news that morning
We had planned to eat dinner out and had made a reservation quite a while in advance, but the restaurant contacted us that morning. One of the staff had come down with you-know-what, so they had to close temporarily.
A same-day cancellation for a restaurant on a Friday night at the very end of the year is rough—but if they’re not open, there’s nothing to be done. Eating at one of the hotel restaurants did cross my mind, but we decided to look for somewhere else instead.
To Yakiyasai Ichiya, part of the Ichiya group
We wanted an izakaya-style place, so while considering a few options along those lines, we decided on a restaurant from the Ichiya group, the same group behind Onikai, which I visited on my previous trip to Kyoto.
This time we went with Yakiyasai Ichiya. Their specialty, true to the name, is vegetables. There were so many vegetable dishes to choose from that it was hard to decide, but…the first thing I ordered was the handmade yokan with cardamom and walnuts (lol).
Just to be clear, it wasn’t listed under desserts—it was in the cold dishes section, okay?? It was meant as a drinking snack. As the name suggests, it had a lovely cardamom aroma and was delicious.
The first grilled vegetable I picked was Tamba shimeji mushrooms. So thick!!
And this one was watercress… I think…? The vegetable menu is chosen from a blackboard, and honestly, I should have taken a photo of it too…
For the carb component, we ordered the duck mince yakisoba. It had a few mint leaves mixed in, and that little burst of freshness every now and then was oddly addictive.
The other thing that caught my eye was the “5-bite curry.” It didn’t look like curry at all. Is that sea bream rice!? (lol)
It turned out to be a gentle keema curry served with sea bream broth. What a meal. They also had a great variety of drinks, and I had such a good time that I’d love to come back. Every time I visit Kyoto, the list of places I want to revisit just keeps growing.
We needed to head back early or we’d miss the large public bath spa’s last admission time (22:00), so we went straight back to the hotel without stopping anywhere. I messed that up once before, you see…
At night, once the cars are gone from the drop-off area in front of the lobby, the beautiful checkered marble pattern is revealed.
If you look closely, there’s decoration on the ceiling too—it really is such a beautiful, wonderful building. Once I got back to the room, I hurried off to the bath and was able to enjoy it without any problems.
It really is a wonderfully comfortable bath.
Comments