Saturday, July 19th: Mini-Kaiseki Dinner

And so we were off to a traditional Kaiseki- style dinner (a Mini-Kaiseki) at Mamezara Kaiseki Mametora. A work colleague of Stefan's, Shuji, was so helpful in making many recommendations for our trip to Kyoto, had given us the name and number for this tea house turned Kaiseki restaurant and we were so lucky to be able to get in! We are both so grateful to Shuji for all his help with our trip to Kyoto, and this dinner was absolutely the highlight of the trip.

And we were very lucky to find it and that it was Kaiseki style- many little courses in a preset menu- since no one spoke any English at this very authentic spot! We had trouble ordering water, even. And you can see that without detailed instructions for the cab driver, we'd have never found it ourselves. Kyoto has a totally different address system than both Tokyo and the US. Instead of street numbers, if I understood it correctly, they use cross streets and north/south/east/west designations for where on that segment of the street the building lies. So anyone not from Kyoto has a hard time getting around!

We walked into the entry and were instructed (via miming) to take off our shoes and leave them there. The restaurant itself had a tatami mat floor covering, and so as is traditional, you go barefoot. Tatami mats are really soft and silky feeling, so it's quite nice!

We were seated at a bar area looking into a private courtyard. Most tea houses have small interior courtyards and the view into it was quite amazing! It was tiny but very well executed and looking at it was very calming and peaceful. The light in the restaurant was dim, and despite it being packed (all but one of the twenty two seats taken), very quiet.


Our place setting was so charming, I had to take a picture before the food arrived.

All of our courses were served inside the little tray.

So, I think this will be a heavy on pictures, light on writing entry! It was such a quiet, peaceful, delicious, romantic experience and Stefan and I felt so amazed to be there. I just want to imprint the night onto my soul and never forget how it felt to sit in an old tea house, looking at a zen garden, having a truly traditional, authentic Kaiseki meal. Every course was like a little present- and we had no idea what was coming or what things were, but everything was delicious. The waitresses (there were only two, both in kimono, and Stefan thinks perhaps they were a mother/daughter team) dutifully explained in Japanese each time what the courses were, even though we all knew we didn't understand. Still, it was part of the ceremony of the meal, and I think that is one of the things that was so special about it- it felt religious almost, reverential. Well, I surreptitiously took flash-free pictures of every course, and so you can see how the presentation made it very much a ceremony and not just food!

The first course was a kind of chilled soup- it had a jelly-like orb floating in the middle (lots of jellies in Japanese food).



Once you scooped into the orb, then the bowl filled with purple red bean paste!

The second course was an elegant arrangement of some sort of eggplant surrounded by little bites- some of which I am not quite sure what they were!

For instance, this some what gelatinous mix with capers and what I think is a little bit of seaweed.

A delicious lime-y bite of fish:

And we weren't sure at all what this was, but it had a nice mapley taste to it!


The Third Course was more fish based:


And the highlight was definitely what we think was a sea scallop- it was so rich and creamy.


And there was a piece of fish with a quail egg:


And some fatty tuna:


The next course is something you might recognize as similar to an earlier picture (although I don't think these were those selfsame fish).


These are grilled river fishes with a sauce that I couldn't discern because the grilled fish was so good. They also were cooked in such a way that they appeared to be still alive! Like they could wiggle and jump off your plate and swim away, I thought.



We ate the entire fish, head and all.


And S and I both agree that the head had a kind of funny, bitter taste. My favorite part was actually the tail- it was super crunchy!

Proof that we ate the whole thing as we were supposed to:

Next up was the mini-sushi (Mame-zushi):


We both loved the clever shrimp- the tail came right out and was just really decoration, not attached at all!


We weren't sure what was written here, but the presentation was elegant:


All the presentations were so pretty and dainty:


Stefan was sweet enough to unwrap the banana leaf sushi and let me capture it on film!



And I was sure this was tuna, but it was a radish or some sort of vegetable!

Thankfully, we had the set course menu because the a la carte menu would have done us no good.....
Dessert was a green tea coated pudding (mochi) with a red bean paste flavor:



Served with a little tea:


And it was rather hard to eat!




We had a super time but clearly the excitement was too much for me, since in lieu of a picture of us, I have a wonky video.





Thankfully, I got a nice picture of handsome Stefan outside!

It was the perfect ending to a great dream-come-true day in Kyoto.