After our jaunt to Kobe, we had just enough time to rest and clean up before traveling to Kyoto for a kaiseki dinner with our friends, the Watanabe family. Frank has known the dad, Hisashi-san, for many years, and each time we visit Japan, we try to visit with them. Their three kids are a little older than Alex, and are as fascinated with him as he is with them. He asked about them repeatedly on the trip, and looked forward to seeing them again from the time we set sail in Tianjin.
We boarded a train heading for Kyoto, and the plan was to meet them at the Kyoto Train Station, near the main entrance. We arrived early, so had some time to look around in the massive steel lobby, with the longest escalator I've ever seen in my life. After poking into some Kyoto food specialty shops, we caught up with Hisashi-san. He called his wife to find out where the rest of the family was, and found them in the sea of rush hour commuters emerging from the turnstiles.
Hisashi-san wanted to take us to a special dinner, so the whole gang followed him out of the station, down the street and around the block to a small, intimate restaurant. The restaurant was called Iimura, and featured Kyo-Ryori style dinner. We walked down a narrow pathway adorned with ferns and bamboo plants to the entrance. A woman in a traditional kimono led us to a private room with a low table, and tatami mats on the floor. We removed our shoes outside the dining room, and sat on the floor on pillows.
Shortly after arriving, the rice paper door to our room slid open, and the woman in the kimono passed out hot towels to our group. I like the tradition of washing up with hot towels before a meal. It's refreshing and easier than finding a restroom to wash your hands.
After that, it seemed like an endless stream of small, delicate plates. This was Kyoto-style kaiseki, a time-honored traditional meal that Kyoto is particularly famous for. Kyo-ryori is a series of small, beautiful plates that reflect the season. It has an artistic quality to it, and I can't think of anything in Western cuisine that is quite like it. We had kaiseki at a ryokan (Japanese inn) years ago, but had never had it in Kyoto.
The first dish was a bright pink dish of shoe-string cut potatoes. I have no idea where the pinkness came from, but it seemed to have some kind of fish roe mixed in with it. It was cold, and had the appearance of French fries cooked by Hello Kitty. It was cool and refreshing, without any particularly over-powering flavor.