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Kodaiji Wakuden

Posted by Michiyo Nakamoto

It takes some nerve to start a restaurant business in Kyoto, particularly if you are an outsider. As home to Japan’s imperial court and nobility for over 1,200 years, Kyoto is also the birthplace of Kyo-kaiseki, an elaborate, multi-course meal widely considered the pinnacle of Japanese haute cuisine. What’s more, the people of Kyoto who see themselves as the ultimate arbiters of culinary sophistication, are notoriously dismissive of those who hail from anywhere else. So, it must have been a… Read more »

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Kafuka – Innovative Japanese Cuisine

Posted by Michiyo Nakamoto

  Tokyo has no shortage of high quality Japanese restaurants but rather inconveniently, most of them only offer full-course menus, complete with dessert. The problem with set courses, though, is not just that some of us, myself included, end up eating much more than we would like to. Because portions tend to be of identical size in any professional restaurant, regardless of whether the guest is a big or small eater, this practically guarantees that some food will be wasted…. Read more »

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Kyoaji – a Taste of Kyoto Kaiseki in Central Tokyo

Posted by Michiyo Nakamoto

It is regularly voted the best Japanese restaurant in Tokyo. The proprietor is a legendary chef, who inspires adulation among his loyal fans. As one of an exclusive community of “ichigen-san okotowari” (or “introduction required”) restaurants, foodies, both foreign and Japanese, agonize over how to secure a seat there. But there is nothing grand about Kyoaji, even though it is arguably one of Tokyo’s most highly regarded kaiseki restaurants and, undeniably, one of the most difficult to get into. In… Read more »

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Kitera

Posted by Michiyo Nakamoto

There are a number of theories about the invention of soy sauce but at least one legend has it that tamari soy sauce was invented in Wakayama, the prefecture at the tip of the Kii peninsula, south of Kyoto. Tamari, which is a specifically Japanese soy sauce, is made almost entirely from soy bean. The story goes that Kakushin, a Zen Buddhist priest who had traveled to the Kinzanji, or the Temple of the Golden Mountain, in China, returned not… Read more »