Japan 2019 - Kyoto Day 5

2019/11/15

Hakone Yumoto ➛ Kyoto - Nishiki Market - New Ebisuno

Good morning!

It's our last meal here at our ryokan. I'm super sad we're leaving Hakone today, I don't want to leaveee :(((

Cannot believe we're half way through our Japan trip already!

They were just out of rice when I saw they offered ochazuke at the breakfast table the day before so I had to have a bowl today!

There was no difference to our breakfast menu, but a good variety is available so guests can try new dishes even if staying here for more than one night.

Checkout time was 11am so we packed our bags and made our way to the station after breakfast.

We are going to Kyoto today so we boarded the Tokaido Shinkansen at Odawara.

We weren't sure which train we would take so we didn't buy tickets in advance. All reserved seats were sold out so we had to find our own seats. We were pretty lucky there were a couple open spots as the ride to Kyoto would be around 2 hours.

I sat next to an old lady and she started chatting with me after I asked to trade seats with her since her stop is before ours. She said she was going to Nagoya to visit friends and tour the city. I couldn't think of many places to visit in Nagoya except Nagoya Castle... lol.

Maybe I should stop by there next time if its on our way?

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錦市場　Nishiki Market

Can you believe its been 3 years since our fail attempt visit to Nishiki Market?!

This time we made sure to come nice and early when the shops are all open lol. After dropping off our luggage at our airbnb, we met up with my friend's friend who lives in Kyoto.

Here's a link to our last visit!

You could easily eat through Nishiki market like a night market/matsuri. But we are planning to have dinner later in the day, we only chose a couple places to try out.

もちつき屋　Mochitsukiya

While browsing through the lineup of stores at Nishiki Market, Mochitsukiya caught my eye immediately.

They offer an abundant variety of mochi dishes, sweet and savoury.

From left to right: cheese チーズ, peanut butter ピーナツバター, mentaiko 明太子, plum paste & bonito 梅かつお, grated radish 大根

We decided to share the yakimochi set B as it looks amazingly delicious! Each set consists of 5 different flavours with a sweet or savoury option. The savoury toppings seemed a bit more interesting so we opted for that.

My favourite was definitely the cheese and mentaiko since I love flavours that are more rich and bold. On the contrary, the peanut butter was actually not as bad as it sounds! It actually paired quite well with the powdered mochi.

京のお肉処弘錦　Kyoto Meat Shop Hiro

After mochi, we stumbled upon Kyoto Meat Shop Hiro. I was immediately drawn in by the flashy signs hung by the entrance.

No.1 most popular menu item... the beef aburi sushi!

You get 2 nigiri per order for 800yen, I think is pretty justified considering the price we pay for the same thing in Vancouver...

The sushi is slightly crisp burnt on the surface, when you take a bite, the meat is so tender it melts in your mouth. The juicyness of the fat and the flavours of the beef is perfectly balanced out by the rice... I'm in heaven ⋆*.✰

My friend and I bought one to share, but after I took a bite, I wished I ordered one for myself LOL!

茶和々　Sa Wa Wa

We proceeded down the market and someone suggested to have some matcha sweets at Sa Wa Wa.

Sa Wa Wa consists of two stories, the main floor sells green tea related merchandise and a cafe located on the second floor. The cafe is counter service, overall a very casual setting.

Japanese parfait is the only kind of parfait I prefer to eat, if you haven't had it before, I highly recommend! It's something about the presentation and the variety of ingredients they use? that makes it a 100x better than a regular western ice cream parfait imo...

The selections on the menu was quite wide, after a bit of hesitation, we decided to share a matcha warabimochi parfait and a matcha tiramisu.

Look at those layers, kanten, whipped cream, cereal flakes, matcha soft serve, warabimochi, chestnuts, and a wafer cookie to top it all off, yum!

Their tiramisu was also quite interesting as the presentation looked perfectly fitting of something served at a Japanese sweets shop. The surface is lightly dusted with green tea powder, the ripple pattern reminds me of raked sand on a Japanese zen garden.

After all the delicious food, our friend took us to Kyoto station to shop and burn off some calories before dinner! HAHA

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ニュー　エビスノ　New Ebisuno

Before we came to Japan, we asked our friend that lives in Kyoto to take us to an izakaya that locals would recommend. She chose New Ebisuno which is just across from Kyoto station.

This place did not look like a store you would usually find in Japan. The decor is more raw and low maintained. Kind of what you would see in other Asian countries (like a 海產店, a local seafood restaurant in Taiwan).