Eating our way through Japan--a gourmet trip

French restaurant, Kyoto

While our trip to Japan wasn't planned as a gourmand's delight, it certainly turned out to be just that.  We had superb Japanese food, always served so beautifully, and some great Western meals as well. 

first course of kaiseki meal

Many of our best meals were kaiseki, a traditional, multi-course Japanese meal with many very small portions of food, perfectly prepared and displayed.  These are generally served on a tray, with side bowls of mizu soup and boiled rice.  Most kaiseki includes at least pickles, tofu (yes, it's delicious), fish, several different vegetables, tempura, sushi, omelet and sashimi.  It will also have local variations that rely on the specialties of an area, such as apricots or cherries or sweet potato.  If dessert is part of the meal, it may be ice cream or a sweet bean confection.  When you eat kaiseki, you should try a bite of everything because the flavors are designed to complement one another--and even something that seems odd to us will be delicious.

fried fish at market--included in some bento boxes

Next is beef, for which Japan is famous.  Hida and Kobe beef are favorites, both very rich eating, perfectly marbled with fat, which is what makes the meat tender and gives it such good flavor.  Portions are very small because of the richness and are truly melt-in-your-mouth tender.  Sometimes the beef is served cooked and other times you cook it yourself in a hot broth (shabu shabu) along with sprouts, onions and other vegetables.

Several times we enjoyed bento boxes, which are not unlike kaiseki, but carefully packed, usually in beautiful lacquer boxes.  They make great picnic lunches--we enjoyed bento boxes on our train trip from Tokyo to Kanazawa.  It's remarkable how much food can be packed, artistically displayed, into a small (sometimes large) box.

fresh crabs in the market

Japanese want their food to be absolutely fresh and perfect.  Strawberries are ripe and red without any blemish.  Fish is freshly caught and served raw or lightly cooked so it's never dry or smelly.  Vegetables are crisp and never overcooked.  Japanese prefer a sticky white rice, though we also had brown rice which was excellent.  No flavoring unless it is refried rice.  You can count on Japanese food everywhere to be clean and fresh with no threat to your digestive system.  And, you can drink the water everywhere also--such a treat.

bento box at Miho Museum

Here are some of our restaurant recommendations:

Serena Honten for shabu shabu in Tokyo's Roppongi District.  Very nice atmosphere and excellent beef plus much more
Cucina Italiana Partire in Kanazawa.  A bit out of the way and tiny, but really excellent Italian food and good wine list.  Great choice when you need a Western meal.  The owners run the restaurant, with the husband being the chef, along with their family, and are truly delightful.

first course of a tempura dinner

Le Midi in Takayama.  There are actually 3 restaurants calling themselves Le Midi, so you want the one on the right corner as you face the old downtown, a red building.  They serve Hida beef (the Hida people inhabited the region), which is comparable to Kobe beef, and really delicious.
The Sodoh Higashiyama in Kyoto.  Located in a beautiful old house, this restaurant serves Western food that is superb.  Good wine list and great menu choices.
Itoh Dining Kyoto, in Kyoto obviously.  They serve wonderful Kobe beef with many courses of Japanese dishes along with it.  We loved it.
Hotaru at the Brighton Hotel in Kyoto (where we stayed) is perhaps the best Japanese food we had on the entire trip.  Beautifully prepared and served kaiseki meal.  Another good wine list.
Chalamant, another tiny restaurant near the Brighton hotel.  Wonderful French food prepared by a Japanese couple.  We filled the restaurant with our group of 10.  Everyone had a great evening here.
Miho Museum restaurant just outside Kyoto, at the incredible Miho Museum designed by I.M. Pei, where we enjoyed an excellent bento box lunch