Tofu Ryori in Kyoto

Beside all the much beloved Matcha treats you can find in Kyoto en masse, there is one other culinary favorite of mine Kyoto is famous for. I am talking about the most wonderful, utterly fresh, highest quality Tofu ever.
You definitly do not have to be a sworn in vegetarian to love these perfect white cubes and all the great things made out of it, you just have to have an understanding for the goodness of real pure taste: unspoiled, clean, refreshing and fantastic to relax our overstrained senses. Don't get me wrong: I love spicy food, chili, garlic, herbs and spices, a fair amount of sesame or olive oil, all those wonderful things. However, from time to time nothing is better than the unaltered, straight taste of simple things - nothing can be more sophisticated than that. The preparation of the simplest things is the highest art of cooking in my opinion and deserves a lot of respect. Only ingredients of the highest quality are to be used and everything must be well thought out. Just like a typical Kyoto-style Tofu Ryori Set.
I have to admit that at first I was a little reluctant to go to a Tofu restaurant, because the prices are quite high and there is so much nice and inexpensive food around, so that you start asking yourself: can this Tofu meal really be worth more than threetimes as much as a Soba/Udon/whatever set somewhere else? The answer is yes! And I am very grateful that my friend Angie told me so and made me have a perfectly marvelous Tofu Ryori at a Restaurant specialized on Yudofu called Junsei. It was one of the most delightful food experiences I ever had!
The restaurant itself is a grand old building, a former medical school, established in 1839 and remodeled to a restaurant after WW2. It is located just a few meters from the entrance gate to the Nanzen-ji, a famous Zen Buddhist temple. This area is famous for its Yudofu meals and you will find quite a few restaurants there dedicated to these Tofu dishes, but Junsei is not only one of the more famous ones, but also the only one with a completely vegetarian set.
Because the day of my visit there was rather hot and I was eager for something refreshing I decided to order the cold version of Yudofu: Hiyashitofu, that is plain
Tofu blocks floating in spring water accompanied by some icecubes and maple leaves. This is also the option for everyone who wants to be on the safe vegetarian side, because the broth used for boiling the Tofu in a Yudofu set might be made with Katsuobushi.


The sight of the white cubes, the icewater and the lush green leaves alone is a benefaction and naturally eating it is even more one.
But as a matter of course I didn't get the cold Tofu alone, it was just the core of an array of treasurelike little dishes my set meal consisted of.
There was beautifully crisp vegetable Tempura - although a deep-fried dish light and with the flavour of the veggies absolutly ostensible, not at all spoiled with the taste of oil and other things fried in it before.


In my little Tempura basket I found a slice of Japanese sweet potato, eggplant, kabocha (a Japanese squash), green beans and myoga (if I remember correctly) all with the characteristic fluffy, crisp crust.
Then I came upon a little plate with slightly sweet, stewed cold vegetables (celery, bambooshoots and something undefined) and a shiitake hat, presented with a pretty maple shaped and coloured piece of wheat gluten.


On yet another plate a small cube of a firm and intense sesame-tofu, with a little Wasabi on top swimming in its own special dipping sauce waited to be enjoyed by me. Of course I didn't let it wait too long..
Last but not least I savoured the Tofudengaku, two blocks of firm Tofu glazed with a special Miso-sauce and grilled on sticks and served on a wooden tray.


All this came alongside a bowl of rice and there was a plate with savory things to be eaten with the Tofu: chopped springonions, freshly grated ginger and thin stripes of dry seaweed (Nori I guess) as well as some tiny dried fish which I happily relinquished to my non-vegetarian friends who enjoyed this fantastic feast with me.
As you might be able to imagine after reading this and having a look at the pictures that this was a meal that just makes happy, satisfied, with the warm feeling of having experienced something very special, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It is clearly not an everyday dish, even if I had the possibility and could afford it: it is nothing to be eaten on a daily basis - this is supposed to be something extraordinary. And that it definitly was! Well worth the 3000 Yen it costed.
If you ever have the chance to have a something as amazing as that - don't hesitate!

Junsei
Nanzenji-mon mae
Sakyo-ku, Kyoto [click for map]

ゆどうふの順正
京都市左京区南禅寺門前
Tel:　075-761-2311

Kuroke to go

Ever had a purple croquette? No? Me neither, before I visited Kamakura a few weeks ago. One of the souvenir and food shops close to the Kôtokuin (the temple with the enormous outdoor Amida Buddha statue) was specialized in all kind of sweet potato treats. They had wonderful sweet potato cakes, ice cream and those funny looking and delicious tasting kuroke (that is the Japanese pronunciation of croquette). Just right: crispy outside, creamy inside with a sweet and savory taste... and they were vegetarian of course. You'll find it on the lefthand side if you walk down the street coming from the Kôtokuin.

This kuroke was one of the very few snacks (icecream is ok too) I found here so far that can be eaten while walking here in Japan without feeling like doing something wrong and rude. Food to go is pretty unusual here. You are supposed to sit down and enjoy the food (nothing wrong about that), instead of walking, dribbling and bothering others with the smell of your food and your disturbing appearance while gulping down stuff. I guess I lived in Berlin for too long where it is the most normal thing in the world to grab a Falafel or something on the way to care about what others are thinking about seeing me eating. It is quite annoying to search for a appropiate place to sit down and eat store-bought snacks here in Japan when I don't want to go in a restaurant and am not around my appartment. Well, at least I got to know many parks and parkbenches like this...

Vegetarian Fair vs. Namaste India

As written in my previous posting last weekend was the Tokyo International Vegetarian Culture Fair and although rain was pouring heavily all day, I made it there on sunday. However I have to admit I didn't eat anything there. How is that possible you might ask? A veggie foody at a vegetarian fair who doesn't pamper her taste buds? Well, yes and no. I ate, just not at the vegetarian fair.
Just a few meters beside the Vegetarian Culture Fair, that made a rather dull and grey impression and where the foodservings were quite small, there also was a much livelier and more colourful fiesta called Namaste India.
You have three guesses what was served there! Right! Curry, curry aaaaaand curry! I couldn't resist the intensive scents of spices and freshly baked naan breads.
Sorry vegetarians of Tokyo, the Indian chefs upstaged you! Their food was not only smelling nicer, the portions were not only bigger, they were also much more fun and really seemed to enjoy being there - and so did I!
While at the vegetarian fair it was kinda lame, most of the offered food was also curry, that smelled and looked rather bland compared to the Indian originals, and one of the sellers made a not very charming remark about my friend and me after we had a look at his food and decided not to take it, the Indian chefs were joking and performing a percussion show on the tandoori oven AND managed to serve a fine curry! It was loud, with Bollywood soundtracks blaring from the boom boxes and sellers shouting out their offers, it was hot and spicy, with my fingers yellow after eating with them, it was monsoonlike, with the rain pouring and it was a hell of a time!
After having a nice chai (Indian milk tea with spices) to warm up and finishing off a nice mixed vegetable curry and a naan each, we decided to go for another round and checked out the veggie curry of another foodstall, also with naan - and it was even better! They were more generous with the vegetables - I just loved the eggplant chunks inside, and the curry was spicier. The naan was slightly buttered, crisp on the edges and soft inside, so that it was perfect for shoveling the sauce and veggies into the mouth. This is just one of the best comfort foods in the whole wide world..

Maybe I just came to late for the good vegetarian fair food, some stalls were already closing down when I arrived - so maybe I do them wrong. However, all in all Namaste India won my favours!

Vegetarian Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is a typical festival food in Japan - at every Omatsuri you can be sure to find at least one or two okonomiyaki stalls (except for the Namaste India festival and the Vegetarian Culture Fair maybe..). Osaka is famous for this dish that consist mainly of shredded cabbage and a pancake-like batter, spiced up with beni shôga, pickled red ginger, all fried on a hot plate and topped with a special dark brown sauce and oftentimes mayonnaise. The version from Hiroshima contains fried soba and the ingrediences are not mixed up, but first the batter is fried to something like a pancake and than the other ingrediences are all piled up on it to one tower of okonomiyaki that shrinks during the frying but it still looks like an artistic feat to turn it over..
Unfortunatly the usual okonomiyaki is not vegetarian, but made with fish-based dashi (stock), often with those tiny kind of shrimps and topped with my friends the katsuobushi (fishflakes)..
Actually it would be no problem to leave those little beasts out, but as it often is in Japan you make people very uneasy if you ask to modify a traditional, original, century old recipe even the slightest little bit. It seems to be a sacrilege, impossible because the dish is just perfect as it is - I don't dare to doubt that, but I prefer an imperfect veggie dish to a perfect one with dead animals in it. Usually it still tastes great and for me personally it tastes better when there are no little sad eyes staring at me from my plate!
But it seems like there is no way to make it any different, although the name okonomiyaki implies "fry whatever you want"... Well, yet there is a way: just do it yourself! A few days ago I was invited for a fantastic, homemade, vegetarian okonomiyaki and monja dinner - and a feast it was! Monja (also called monjayaki) is the softer, more liquid and mushy sister of okonomiyaki - a dish originating from Tokyo, to be eaten directly from the hot plate it is fried on, for example in one of the countless monja places in shitamachi. There you also should be able to find veggie versions, but it is also easy to make it at home - you only need a hot plate. There are special ones for okonomiyaki (and monja), but I think it should also work on those hot plates on top of raclette ovens, maybe even in a good not-sticking pan. Although making it in a pan is not an ideal solution, cause the sociable, comfortable and fun aspect of sitting around the hot plate waiting for the next piece of food and watching the batter sizzle. You can easily spent two hours eating like that - nice!
Now to the recipes. I don't know exact measurements, but I think it is a dish that does not require exact measurements. Just try to fry one okonomiyaki and if it is too soggy add some more flour before you fry the next one or add more stock if you think it is too dry - easy as that.
Okonomiyaki:
Cut about half of a cabbage in thin slices.
Mix about 3 cups of flour with 1-2 eggs and some veggie stock (less than 1 cup should be enough), add a little salt.
Mix the cabbage and the batter and add as much beni shôga as you like (don't take too much, otherwise you won't taste anything else anymore).


Now you can add whatever you like, for example: thinly sliced shiitake, okra, green asparagus, onions or leek, pieces of mochi (sticky not-sweetened ricecakes), corn, even cheese is not unusual and tastes fantastic with it.. Our okonomiyaki-host also added Agedama (also called Tenkasu), that is something resembling the German "Backerbsen" (are they called soup pearls in English? Until that night I didn't know they exist outside of Germany).
Than fry a big spoon of it on the hot plate with very little oil and turn it over when it is still soft on top but golden brown on the underside and fry it on the other side for a short time.


Afterwards top it with a thick and sweet soy sauce (since okonomiyaki sauce is usually with oyster extract and worcestershire sauce, that resembles it a lot contains anchovies as far as I know), mayonnaise (if you like it - I hate mayonnaise so I don't use it), sprinkle with aonori (dried seaweed). Part it in four pieces with a wooden spatula and serve hot. While eating the next serving is put on the hot plate.


For making monja you make the same batter, just add much more water or veggie stock and grated yam and stir it a bit longer. Then put the cabbage and whatever you want to have with it (I recommend asparagus and cheese) on the hot plate and let it stir-fry for a moment, make a hole in the middle and add the batter. Then everyone spreads out bitsized pieces of it thinly with a wooden spatula, so that those pieces become brown, a bit gumlike and crispy on the edges - these portions are to be eaten directly from the hot plate with chopsticks. Here and here you can see pictures of monja.
Have a nice meal, share it with friends and enjoy a great foody-night, like I did - thanks again Nishi-san and Yuko-san :)

Tokyo International Vegetarian Culture Fair 2007

It seems like there are more vegetarians around here than I ever thought! Just a few days ago I found out about the Japan Vegetarian Society(JPVS) (founded in 2001) and that they organise a Tokyo Vegetarian Week every year since 2002. The funny thing is the 2007 Vegetarian Week lasts from sept.1st to sept.30th - well, sounds good! Particularly interesting sounds the Tokyo International Vegetarian Culture Fair 2007 (pooh, what a name). It will be held on the 29th and the 30th at Yoyogi Park, in front of NHK Hall (close to Harajuku stn), between 10am and 8pm on saturday and 10am to 5pm on sunday. There will be a flea market, live music and much more. I am hoping for nice food, books and interesting people. See you there :)

Kyoto: Kuromame Café

If I had to name one really essential and omnipresent ingredient of the Japanese cuisine, I would say: the soybean! There are about one trillion variations how to prepare and eat it: just cooked, fermented as in natto, miso or tofu, as soymilk, mashed as filling of sweets, ground and roasted as kinako flour, etc.
No wonder there are restaurants specialized in products made of these little superbeans, even in one kind of soybeans, like the Kuromame Café in Kyoto which serves only black soybean dishes. Since these are all vegetarian (except for a little extra plate with dried fish, but this was easy to avoid), I had to check out the kuromame (black bean) set meal of course. And it was amazing! There was the obligatory miso soup, here made of black bean miso, with some vegetables inside. Then there were wonderful, crisp, tempura-like rolls of a thin sheet of seaweed, stuffed with mashed black beans, dipped in a light batter and fried - extraordinary delicious and a taste I never experienced before. They were to be eaten sprinkled with strong sea salt, that came with them.

Soft and fresh were the two kinds of homemade tofu, one made of black, the other one of white beans. This creamy tofu tasted gorgeous with the sweet preserved black beans. Accompanied and accomplished was all this with rice that was cooked together with - surprise, surprise: black beans. During lunchtime this set costed 1050 yen, definitly good value for the money.
On every table were big grindstones (you can see a part of one the first photo, on the right side), that are to be used for making fresh kinako just a few seconds before eating. Interesting, fun, and yummie!
For sure a place very worth a visit and conveniently located in the Ninenzaka & Sannenzaka area not far from the Kiyomizudera.

Kuromame Café 黒豆茶庵北尾 清水店
京都府京都市東山区清水寺門前産寧坂北入ル [please click for map and infos in Japanese]
Tel: 075-551-0101
open: 11:00～17:30

Mikoan in Kyoto

I love Kyoto. It is a totally touristy place, I know, but it is just sooo awesome. It is Japan like you know it from pictures - it just is picturesque! There are more temples and shrines then you ever wanted to see, there is Gion, with its oldfashioned wooden town houses, shops, (overpriced but nice to look at) restaurants and Maiko shooing by, some of them real ones on their way to customers, others faked (tourists that pay for getting dressed and styled like a Maiko what takes around 2-3 hours, just to go for a little walk and take some photos), but not less beautiful in my humble eyes. There are lush green mountains with bamboo groves and maple trees that change to the most intensive reds in autumn and cherry trees that are like fluffy pink clouds in spring surrounding the city.
And there is the food: the famous Kyoto ryori! Lots of natural flavours, extremely fresh and tasty vegetables, an abundance of wonderful pickles, lots o tofu in all forms and matcha wherever you look at. My culinary heaven for sure!
I have been there just a few days, but I could write a dozen articles about the food in Kyoto.. Let's start with a recommendation of a great vegetarian restaurant.
Mikoan is the name of this bar-like little restaurant that is hidden in a backyard of a narrow alley.
I saw a photo of the food served there on flickr and decided that I have to find it - and it was a very good decision!
Mikoan is strictly vegetarian (not vegan, but I guess you will find vegan dishes there too) and everything that is served there is supposed to be natural and healthy - except maybe for the array of shochu that is waiting for you at the bar...
On their menu you'll find a huge bowl of vegetable curry, of which I was told that it was very delicious. And they serve wonderful typical Japanese sets with all kinds of little dishes. That was my choice of the night! Arranged maybe not 100% strictly according to the Five Principles of buddhist vegetarian cuisine, but it was visible, tasteable, noticeable that the Five Colors: go shiki - red, yellow, green, black and white, Five tastes: go mi - salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy and the Five ways of preparing: go hou - simmering, broiling, steaming, frying and raw/pickled (if i remember correctly) were kept in mind. But to tell you the truth: I don't care much about that - it was a very diverse, healthy and most of all delicious meal!
Not only were there five dishes (plus rice), but also several different ways of preparing: my set consisted of a miso soup with vegetables (= something boiled), deep fried crumpled yuba (tofu "skin")balls (= something fried), pickles, a kind of salad with seaweed and cold tofu (= something raw), simmered greens with aburage (fried tofu) and mushrooms and some other fried veggies. My friend Angie also ordered the set and got some different dishes, so that we could share and try even more things! She had other veggies and some wonderful vegetarian gyoza...mmmmh!
It was such a satisfying dinner in a very homey atmosphere, with books, cats and all kind of knickknack around. The ladies who are running the place were friendly and so was the only other guest, a yoga-loving middle-aged lady sitting beside us and chatting with us in Japanese-English lingo.
Great food, nice place, friendly people in a beautiful city - there is nothing else to ask for! Please go there, whenever you have the chance to do so.


Mikoan
〒600-8032 京都市下京区寺町通四条下ル中之町570

570 Nakano-cho
Teramachi-dori, Shijo-saguru, Kyoto [click for map and description of the not-so-easy-to-find-way with photos :)
　
TEL/FAX 075-361-2200

Mo-Fr: 5pm - 11pm
Sa: 12 - 11pm
So: 12 - 8pm