Ramen - what is all the fuss about?

Before embarking on this trip I was given much advice about food from friends, mostly - you will love it, Japanese food is great.  Well here is where I confess that foody though I am, Japanese cuisine has generally left me cold.  One of the highlights of travel for me is experiencing the food, but with Japan I was underwhelmed by the idea of two weeks of sushi.  That statement of course focusses one of the problems, which is my ignorance of Japanese food.

Unique ice-cream flavours

Everyone told me, you must have the Ramen ... they make the best Ramen. And indeed one of our first meals was ramen for lunch.  Noodles.  Noodles in broth.  Noodles in broth with sloppy vegetables.  Am I missing something ?  Sure ramen can be made from wheat or maybe something as exotic as buckwheat.  They may even be thick or thin.  Yep.  And that frankly is about it.  So I felt that all my negative prejudice about the limits of Japanese food was summed up pretty much in that one meal.

Noodle set meal

The next day was sushi train for lunch - not bad, but I can't help thinking all that rice can't be that good for you, and there seems to be a paucity of vegetables. I love you the way you pay by the numbr of plates you have taken from the sushi train, just like paying by the toothpick in a Barcelona tapas bar.

That night we were wandering around looking for somewhere to eat when things picked up - the unmistakable smell of charcoal grill wafted past and Tom and I discovered Yakitori.  OK the establishment was low rent, full of racous local salarymen enjoying a cheap eat and lots of beer after work, but the chicken skewers were delicious.  We also ordered capsicum and eggplant skewers but ti turned out they didn't have any.  See what I mean - they don't seem to eat vegetables. 

Most of the restaurants are Japanese cuisine - what do you expect I hear some of you say - but when you come from Melbourne it is unusual to be so limited. That is not to say that the locals do not enjoy something different and you occasionally see French and Italian restaurants and Indian curry houses pop around the place. Unlike home, where Indian chefs (on 457 visas!) cook almost every cuisine, here it is the locals who do the cooking, so it was with intrepidation that we ventured into a French restaurant one night.  My fears were allayed, of course the food was superbly cooked and presented - what else do you expect, when the Japanese decide to do something they bother to do it properly.  I concede that the Cote du Rhone was a little rough, but my moule fritte were excellent.

Since then we have also ventured into Italian - they concept of Italian food is rudimentary, pasta and pizza -  but enjoyed a very passable pizza in the restaurant on the top level of the Daimaru department store.  Yes, I have found Daimaru.  I used to love the store during its short lived time in Melbourne - but best I leave shopping for another blog post.

Past a la Japanaoise

Ice cream comes in many wonderful flavours. Green tea is not only a popular ice cream flavour is it ubiquitous in many foods.  As ice cream it is passable, I would give it 3 stars.  Pumpkin worked better for me, and at the moment the locals are gearing up for Halloween so pumpkin is everywhere.  I hope to work my way through many of the weirder flavours and I think next I will knock off Bamboo Charcoal.

Where the Japanese excel is at pastries, cakes and petit four.  Even the croissants at the hotel breakfasts are sublime.  I cannot heap enough praise on the patisserie so I shall let Tom's pictures do the talking.

Halloween treats

It is our last night in Kyoto, which is the region where the Kobe cattle are bred, so it seems fitting that 

we venture out to a steakhouse to enjoy some Kobe beef (apologies to my sons for literally eating into their inheritance).  It was either that are another local hot spot, the restaurant with the 10 course tofu banquet !!  Strangely the beef won out.