Young sweet fish deep fried, white asparagus w/ tosa vinegar jelly;
Ice fish with sakura shrimp hand roll;
Sea bream, squid, Hokkaido uni;
Duck ham;
Wagyu beef with arrowroot powder thickened dashi over spring onion;
Whale bacon;
Bonito with sweet soy sauce, daikon and spring onion;
Tile fish with seaweed, bamboo shoot, stock;
Whale meat sashimi with ginger and soy sauce;
Wagyu beef cheek flaked salt and wasabi;
Gohan course, sardines, pickles, salmon, miso mushrooms;
Japanese rice cracker with homemade vanilla ice cream;
Located in Gion district of Kyoto, right beside the beautiful Shirakawa Canal, we actually walked past the front entrance the first time because it’s so modest. Inside is a chefs counter seating 12, if I remember correctly. Service was great and sake was flowing. At one point the assistant chef was offering us two different bottles of sake to choose from that Chef recommended and of course we asked his favorite, he told us that he had tasted only one of the two bottles. So we went with the bottle he hadn’t had before and offered him a cup to taste with us. Head chef didn’t seem to happy about that haha, so of course we had to offer him a cup of the same and he drank a glass with the three of us to a “Kanpai” then shoo’ed the assistant chef off. All in good fun, he was laughing with us and had a great time. The star dish of the night was the wagyu in thickened dashi it was so velvety and umami, absolutely amazing. My second favorite was the ayu, sweet fish, with white asparagus and jellied vinegar, the fish were just fried so they were still warm and the jellied vinegar was cool so having a bite of them together with competing temps and competing flavors of salty and sour were great complements. I would have to say the let down was the dessert, just ice cream with a wafer cookie to me, good but nothing extra special (you have to really wow me for a dessert to be a star dish). Overall had a fantastic time and great food. (See additional comment in comment section)
by GreatTheJake
2 Comments
Rant: I know this post is a little longer but, I had to mention one terrible experience we had here with another guest couple. I will not be saying what I actually want to say of these people, which you all can piece together what foul words I would say, but they were so disrespectful to each of the chefs it was disgusting. I am American, I know they were too. We are in a foreign country where English is a second if not third language. The chefs were trying to describe dishes and multiple times and this couple would just repeatedly say “I just don’t understand you”, “whatever we’ll just eat it”, the lady would eat a bite and push it to her partner. They made no attempt to try and be nice, whale sashimi was offered as a course and the guy said “I need to take of photo of that but I’m not going to eat it”. He ordered a carafe of sake and once it was poured and he tasted it he told them is was “gross cause it’s too sweet and to just bring me a beer” and the wife was moody because they couldn’t make her a cosmopolitan martini. What made matters worse was they were sat in the middle of the counter, they were so loud everyone could hear them and you couldn’t even tune them out if you wanted to. They are what make tourist look bad everywhere. Money can’t buy class or even common courtesy. I am by no means a saint but jeez learn some respect and politeness.
Nice write up. Sorry about that couple beside you.
I’ve witnessed similar in Kyoto from an American couple as well, but definitely not as bad as the couple you witnessed.
I really loved my meal at Noguchi Tsunagu as well. The food was super tasty. And that wagyu dish is world class. I definitely think it’s an underrated restaurant in Kyoto. And the service felt very genuine when I dined.