Here, finally, is my first report from Kyoto in the summer.

After a week in Tokyo, we took the shinkansen to Kyoto (where we barely managed to disembark before the train continued to Osaka: the missus and I had dozed off and the boys were lost in their devices and the train stops for just a couple of minutes). We were in Kyoto for just three days before heading to Seoul. Our eating out in the city had not been scoped out ahead of time quite as much as our meals in Tokyo had been. We’d eaten lunch on the train—having picked up excellent bentos at Tokyo station—and after a spot of touristing it was time to think of dinner. The younger boy had not been able to eat much at Hinai Stand the previous week and so he put in a request for yakitori. As our plans were to wander the Gion neighbourhood after dinner, I checked Tabelog to see what the yakitori options in the area were and hit upon Tori Shin (or Torishin). After a bit of absurdist comedy on arrival, we had a nice dinner there.

What was the absurdist comedy about? Well, we followed Google Maps’ directions and arrived at what seemed like the entrance to the restaurant. We pushed past the curtains, went in and found ourselves in a corridor with closed rooms on all sides. There were no people to be seen and no sign of anything resembling a restaurant. Just as we were about to beat a retreat, the door of one of the rooms slid aside and an impassive man seated on the floor held up a piece of paper with “Chicken Sukiyaki Only” written on it. “Yakitori?”, I asked hesitantly. He shook his head with no change of expression and closed the door. We went back outside and wondered why both Tabelog and Google insisted there was a yakitori restaurant at the location. I fired Tabelog back up to see what the other options were and as I was walking back and forth looking at the results, I realized there was an entrance to another establishment on the other side of the building. Sure enough, it was Tori Shin. We went in to find a small and modest yakitori establishment with a counter with six seats and two four-top tables.

So, you’re probably thinking, the idiot tourists just went to the wrong address and bothered some random dude. Well, that’s what we thought as we laughed at our ineptitude. But 10 minutes into our meal, the door opened and in walked that exact same impassive gent. He walked to the small kitchen behind the counter and took over control of the operations. He was clearly in charge. He even came over to our table a few times with dishes—but at no time did he betray any sign of having encountered us a few minutes prior on the other side of the wall or of having denied the existence of yakitori on the premises.

Thankfully, once we were seated at one of the tables the meal itself was not hard to navigate. There’s a Japanese menu with combo options but the only English menu is for skewers only. Well, that’s what we wanted. When I say “English menu” what I mean is that there is a laminated sheet that has English names and pictures of all the skewers and there is an order sheet with each listed. You are given a pencil and write the number of each skewer that you would like. They check off each item as it’s brought over and you can keep marking whatever else you want once you’ve consumed each order.

What did we eat? Almost every skewer on the menu. The only one we did not eat was a special one, listed not on the menu but separately at the table, that featured gold leaf for some reason. Between the four of us we ate a total of 41 skewers. That’s a lot you’re thinking but portions at yakitori anywhere are not typically very large. The options, as you would imagine, are dominated by chicken of one kind or the other but there’s also a duck skewer and a vegetable set. The skewers were all a very reasonable 275 yen each, with the exception of the veg set, which was 550 yen.

I wouldn’t make very broad claims for the quality. It was not in the ballpark of Hinai Stand, with their bespoke chicken and appetizers and cocktails, but it also has no pretensions to being in that category. It was certainly better than most yakitori we’ve had in the US, including in the Japanese enclaves of the South Bay in Los Angeles. A look at the last order sheet in the gallery below (we placed three orders) will tell you which our consensus favourites were but since you’re lazy I’ll help you out: the skewers we re-ordered were the leg, heart, liver (both the regular liver and something called “back liver”) and wing. Others that I liked a lot were the skin and tail meat/fat skewers and something called “heart string”. But we would happily have eaten more of most of the others; the exceptions were two of the mince preparations: one with cheese stuffed in a minced chicken ball and one with minced chicken smeared over sliced lotus root.

For a look at the restaurant and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

All of the above plus a large bottle of chilled Asahi came to 15,840 yen or just over $100. That’s more than we paid at Hinai Stand but we also ate a lot more here. At Hinai Stand the older boy and I were really the only ones who ate a lot. And despite the bizarre start to the meal and the generally laconic demeanour of everyone in the restaurant (which is something that even Japanese diners on Tabelog allude to), service was perfectly fine.

Alright, having finally made a start, I’m going to try to knock two more Kyoto reports out this week. We had an excellent soba-based lunch the next day and that will be the subject of my next report. Before that, however, I will have a small holiday gift guide for you to consider tomorrow (remember: there won’t be any more Twin Cities restaurant reports this month).