Back to Kyoto. I’d hoped to get this and another report from the city out late last week but things were a bit chaotic in Delhi. Among all the other mayhem, I also managed to screw up the site design and broke everything and had a panicked half day wondering whether I’d lost most of my images from the last 13 years. Thankfully, the folks at WordPress.com support got me back and running again without much hassle once I managed to get in touch with them. Anyway, here I am now with a report on the best meal we had in Kyoto in July, at Sanmikouan, a soba specialist.

As you may know, summer in Tokyo and Kyoto (and most other parts of Japan) gets very hot and also very humid. We were there in late-June and early-July, which is said to not be the worst of it but it was still pretty sticky and uncomfortable. This was more of an issue for us in Kyoto because here we did more tourist site visits than we had in Tokyo. This meant we were out a lot more in the hottest, stickiest parts of the day. And since the Kyoto subway is not as extensive as Tokyo’s, there’s a fair distance to be walked from stations to many of the major sites. We eventually learned our lesson and took cabs from the stations to sites that were more than a 7-10 minute walk away but that was after our visit to Sanmikouan. Fortunately, chilled soba is one of the very best things to eat in hot and humid weather (only the Korean mul-naengmyeon is better in my opinion). And so lunch at Sanmikouan—which had been highly recommended to us from multiple directions—was a very refreshing pause in the day’s touristing. The restaurant is quite well-known in Kyoto and make their own noodles in-house and so forth.

Sanmikouan (also rendered as Sanmi Kouan and Sanmikoan in English) was one of the few restaurants we ate at in Japan that we had secured reservations for before we left the US. The others were Manten-sushi and Katsukichi in Tokyo. This is not because these restaurants have booking engines on their sites or because we used a reservation service. It’s because all these restaurants are among the small subset of restaurants in Japan that are listed on TableCheck, where it’s easy for non-Japanese speakers to make reservations without paying fees etc.. There is a downside in that some/many of the listed restaurants require you to book a set meal/experience in advance. Katsukichi did not require this and so we were able to peruse the menu and order from it there. Manten-Sushi did but it wasn’t an issue because all that’s available there is the omakase and so there are no in-restaurant choices to make anyway. Sanmikouan, however, is a different story.

In the summer there were only two choices at the time of booking: a Soba Set Meal and a Soba Kaiseki Meal (for a little bit more money). But you have to book the same thing for everyone at the table. We had wanted to get the smaller Soba Set Meal for the boys and the Soba Kaiseki for the two of us and I made a request to that effect with the reservation but the restaurant shot it down. It was even more frustrating at the restaurant, however, as they have an expansive menu and left to ourselves we would have constructed quite different orders. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that the Soba Set Meal was a disappointment or over-priced for what it was. It was indeed excellent and the missus and I had no regrets. However, there were a few too many items on it that the boys were not enthused by—they would have been much happier with a la carte orders of soba and tempura.

Nonetheless, we were very glad we had a reservation. It was a blazing hot and humid day in Kyoto and we had already had an arduous morning, having gone up and down Fushimi Inari after dawn. And then after a break to recover we had taken a long hot walk from the subway station to Tofuku-ji and back again, only to take another long walk from the subway station to Sanmikouan. Yes, we took many ac breaks at convenience stores along the way but we were still dragging. If we had not had a reservation at Sanmikouan, on the one hand, we would have been able to order off the menu once seated, but we would have had to wait a long time outside in the heat for a table (there’s room for a few people to wait inside by the foyer but you can’t get in there till you’ve made it up the queue). So, as I said, we were glad to have a reservation—but it would be nice if it came with more flexibility with ordering.

So, what did the Soba Set Meal comprise? A two-tier bento box showed up first. Because we are stupid, it took us a while to figure out that there was a second layer but once we’d opened it all up there was a fairly large spread of fish and veg prepared in various ways. The sablefish, which was on the top layer, was the family’s consensus favourite of the fish but the missus and I enjoyed it all. Once you get done with the bento, the soba arrives. This is the one area where you get to make a choice when you sit down with a reservation. The missus and the boys got the regular cold soba and I got the seasonal sudachi soba, which presents the chilled soba and delicate broth in a bowl covered with thin slices of sudachi, a Japanese citrus/lime. Everyone was very pleased with their soba.

Next comes the tempura course, which featured shrimp and various veg. All of this was very good as welll When you’re done with this they bring out some of the starchy water in which the soba had been cooked. You mix this with the leftover dashi in which you’d dipped your soba and drink it down. Finally, a bit of dessert: a dumpling filled with sweet bean paste.

For a closer look at everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down for some more on the restaurant and to see how much it all cost.

All of the above plus some fruit juices for the boys and beer for the missus and me came to: 20,630 yen, or just above $143. Not one of our cheapest meals in Japan but well worth the money if you’re into everything that will be served in the set meal. Otherwise, you might be better off taking a chance on showing up without a reservation. Of course, waiting outside would not be as much of a trial when it’s not extremely hot and humid in Kyoto. And were you lucky to visit in a more comfortable season you could also choose to sit outside, where it’s quite beautiful right on the river that flows past the restaurant. A few people were braving it there on the day we were there but most of those tables were empty.

Alright, I have only a few more reports to come from Kyoto (we were only there for three days). I will try to get two more of those done this week (being up at all hours with jet lag should help with that). Tomorrow, I will be posting another Twin Cities list, the one I’d mentioned at the bottom of my review of Oro a few weeks ago. If you’re local or Twin Cities food-curious for some reason, check back for that tomorrow.