Shoraian is a restaurant that we shortlisted for our earlier trip to Kyoto in April but couldn’t secure a table due to a short lead time. When we decided to revisit Kyoto again, this was the first restaurant booking that went into our itinerary.
Located in Arashiyama area but tucked away in the mountain (away from the main shopping streets), the only way to get there is to hike along a small secluded trail uphill until you see the signage. This place reminds me of the scene off a typical Chinese martial arts novel – Imagine you are a swordsman in ancient China and you are trying to find the martial arts master who lives in mountain or bamboo forest to no avail. Tired and hungry, you eyes lit up when you chanced upon an inn for you to have some comforting food and rest your feet.
We stepped into the dining hall and were immediately wowed by the fabulous views of Arashiyama and the emerald green coloured Katsura river.
Being tofu-lovers, we were keen to try Kyoto‘s tofu which is one of the famous specialty food around. After our wonderful experience in April where we managed to secure a booking at another tofu restaurant – Tousuiro, we were certain that we wanted to enjoy another Tofu feast in Kyoto.
Shoraian is a Tofu Kaiseki cuisine speciality restaurant that serves only set menu. The set course choice ranged from the modest 7-course to the luxurious 11-course option.
We started our meal with appetizers of Cold tofu with snow salt and Plum wine (Ume Shu). Followed by Assorted specialties plate that comprised of an assortment of small bites such as Salmon with apple, Rice pops, marinated vegetables, purple yam etc. I had fun plucking the grains of rice pops off the stem. They were nicely plated and I love the cute maple leaf rice cake (i think) used to indicate the current season.
Special item is a layered tofu skin (Yuba), something which I’m excited to try. Silky smooth tofu skin soaked in the savory dashi tasted really refreshing.
Up next was the Kyo-ryori seasonal selection which came with a special postcard. The seasonal postcard was given to guests as a memento to remember their visit and this dish. Sitting pretty on a dried leave were beautifully arranged mixed vegetables including eggplant, pumpkin etc. I guess the vegetables must have been chosen deliberately to showcase their vibrant colours.
Soybeans were once again featured in the next 2 dishes: Toyuba Tempura served with matcha salt and Tofu Gratin with namafu (steamed wheat gluten). While the toyuba tempura is not exactly something new as it’s similar to what we Chinese eat, the Tofu Gratin is an innovative jap-western creation.
The one dish that left a lasting impression when we had our tofu feast last year was finally making a grand appearance – the Boiled tofu (yudofu). Same as our previous experience at the other restaurant, this dish was refillable. The wide spread use of tofu in Kyoto is possibly linked to the adoption of Buddhism as the religion of the masses in the ancient days. Soybean became an important source of proteins in the religion’s vegetarian diet.
In the modern era, most of the “Tofu feasts” served in the restaurants now are not pure vegetarian meals (unless you visit Japanese Buddhist vegetarian cuisine restaurants). Most people are more receptive to having a Tofu-kaiseki which includes some meat dishes which makes it a well-balanced meal. Hence for the next 2 courses we had 1 meat dish of Mini-steak of wagyu beef and 1 tofu cuisine of Agedashi Tofu.
Rounding up the course with Rice and pickles. But the highlight was the fried silver fish that adds a crunchy texture to the fluffy and supple Japanese rice.
We ended our 1.5 hour meal with desserts of Tofu Ice Cream served with yatsuhashi and black honey sauce and Tofu pudding topped with gold flakes.
Earlier photos taken:
Woke up early to make a trip to Tofukuji, a temple whose compound is particularly famous for its spectacular Autumn colours. The place opens at 8.30am, we got there at around 9am to beat the crowd.
In a bid to better manage the crowd that packs the temple during Autumn season to admire the blazing red foliage, the temple was said to have banned photography on the wooden bridges that have the best photo angles of the maple trees and the temple.
I was delighted to see that the staff had exercised some flexibility and allowed visitors to take photos from the bridge when the human traffic situation was still manageable.
By the time we finished our tour of the temple and on our way to the train station, we were stunned by the hordes of visitors flowing towards the temple. In fact, this was the scene after a train that departed from Kyoto left the Tofukuji station. We were glad that we were on the opposite side of the platform =)
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