Kaiseki is a traditional Japanese multi-course dinner that aims to highlight the food of the season. The way the ingredients are put together, the choice of dish ware and the cooking styles are all meant to express the season at that very moment. Dishes are usually elaborate and are painstakingly put together.
Mayumi had booked a table at Sakontaro - which specialized in Kyoto cuisine with some Western fusion. As we walked through the noren curtains, we were greeted by staff on their knees with a deep bow. We took off our shoes and stepped onto the tatami mat. We were shown to a long bar table which overlooked a rock garden.
First order of business - ordering sake. Once Mayumi saw Dassai 39 on the sake menu, it was obvious what we should order. Dassai 39 is extremely popular in Japan right now and is not always to be found. It is a highly-polished sake which means it was incredibly smooth, round, very low acidity and fruity. The 39 in its name means that the rice was polished down to 39% of its original size. Sadly, I couldn't find this sake at the airport duty-free at all.
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| Bottle of Dassai 39 - we only had the small carafe |
Mayumi had already ordered the set kaiseki dinner menu in advance. We started with some small bites - a cold silky tofu shaped like a flower and a couple of slices of pork.
The next dish was unexpectedly one of my favorites - 3 slices of duck prepared Western style. The greens was mizu-na - a peppery, piquant lettuce that is not as strong as arugula.
Next came a very refined chicken karaage - the food was not especially memorable but the dishware was beautiful!
Oddly, the next course was a cold but creamy potato soup with a few fried onion shavings. The dish was perfectly fine and it was only a few spoonfuls. It just felt a little out of kilter. The dish ware was incredible though - it looked like a sakura (cherry blossom) petal.
By now, I was getting a little full. Again, this dish was beautifully-presented but perhaps looked better than it tasted. I liked the individual ingredients - the aubergine, pepper and young ginger stalk. However, the meat inside the hollowed-out aubergine seemed too rich for the dish.
The next dish was the clear Japanese consommé - for me, always a highlight of kaiseki set dinners. First, a photo of the lacquer bowl itself.
For me, this is one of the more successful dishes since I like winter melon soup. The fish is hamo or dagger tooth pike conger which is a small bony fish. It often features in Kyoto menus in June since this is its season. The white fish was pepped up considerably by the addition of ume (sour plum).
Similar to Chinese banquets, the carbs come at the end. Our sweetcorn rice had been cooking in its pot for the last few courses and was finally ready. Unfortunately, I got the burnt bits at the bottom of the pot which I don't care for. The red miso soup was amazing! It is really hard to get good miso soup outside of Japan! It must be the quality of the miso and the dashi. Mayumi said helpfully(?) that she makes her own miso via fermentation and this is the only way to get good-quality miso.
Dessert time! By this time, I was really full but of course, there is a separate stomach for a few mouthfuls of dessert. The cake was moist but the standout here was the tofu ice cream. Less sweet and cloying than vanilla, it was a good ending.
All in all, there were some pleasant dishes but some misses too. The stand-out was the Dassai 39 sake and I thank Mayumi again and again for introducing me to an amazing sake. Bonus picture - the toilets were exquisite - a little Japanese garden where you had to wear wooden clogs on a pebblestone floor. There was a goldfish in the bowl at the corner of the toilet.
Sakontaro is on a side street in Ginza, near the Shiseido building. Website is www.sakontaro.co.jp/ginza
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