Our first big trip since Covid, and actually our first trip that’s not visiting relatives since we had the kids. We picked Japan and its a great destination- great food, great culture, and great scenery.
Our itinerary was:
Kyoto → Uji → Gifu → Kiso Valley → Around Nagano → Takayama → Kanazawa → Nara → Koya San → Osaka → Tokushima (Awa Odori).
Half the family actually went to Tokyo and Hakone beforehand but I didn’t join them.
We picked the locations/ sights first, then planned the food around the itinerary. Our best decisions were to hire a native to help us reserve the restaurants we wanted to go to ahead of time. We didn’t reserve every meal, of course, but it helped us get into many restaurants that were popular with the locals that we otherwise would have zero chance of getting in. It also helped us avoid the restaurants on the tourist trails.
The approach had some pitfalls, of course. We started planning for restaurants late. By that time, many popular restaurants were already fully booked for the dates that we wanted.
Why not just use online agent service? Working with someone local, and responsible provides a lot more flexibility. If x doesn’t work, then book y. If 7:00pm Tuesday doesn’t work, then book pick alternative dates and time. Some online agent service does that, but I don’t want them to pick alternative dates/ time for me since our itinerary was tight.
The other pitfalls were, we really wanted to honor our reservations, so that gave us less flexibility to adjust the itinerary on the fly. We ended up missing two reservations. We drove up the mountains in Honshu. Having very little sense of the distance between the spots and the time it takes to drive between them, it just didn’t work to book a restaurant in a different town/ city when we were somewhere else earlier in the day.
My personal sightseeing and food highlight:
Nara and Kanazawa.
My personal sightseeing and food lowlight:
Koya San. More on that later.
We tried to sample what each place was strong at. Seasonal ingredients specific to each location. Obviously I couldn’t discern all the subtleties since I was not from Japan. For example, there was a meal from Yamanouchi, Nagano prefecture where the wife was from Kyoto and the husband was from Kanazawa and they each injected flavor elements from each of their birthplace but its not easy to pick up the nuances.
We didn’t end up doing any haute cuisine- no gastronomic temples in the form of high end kaiseki, sushi, and yakitori. Since its a family trip I thought its more important to spend time with family than to ditch them for 3 hours and sit through 15 courses while jetlagged. Despite that, we still ended up eating many more casual kaiseki, sushi and yakitori meals, many of them also multi-course. We tried to vary what we eat- no ramen/ soba three meals in a row. Or no okonomiyaki all the time in Osaka.
On the average, the food was so well prepared and the flavors were so wonderful, I don’t think I can easily bring myself to eat Japanese outside of Japan ever again. Easily the best food trip ever for me.
Here are the places we ended up eating:
Kyoto:
鯛匠 HANANA/ Taisho HANANA
大極殿六角店 栖園 Seien
御料理 めなみ/ Oryori Menami
懐石カフェ 蛙吉/ Kaiseki Cafe Akichi
Gion Duck Rice
Uji:
つばめ屋/ Tsubameya
宇治茶道場 匠の館/ Takumi-no Yakata
中村藤吉平等院店/ Nakamura Tokichi
Gifu:
川原町 泉屋 Kawaramachi Izumiya
松風庵 at Nagaragawa Seiryu Hotel
Magome-juku:
萩乃屋 Haginoya
Nagano:
らぁめん みそ家 Ramen Misoya
Yamanouchi:
食堂よろしき日
Takayama:
支那そば 勝己 Shinasoba Katsumi
Center4 Hamburgers
Kanazawa:
風和利 Izakaya Fuwari
旬菜焼 はざま Hazama
割烹 魚常 Uotsune
金澤アンモナイト Izakaya Ammonite
Nara:
うな菊 奈良本店 Unagiku
粟 ならまち店 Awa Naramachi
おちゃのこ Ochanoko
Koya San:
遍照光院 Henjokoin
高野山デジタルミュージアム Koyasan Digital Museum
Osaka:
麺屋 丈六 Jouroku
福太郎本店 Fukutaro
たこ焼道楽 わなか 千日前 本店 Wanaka
燃えよ麺助 Moeyo Mensuke
Acidracines
料太 Ryota
Epais
炭火焼鳥きびたき Sumibiyakitori Kibitaki
Tokushima:
堂の浦 駅前店 Donoura Ekimae Branch
I will write about the food in separate topics.
Thank you every one who helped us plan this trip! And above all, thank you to Japan and all the locals who were so warm and hospitable. We had an amazing time!
