Continued from:
After escaping from Kinkaku-ji, we urgently needed something to cool the kids down. So we went to Seien near our hotel. Seien has been around for 139 years, since 1885. They serve a variety of desserts, but are well known for their shaved ice and amber nagashi. There are a few tables inside a traditionally decorated room inside an old Kyoto townhouse, and there is one long table for single seats facing a zen exterior courtyard with a koi fish in the back.
(from their IG account)
You go to Kyoto, soak up all the ancient culture at temples and shrines, walk the Philosopher’s Path, rest your tired legs at Seien, eat some sweets made with matcha / sencha from nearby Uji and Wazuka, contemplate about life and suddenly you are enlightened and ‘hopefully’ as wise as Nishida Kitaro, after whom the Path is named.
We aren’t quite enlightened but we certainly enjoyed the dessert. Definitely well made. The kids didn’t care for the matcha and sencha but that’s their loss.
Samples out front. Clockwise from the bottom left- Peppermint amber nagashi/ seaweed jelly, their most popular dessert, red bean mochi soup, higashi.
The menu:
We got :
the red bean mochi soup.
Peppermint amber nagashi/ seaweed jelly topped with mint jelly with cider.
Higashi and matcha tea.
Sencha shaved ice.
Seien 栖園 大極殿六角店
120 Horinouecho, Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto, 604-8117, Japan
京都府京都市中京区六角通高倉東入ル南側堀之上町120
https://www.instagram.com/daigokuden.seien/
