We rent a car in Kyoto for a road trip to Gifu, Nagano and Ishikawa provinces. People usually take trains around the country because of the excellent public transportation system. For us, because of the distance we needed to cover and the lack of transportation options in some of the places, it made much more sense to drive. It took us to many places that we would have never been able to get to with public transportation, and away from the tourist crowds. It was my favorite part of the trip, everything considered, including food.
Driving in Japan is not for the faint of heart, though. The roads, of course, are meticulously maintained. But the roads are also sized for the Japanese passenger cars that are really narrow. On the afternoon of the first day of the roadtrip when we were traveling to Gifu from Uji, it was quite stressful driving in some small rural roads along raised river dikes with full sized trucks passing in the opposite direction at 50kph. It was commented to me many times that I was very close to the edge of the dike that I should move farther away from. So the choice was, should I move closer to the median and risk a head-on collision with a truck that took up 3/4 of the road? Or should I leave only half a foot to the edge of the dike and risk falling off the dike? 
Falling off the dike seemed more palatable to me. I would take my chances.
The first stop after Kyoto was actually not that far in Uji, normally a daytrip from Kyoto. Uji and the surrounding areas have been an important production and distribution center of green tea. And that’s the reason we visited.
One of the many, many green tea shops in Uji. Tsujiri was found in 1860, and credited for popularizing quality green tea in Japan as well as outside. Their main branch in Uji:
We did some walking around the main street. Its almost lunch time so we went to Tsubameya, a restaurant known for their soba, including matcha soba. And what awesome soba they served.
They offered three type of soba: Soba noodle made of Uji matcha tea. 80% buckwheat noodle made with buckwheat from Horokanai, Hokkaido, and 100% buckwheat noodle made locally in Kyoto.
We got their various soba set with various types of tempura, fish and vegetable and soup. It was hot out so the chilled soba was much welcomed. Their matcha soba and the 80% buckwheat soba had great texture, a certain smoothness and nuanced buckwheat flavors. Mixed with their soy sauce based sauce it was refreshing and delightful. Easily one of my favorite meals on this trip. Their tempuras was light, and well prepared.
Restaurants like this one is a good reason to like specialist restaurants in Japan. They hone their technique over decades, and they are really good in what they do, and don’t try to be something else that they aren’t.
We liked this local soda very much.
The downstair dining room:
