Finding a good place to eat in Arashiyama isn’t easy, and plenty of them don’t take reservations, so after some agonising I settled on a soba restaurant.
The walk there
It’s Arashiyama, but the shop is right by Arashiyama Station, so it’s a little removed from the sightseeing area.
The walk there
The scenery is lovely, but the road narrows in places, so it pays to be careful.
The restaurant
Just looking at it, the place clearly has presence.
The menu
In summer they serve hamo ten seiro, pike conger tempura with cold soba, in limited numbers.
The view
Wonderful space.
The drinks menu…
Just to give you a rough idea of what they have…
They sell pottery, too.
Hamo ten seiro
I ordered the tempura seiro and a hamo ten seiro turned up. I just assumed this was the tempura seiro, but it turned out to belong to another table… Lucky for me I was busy taking photos and hadn’t started eating.
And this is the tempura seiro I actually ordered.
The tempura is done well and the soba is very high quality. It’s worth coming all the way out to Arashiyama for.
Sobayu
Once you have finished the soba, you use this to make soba tea and drink it.
Assorted tempura
The hamo tempura that came out earlier looked so good that I ordered the assortment. It has a special summer flavour to it.
The soba-making bench by the door
Seeing something like this somehow makes me trust the place more. There was nobody there when I went in, but by the time I left there was a long queue. A famous place is famous for a reason.
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