You do not have time to travel to a Ryokan (Japanese traditional inn) in country side? For those people, lunch at Yagenbori Akasaka will be a good alternative experience in central Tokyo. You will feel as if you were in a typical traditional Ryokan for a moment, while the cost is less than one-tenth of it.
Yagenbori is situated on a narrow path between two busy streets in central Akasaka district where many restaurants and bars are scattered. Finding the restaurant's gate nicely decorated in Japanese traditional style with a lantern-like sign, stones and green plants, you will be in the ancient Japanese atomosphere. Here you must be requested to remove your shoes off at the entrance by the restaurant's smiling staff in kimono.
For dinner time, Yagenbori, a traditional Japanese restaurant originally based in Kyoto, provides Kaiseki style courses at around Yen 10000 per person, while its lunch sets are quite reasonable.
Our recommendation for lunch is "Kamogawa" (鴨川, named after the river runing through central Kyoto) set with "tororo" (とろろ) rice. Grazed Japanese yam potato or "tororo" is served with rice and pickles as Japanese traditional set meal. Some delicacies such as Ikura (salmon roe), tuna and seaweed paste are in the bowl of tororo. That is the original style of serving grazed "tororo", while usually no topping food is provided for tororo with rice.
Tororo bowl
Mix up all ingredient in the tororo bowl.
Then it was put on top of rice.
This is the traditional "tororo gohan " or Yam with rice.
The way of providing rice is also unique at the Japanese restaurant. It brings rice in "Ohitsu" (おひつ, special wooden box to keep cooked rice warm on guest table) which is rarely found in modern days even even in this country. Take Japanese rice on your rice-bowl with "shamoji" (しゃもじ, big spoon specialized for rice) from Ohitsu. That must become a good souvernir experience of traditional Japanese dining scene.
Enjoying traditional Japanese meal surrounded by Japanese folk ojects and interior decoration, we, even Japanese, almost forget that we are in the heart of the busy metropolitan city.
Restaurant name: Yagenbori Akasaka
Address: 3-19-5 Akasaka Minato-ku Tokyo
Website: http://www.yagenbori.co.jp/english/tenpo/akasaka/index.html
****** Our recommendable accommodation around this restaurant *******
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