About food in Japan

Michelin Guide Kansai(Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Nara) 2014

Last month, Michelin restaurant guide was published for Kansai region (関西) consisting from Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and Nara. 

We found two more restaurants awarded 3-star in Kyoto!! Congratulation to those restaurans!! It must be a good news for food lovers as well so as to have more choices in Koyoto.

Well, let'see the line-up.

All 7 Michelin 3-star-awarded restaurants in Kyoto provide Japanese cuisine and firstly those 5 below are regular ones on the list.

 

Kikunoi Honten (菊乃井　本店) - Japanese Kaiseki

    http://kikunoi.jp/store/

Kitcho Arashiyama (吉兆　嵐山本店) - Japanese

    http://www.kitcho.com/kyoto/shoplist_en/arashiyama/index.html

Chihana (千花) - Japanese Itamae cappo (chef's cuisine)

    http://kyotochihana.com/e/

Nakamura (なかむら) - Japanese Kyoryori (京料理, Kyoto local cuisine)

    http://www.kyoryori-nakamura.com

Hyotei (瓢亭) - Japanese Kaiseki

    http://hyotei.co.jp/

 

Then two new faces for 3-star list are,,,

 

Kichisen (吉泉)　- Japanese Kaiseki

    http://www.kichisen-kyoto.com/

Adjacent to the woods of Shimogamo Shrine, the Ryotei (料亭) is produced as an exclusive space with the chef's deep knowledge on tea ceremony, Japanese flower arrangement, incense and calligraphy schools as well as Japanese cuisine.  

 

Mizai (未在) - Japanese Kaiseki

    No home page

The restaurant was listed as 3-star actually even before it was moved to the new place within Maruyama Park in 2012. Only one dinner time slot will be offered for all guests as the chef would like to serve to all guests at same timing as it is done in Tea Ceremony style. It could be considered as a kind of entertainment show serving plates attracting diners not only for the taste but also for the visual presentation. The experience reminds us real traditional Kaiseki meal.

 

No change on the 3-star restaurant list for other Kansai cities, Osaka, Kobe and Nara.

As a new attempt of Michelin Guide in Japan, total 92 restaurants with "Bib Gourmand" are also listed, all of them are either French or Italian cuisine.

 

For more information, please check Press Release in English

http://www.michelin.com/corporate/EN/news/article?articleID=N2-new-three-stars-for-Kyoto-in-the-MICHELIN-guide-Kansai-2014

 

 

 

Affordable dining choice No.4 Family restaurant - Gusto(ガスト)

Family restaurant is one of the most popular food service category in Japan, as same with some other parts of the world. There are some chains in the category where any kinds of diners are welcomed, from very young children, students, business people to elders. 

Among them, as one of our series posts of "affordable dining choice", we recommend "Gusto."

Gusto is more casual and inexpensive version of a major family restaurant chain "Skylark." The chain may provide less numbers of meal choices and lower standard of services, while offering at lower prices. 

For example, the casual family restaurant chain offers one of the most popular typical menus for family restaurant, Hamburg steak from Yen418 and Spaghetti with shrimps and tomato sauce at Yen 523. Those prices must be almost a half of prices at ordinary family restaurants.

Especially for lunch time, two types of lunch set are offered at very reasonable price. Hamburg lunch set costs at Yen 499 and includes with two kinds of side dish changing on daily base as well as today's soup. Japanese lunch set does at Yen 599 and different main dish such as grilld fish, fried chicken etc is offered day by day. 

Let's see what we had as the lunch set at Yen 499.

Today's Hamburg lunch set includes

vegetable spring roll and chicken cutlet

served with rice and soup.

 

Today's soup, wakame (seaweed) soup is

almost filled with wakame, healthy food.

 

Good news for big eaters, 

Large size can be ordered for rice plate at free of charge

and soup is offered as self-service style and can take as much as you want.

 

As same with some other restaurant chains like Saizeriya which we introduced in this series of posts, "Affordable dining choice, " Gusto offers a kind of "Drink bar" which it calls "Premium Cafe. "  At Yen 339, you can take several different kinds of soft drinks whether it is hot or cold from cafe au lait, darjeeling tea, to coca, ice oolon tea etc etc, as much as you want.  

 

Restaurant name: Gusto (ガスト)

Official website:  http://www.skylark.co.jp/gusto/

 

Shinjuku Kotakibashi-street branch

Address: VARCA Nishi-Shinjuku build. 2nd floor, 7-16-11 Shinjuku, Tokyo

View Larger Map

 

Nihonbashi (near JR Tokyo station)

Address: 1st floor Nihonbashi Plaza Build. 2-3-4 Nihonbashi, Tokyo

 

View Larger Map

 

Shibuya Udagawa-cho (in front of Tokyu Department store Honten)

Address: 2nd floor Saito build. 34-5 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

 

View Larger Map

You will find many other Gusto units in major locations.

 

 

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