One of the great things about Japan is of course the food (of the non-plastic variety, that is…). Ramen, sushi, shabu-shabu, yakitori, ongiri, okonomiyaki, kaiseki, tempura, tonkatsu, mochi and much, more more – so a big thing for me has of course been eating and drinking my way round the place as I’ve gone.

Admittedly, I do keep getting stuck mainly on ramen – usually purchased at various little hole-in-the wall type places, similar to as pictured below. It’s quick, affordable (as far as Japan goes!) and is one of my all-time favourite meals at the best of times, so a default ‘go to’ most evenings for me. The ones I’ve had to date have varied from the mediocre to the sublime, with some so bloody good they almost count as near transcendental – truly like achieving noodly-inspired nirvana at times. Eat your heart out, Wagamama.

Plus, there are about as many types of ramen as there are Japanese people – so you could literally spend a lifetime eating only ramen (and, oh, what a happy life that would be…) and never make it through… To date, my favourite is tonkotsu, which is a creamy pork-based ramen – super fatty, but really good on the one or two chillier days we’ve had here.

But I’ve also gone off piste and pushed the boat out too, on the odd occasion. Today is quite literally piddling it down, so I took strategic advantage of this fact to schedule my one big blow-out meal of the trip. Kyoto is known for its kaiseki cuisine, which basically means a set course meal chosen by the chef to highlight a specific seasonal theme. You are very much spoilt for choice on where to eat out in the city, but in the end I landed upon the mid-range Pontacho Fujita in Kyoto’s downtown dining district (think yet more wooden houses, red lanterns and curtains over the doorways, etc.). I’d chosen this place pretty much for the sole reason that they had one of the more easily navigable reservation sites (by no means a given in Japan!) and the ability to book for just the one person, rather than a two head minimum – but thankfully the food was amazing here as well! I’d love to be able to describe what I had (and the chef did make a point of carefully explaining each and every dish to me at the time…), but with all of 11 courses in the mix, I honestly can’t remember the details now… Suffice to say though, it was all bloody lovely – even the tofu course (not my bag usually, but in a whole other league of its own in Japan, at any rate).

Admittedly, I did have a bit of a panic beforehand at the prospect of turning up to a more upmarket establishment in my (increasingly manky at this point…) trainers, so ended up having a last-minute dash around the city to buy a semi-decent pair of cheapo heels. Only to then be reminded, once I arrived, that of course it’s a case of shoes off at the door in most ‘proper’ Japanese restaurants anyway – doh! Which does raise the question as to how the Japanese might contend with any potential podalic hygiene issues on the part of the clientele that could arise in this scenario…? In my case, I’d come daisy fresh straight from the hostel (with brand-new clean socks on…), but close-hand recent experience tells me that my feet have distinctly hummed after some of my busier walking days of late. Do the Japanese carry emergency clean socks with them for just such occasions…? I’m beginning to think it’s not a bad idea to do myself here too, you know, just on the off chance…

But anyway, once again I digress. Back to some other recent examples of non-ramen based dining… I also got dinner the other night at a sake bar, where I ordered omakase (meaning chef’s choice – much easier when the menu is all in Japanese). The below was (I think) some squid in sauce, yellowfin sashimi and kim chi, followed by potato and egg salad and deep fried baby squid. All duly delicious, but I did have to get a couple of 7/11 rice balls on the way home again to properly fill the hole on this occasion! The first glass of sake also came free with the food, which (silly me, given the venue) I hadn’t been expecting. After the last 3 months off the sauce, I couldn’t manage more than a few sips without threatening to fall off my stool in the process.. Complete cheap date alert right here!

Thirdly, the other night I also joined a more casual group kaiseki dinner at a local place called Hamacho, which was a bit hit and miss in terms of the food (though admittedly I forgot to take pics of a couple of courses, amid the conversation). It was definitely a great opportunity to meet and mingle though – and I ended up having a really good time!

That’s us before, during and after the meal in another bar (and yes, that is a real drink – being consumed very slowly and carefully on my part!)

Plus there’s all the various snacks and picnic lunches I’ve had along the way too. I started out typically eating one ‘picnic’ meal per day from the supermarket deli counter or 7/11 per day, in part to keep an eye on costs (Japan ain’t cheap y’all) – but also because these ‘pick n mix’ meals are also really tasty in their own right.

Until I did the maths, that is, and realised it would actually still be cheaper to just go for ramen, or to buy a lunch Blue Peter style (i.e. one that someone else made earlier). Which brings us nicely onto ebiken. These are what basically inspired the ‘bento box’ in the UK, which really doesn’t exist as a concept in Japan in the same way – i.e. you wouldn’t go out to eat bento at a fancy restaurant, for example. Rather, ebiken are basically the Japanese equivalent of a day-to-day sandwich or packed lunch – something you might pull together for a picnic or buy ready-made for a long train journey. This is kind of what they look like – I do love the fact they many of them are gift wrapped too!

Well, it certainly beats Pret, that’s for sure!

And then there’s the markets – both the Tsujiki Market in Tokyo, which I’ve touched on in a previous post, and the local Nishiki Market in Kyoto, which I’ve also hit up a few times of late for various lunches, dinners and just for shits and giggles for the most part too. Once again, a ridiculous amount of camera storage was used up during these various visits, and also once again the below constitutes just a tiny fraction of the total pictures taken!

Then of course you have your drinks. Let’s put it this way: it is physically impossible to ever go thirsty in Japan (bar being short of a bit of loose change, that is). There are vending machines literally everywhere here, on every street corner and even on people’s driveways in some cases. Most of the drinks here are incredibly sweet (e.g. think sweetened green tea, cold milky sweet black tea and even sugary sweetcorn tea…) and far too sickly for me – but there’s always good old pocari sweat in a pinch…

In fact, drinks-wise, the overarching theme of trip has not been sake or asahi (I’ve actually been incredibly sparing all trip), but matcha tea – which is my new potable equivalent of crack cocaine. I’ve had the ‘real deal’ in matcha a couple of times at formal tea houses or at yesterday’s tea ceremony, but the one I’m really obsessed with is from Doutor, which is basically the Japanese equivalent to Costa or Starbucks – i.e. the completely bastardised version! No one day in Japan has yet passed without a Doutor visit – sometimes two, once even three. Perhaps it’s not so much the matcha I like after all, but all that lovely jubbly milk and sugar that constitutes today’s commercialised matcha latte offerings!

So there you have it – and, as you can see, I’ve certainly been eating well here! Thank God for the 30k average steps per day to balance out all the matcha (et al) calories, or I’d seriously be coming back to the UK ten times the size (though even then, it would still be worth it!).

So once again, that’s it from me for now – back again in a day or two’s time…