November 21, 2025. Breakfast at Hotel Lunch - Jin Din Rou Dinner - Magical Tours Food Tour
This morning we down to eat breakfast at 7:00. I had an omelet with mushroom and ham. Suzette had yogurt and fruit and coffee. Then I ate a bowl of salad and Suzette left at 7:30 with a group to go to the flea market.
I then ate pastries and tea and then went to the room and called Rahim and read until 10:15 and at 10:30 we joined the group walking to the large shopping mall. They walked ahead, but we made it to the mall and Passed the knife shop Kaz had mentioned before arriving at the end of the mall. We top urn Ed around and back tracked to the knife shop and shop for a knife. It took a while because there were 100’s of knives, all hand made. We chose a 6 1/2 inch versatile knife with one sided blade in stainless steel. Then Suzette chose two gardening clippers, also handmade. These are beautiful objects that will last a lifetime if cared for properly.
As we walked in the mall toward the exit we ran into the group and Christy directed us toward a shop that offered door sashes. They were contemporary hand painted by a local artist for the shop. The owner showed us an old photo of the shop and told us the shop had been there for 400 years. We liked two and so we bought one for us and one for Amy.
We then continued back toward the hotel passing this restaurant boldly displaying its location as a good place to eat crab.
It was 12:15 and we were getting hungry when we passed a restaurant that appeared to offer dumplings, so we stopped for lunch. The name of the restaurant was Jin Din Rou and it offered a three course lunch for $10.00 that included a cold tofu salad topped with shrimp, three soup filled pork dumplings, and a bowl of ramen and green tea. Suzette took one she thought was chicken that turned out to be pork and I took a bowl with Shrimp wontons. Everything was delicious. It was a very professional operation. There were instructions in the English menu instructing how to eat the soup filled dumpling. One added black vinegar to a small bowl of shredded ginger. Then place some ginger and vinegar on top of the dumpling. Then prick the dumpling to open it, Then try to get the entire dumpling into your mouth. Each ramen had its own broth that was excellent and an amount of fresh bok Choy and finely minced onion and garlic.
We have found that lunch is often a bargain in Japan, as it was today.
We then walked back to the hotel and rested until 3:00. I showered and dressed and we went down to the lounge for our now daily high tea with assortment of a lovely French pastries.
Then at 4:15 we had the front desk call for a taxi and went to the statue of Izumo no Okuni who created Kabuki dance in 1603 and waited for our guide for the Magical Food Tour to arrive. At 5:00 Riza appeared and then Charlotte and Martin, two Brits who have lived in Switzerland for many years, soon showed up. So Riza guided our small group of four through the narrow streets of the Geisha district on a 3 1/2 hour food tour that included three stops. Each stop had its own pre-arranged menu or options negotiated between the restaurant and the tour Company. The first was a small restaurant in a small courtyard reached through a long narrow alley and narrow stairs that no normal tourist could ever find named Gion Hitsuji, where were served a delicious five course meal. The first two courses were combined and served on one wooden lacquered tray. There was a plate in the center of theb tray with the sashimi course that included two slices each of blue fin tuna and sea bream and one slice of cooked conger eel.
Surrounding the small plate of sashimi were bowls of dashi, a stew of a local green vegetable like spinach, freeze dried tofu, and onion; then Sukiyaki with braised beef, glutton, and bean thread noodles; then two slices of beef in a light sauce with micro greens and slices of cherry tomato; then a chicken and tofu soup with a shiitake mushroom and a carrot, and finally a very interesting stir fried mung bean and brown beech mushroom.
Two drinks were included with our meal. Everyone took a highball of Japanese Whiskey with soda at first, except I ordered plum wine, but had to add soda to it to reduce the intense sweetness. Later Suzette took a beer for her second drink and I took a highball which was not sweet, but was rather alcoholic.
The Tempura (3rd course) was a small bowl of vegetable tempura, eggplant, lotus root, sweet potato, and carrot with a very interesting matcha salt that is commonly used in Kyoto instead of the more normal teriyaki sauce. I liked the fact that the salt added flavor without wetting the crisp tempura. This seemed like a a superior way to eat tempura.
Next was the Grilled (4th course) course lean strips of pork chop that had been rubbed with salt it seemed, served in a bowl on top of stir fried mung beans and bok Choy in a light soy and sugar, and sake, and mirin sauce. The pork was garnished with a cloud of thin green onion threads.
Several dishes were sprinkled with yellow Chrysanthemum leaves in honor of Autumn.
The final two courses were also served together. The pickled vegetable dish containing two slices of pickled daikon and a small pile of the local spinach was served with a bowl of rice cooked with small beech mushrooms and garnished with a dash of toasted sesame seeds. The rice was delicious with the pickled vegetables.
When the owner came in our guide told her I was a food writer with a blog and the owner asked me to send my review to Google. She probably meant Trip Advisor. When I told her the review was going to be on my blog on Google she went wild with appreciation.
She is hoping to expand her clientele outside the locals and food tour members, which this gem of a restaurant merits.
Second Stop. We next walked to a bar on another side street with an interesting logo although I did not get its name where were given several options for drinks and food. We all selected the drink option with a sample of six sakes and a plate of sashimi.
We were first served trays with six small square cups with interesting decorations in their bottom. There were two relatively dry, two medium, and two slightly sweet sakes. Charlotte and Martin liked the second driest sake and Suzette and I liked the medium sakes. We were each given a larger glass of the sake we preferred. While we were tasting an employee was slicing Blue fin tuna, sea bream, and mackerel cured with salt and seaweed sashimi. Riza told us that since Kyoto is far from the ocean, the mackerel is traditionally processed with salt and seaweed to preserve it. I had never eaten processed mackerel before. It was dense and salty and made me want to drink the sweetest sake with it. I noted to Riza that the blue fin tuna was the best I had ever eaten and she told the employee and the employee came over and congratulated me for recognizing how special it was. The triangular slices were darker red on one side and lighter red on the other. The lighter red was the belly meat that was so creamy that it melted in your mouth. When I mentioned that it was amazing, he told Rizao he knew the fish dealer who selected that quality for him and it used to cost 1000 yen per kilo and it now composts 5000 yen per kilo. I felt good about the fish and sake experience and our choice to take this tour that took us to a small unassuming bar that just served me the best piece of sashimi I had ever eaten.
Third Stop- we walked across the Main Street again and along a canal into another Warren of alleys to another bar up a level of stairs to a small bar with a row of chairs and windows facing the canal whose view was partially blocked by a large cherry tree whose,eaves were turning from green to yellow. Suzette said her mother loved to go to Washington to see the cherry trees on the Mall Blossum in the spring. Riza who lived in Maryland and worked as a researcher at NIH for three yesrs, said she also loved to go to Washington to see the cherry trees blossom and then told us she preferred living in Japan and the pace of guiding tourists and practicing her English to medical research where you could work for years and never see any progress in your efforts if the molecule you were researching failed to make it through Phase 1 or Phase 2.
I said if I had to pick a second vocation it might be to become a food tour guide in New Mexico. What a great job.
Again we were shown a plastic chart with choices of desserts and beverages. We all chose macha ice cream and several small slices of German Baumkuchen, perhaps because we wanted to see what baumkuchen was.
Baumkuchen (German pronunciation:[ˈbaʊ̯mˌkuːxn̩] ⓘ) is a kind of spit cake from German cuisine. It is also a popular dessert in Japan. The characteristic rings that appear in its slices resemble tree rings, and give the cake its German name, Baumkuchen, which literally translates to "tree cake" or "log cake".[1]
The dessert was lovely, especially as we looked out the window at the canal and trees. Riza told us this was the canal that was used to bring goods, such as the fish to Kyoto. I imagine that one could spend months exploring the historic aspects of this city and be continually surprised. Foe example, Riza explained the geisha training system and took us to a black boars in the geisha area that showed the training schedule for classes for November and in a different location beside a canal where two streets met in a small plaza where there was a small shrine with placards on the fences surrounding the shrine that named the merchants who supported the shrine. Riza told us the merchants often come to pray at the shrine for good luck in business. We were just seeing the depths of Japanese culture in this one small area and it was fascinating.
At the end of the tour while we were eating dessert Riza gave us a card from her tour company that offered tours all over Japan at a 15% discount. We immediately decided to take a similar evening food tour in Tokyo if our schedule allowed and write a good review of our experience with Riza whose English fluency and who expressed her knowledge of Japanese culture and history so well. She did not offer her opinion of the food, except to answer questions about ingredients and processes, the food spoke for itself.
What a delightful evening of food shared with a lovely couple of approximately our ages, who were athletic whose next adventure in Japan will be to hike the famous pilgrimage trek on the Kumano Kodo.
https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/979/
We returned to the statue of Izumo no Okun, said our goodbyes and caught a cab back to the Royal Park Hotel where sat with Latty, Sue, Kaz, and Bob and sipped a cognac for a few minutes and then retired to our room and did some laundry and went to bed for a comfortable night’s sleep under the blanket supplied by the hotel that allowed us to sleep on our duvet/comforter as a feather bed.
Bon Appetit
Thank you Bob and Suzette for joining the Food Tour! I’m enjoyed your blog and impressed how much you remember the details of my talk! Hope you have more fun in Japan!
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