Yuba for the Win

It was finally here. The day we got to go to a yuba kaiseki at a restaurant called Yubani. It was attached to a yuba factory. I had been looking forward to this all trip. It was going to be about a 90 minute walk to get there so we left in the morning. Along the way we passed a statue of one of the great female kabuki performers. Kabuki was created in the 17th century and originally started out as all female theater troupes. Unfortunately, in 1629 the ruling shogunate banned all women from performing in kabuki. Since that time it has only been performed by men.

We continued on our walk past Kyoto station and further toward the outskirts of Kyoto. The next interesting place we passed was the Higashi Hongan-ji Temple. This wasn’t a planned stop but it looked really interesting so we had to go in. It was just a brief walk through but I loved the way the temple looked with all the clouds behind it.

Finally we reached Yubani. Or at least Google maps said we did. We had found the factory but didn’t see the entrance to the restaurant. We went inside and with the help of Google translate and one of the nice employees we got to the restaurant. They didn’t speak much English but they had an English menu and we had ordered our course when making the reservation so we knew what we were going to get.

The room wasn’t as fancy as the other kaiseki restaurants we’d visited but didn’t matter because the food was amazing. I had been worried it’d be a bit kitschy and not actually good but I loved every course. It is the restaurant I’d most like to go back to.

After the absolutely amazing yuba meal we walked an hour and a half back stopping at Kyoto station along the way. Here we were able to purchase tickets for our train to the airport the next day and figure out where in the huge train station our train would be. It’s much easier to wander around the station when you’re not lugging large suitcases with you.

Once we got to the shops closer to our place we decided to stop and give my foot a rest. This also gave us the change to try a fruit sandwich. These delightful treats are made of soft white bread with fruit and whipped cream. They are surprisingly yummy.

Invigorated with sugar we headed to the Nishiki Market. I found this area way to crowded to be enjoyable. You really just got carried along by the crowd and were unable to stop and browse for a large part of it. Turning onto a less crowded street we passed a restaurant that had kobe beef katsu. This was something Kuah had really wanted to try. There was a seat available at the counter so he went in and I continued to walk around a bit. In the end he didn’t love it but was glad he had tried it.

Total walking for the day was almost 10.5 miles. The next day we would be on our way back to Singapore. Although we had a great time in Japan we were both looking forward to being back home and sleeping in our own bed.

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