Kōdaiji Jūgyūan

Classic Kaiseki, highlighting Innovative Presentation and Technique in Kyoto, Japan

In the historic Higashiyama district, just off the main pedestrian throughfare, there lies an antiquated but clearly well-maintained compound with a sprawling garden dating back to the Meiji period. Inside is the single Michelin starred Kōdaiji Jūgyūan, a traditional Japanese Ryotei specializing in Kaiseki cuisine.

As we approached the entrance, a man at the front confirmed our reservation, and we were escorted through an immaculately manicured Japanese garden.

Reaching the main building, we hit the entrance, where we were asked to remove our shoes and we stepped up to the tatami floors. Bending down to avoid hitting our heads on the beams, the smell of tradition permeated the air - a combination of the oil from the shoji screens, the sweet smell of the warm Hinoki wood and grassy tatami mats, creaking as we stepped across.

We were led just off the entrance and into a scarcely decorated room, with a very deliberate asymmetry. There was a minimalist wall covering and a vase with a plant on one end of the room, and a wall-mounted vase with a single flower on a single branch on the other. The room was surrounded by diffuse lighting through the translucent shoji screens and a view of the garden out two glass windows. A large walnut table sat in the center, with two dining chairs beside each other, facing the garden.

We sat in silence, other than the sound of moving air from the vents, and the footsteps and creaking of wood and tatami mats as people passed in the corridor outside. We were sat very close to the entrance hall, in a relatively high-traffic corridor, so the sounds of people entering and leaving happened fairly frequently, but was quiet enough that it did not distract from the meal.

Sitting in front of each chair was a mouthful of chilled tea, and a steaming hot towel. A folded menu lay between the two seats, outlining the upcoming festivities.

The first course was served on top of a fresh water lily leaf sandwiched between two beds of crushed ice. Two small pieces of grilled sweetfish sat on top of what looked like poached celery, but was instead, a crisp white stem of a taro plant. In between was a paste made of tofu, vinegar and minced sweet fish. The firmness of the fish contrasted with the light foaminess of the sauce and a bit of sharpness and crunch from the taro stem.

The appetizer was served with a tablespoon of sweet sake poured out on the shallowest saucer I’ve ever seen. The mere act of bringing the cup to my lips led to spilling some of the precious liquid off the far lip of the saucer.

This was followed by the biggest hit of the night, a soup dish with a piece of poached tilefish and a fried potato dumpling with a gingko nut in the center. This was topped with Japanese Okahijiki or “land seaweed”.

The dumpling was soft and spongey, while the tilefish was fresh, firm and infused with yuzu. Both were immersed in a clear kombu and bonito broth, which tasted of intense umami and smoke.

The sashimi course was next, with the sea bass on the menu replaced with sea bream. This was served with some grassy spinach blossom, salty seaweed and a slightly peppery perilla leaf. The sea bream was served with a dish of soy sauce and wasabi, as well as a dish of slightly thick ponzu sauce, which was uncharacteristically sour without any balancing sweetness.

The following course was the “seasonal” dishes, with an assortment of individual items in each plate.

From the bottom right, there was a Japanese sea snail marinaded in wine, a piece of tamago (egg omelette), with a small image of a cow branded on to the surface, a single tiny lonely okra, a piece of grilled octopus that was crispy around the edges, but the center was melt in your mouth tender, and finally a piece of red konjac.

In the past, whenever I’ve encountered konjac, it was a flavourless, milky-white translucent jelly that would absorb the flavours of whatever it was cooked in, usually in the form of a bundle of noodles dipped into hotpot. This time, the konjac was an opaque brownish-red and uncharacteristically, it was a bit chewy and meaty, along with the normal crunch and springiness of other forms of konjac.

Moving to the bottom left, there was salted squid and fish offal with pickled gourd in a sweet vinegar. The offal was slightly bitter, a little slimy, contrasting well with the sharp crispness of the pickled gourd.

On the top, there was soft-shelled turtle jelly on top some mushy rice risotto and some starchy yuba. This was somewhat bland and uninspiring.

The highlight here was red konjac and octopus. Absolutely perfect execution on the octopus and the red konjac is a very unique flavour and texture combination that I haven’t tried before.

The grilled dish was a pork loin, with a large part of the fat cap still attached. It was brined, crusted with natto miso and a black olive powder and served with a charred Takagamine green pepper in an intensely sweet tomato and meat sauce.

This was an incredibly fragrant dish that we could smell before it entered the room. The saltiness of the pork was offset by the sweetness of the sauce. It was so sweet there was a bit of crunch from some of the sugar crystalizing in the sauce. The pepper itself tasted a bit of the char and was rather bitter. All of this was served on a delicately thin, almost translucent plate engraved with dragonflies around the edges.

The chilled dish was a very unique take on a wintermelon dumpling. A filling of shrimp, two kinds of uni (sea urchin) and edamame beans was covered with a piece of poached wintermelon thinly scored with a grid of shallow cuts, that allowed the otherwise solid piece of wintermelon to fold gracefully over the dumpling filling. This was topped with a gelatinized conpoy (dried scallop) and shrimp stock.

My first impression was that the ingredients in this dish match the recipe for a very popular Cantonese soup served at fancy banquets. The only ingredients missing were some rehydrated shitake mushrooms and Jinhua ham for saltiness and umami. The dish showcased the chef’s intricate cutting and folding techniques, but the flavours were a bit muted when served chilled and it may have been better served with a warm broth.

The final course before dessert was a conger eel and lotus root claypot rice. The rice was cooked to an almost risotto-like texture, and they were incredibly generous with the eel.

The rice itself was rather bland, but was served with a side homemade pickled snow pear, burdock root, slices of kombu, and some pickled cucumbers surgically sliced paper-thin to add to the texture. There was also a concentrated umami bomb in the form of a miso soup.

Inside the soup was what appeared to be a deep-fried tofu cube. When bitten into the chewiness revealed it to be a deep-fried mochi. An unexpected surprise compared to the soft give expected from tofu. The blandness of the rice risotto helped smooth out the sharpness of the pickles and the saltiness of the soup.

For dessert, a peach jelly, on top of peach sorbet, served with a halved muscat and adorned with a single mint leaf. Amazing.

Finally, a textured red bean and brown sugar paste, wrapped around some mashed taro and topped with gold leaf, served with the world’s largest toothpick and a mouthful of freshly whisked matcha inside a rough, rustic bowl.

Overall, this Kaiseki experience was very different than the one we had at the nearby Sanso Kyoyamato. Whereas Kyoyamato was very simple and consistent, Kōdaiji Jūgyūan was much more experimental with technique and presentation, making for some very unique dishes. The level of service was much less deliberate and methodical, but the level of technique and presentation on display was a lot higher here.

Unfortunately, the level of execution was not as consistent as Kyoyamato with a few misses as well. At the end of the day, interesting techniques and presentation cannot overcome consistent execution of the simple, and the highlights of the night were really the simplest dishes - the tilefish in soup, the grilled octopus and red konjac, and the grilled pork loin.

Total damage: 55k JPY/2 people.