Yoshiro Kiyama, who studied at the famous Kyoto store "Wakuden" for 16 years, opened a store here a year ago. In just one year, it not only won one star, but now it has become a new star in Kyoto's kaiseki.

2024/05/1720:50:33 hotcomm 1727

4HOURS｜KYOTO

Kyoto, near Gosho Minami, on the first floor of an apartment.

Yoshiro Kiyama, who studied at the famous Kyoto restaurant "Wakuden" for 16 years, opened a store here a year ago. In just one year, it not only won one star, but now it has become a new star in Kyoto's kaiseki.

walked into the store from an inconspicuous apartment, and there was already a different scene in front of him. If seeing is not believing, it would be difficult to imagine that such an apartment is so unique.

White soup

At six o'clock, we sat down and the shopkeeper first poured a cup of warm water from the pot and presented it to us.

The water comes from the self-drilled well in the Mushan store. It has a pleasant temperature and sweet taste. Kyoto's groundwater is of high quality and abundant, especially near the Imperial Palace, where high-quality water veins have existed since ancient times. As for Japanese food, the quality of water has a great influence on the cuisine. When Mushan first opened the store, he learned that there was a high-quality water vein nearby and dug his own well. Therefore, water became the essence of Mushan. A big theme.

In short, from this first cup of white soup, which is like "paying in advance", we can see Mushan's confidence in his own water.

Human Crab

Every year from early November, the ban on Matsuba Crab in Saninki Prefecture in the Sea of Japan begins to lift, which also officially opens the "taste of ten days" for Japanese food in winter. Like sweetfish in summer or matsutake mushrooms in autumn, pine leaf crab is the undisputed protagonist throughout the winter.

With the branding of Matsuba crabs produced in several counties of Shanyin, the quality of the crabs has become more and more high-quality, but the price has also increased. For ordinary people, each one can be called a sky-high price. The female crab in this steamed rice dish presented by

is produced in Tango Majin Port, Kyoto. The Majin crab is known as the "phantom crab". It goes without saying that it is delicious and rare. The female Matsuba crab is often called the back crab or the box crab depending on the region. Different from the male crab, the small female crab focuses on eating its crab roe and crab roe.

Mushan mixes crab roe and crab roe into glutinous rice, steams it with crab juice and then covers it with leg meat. When chewing the steamed rice that is full of crab flavor, you can still taste the taste of ginger and chopped yam strips. Comes with a crispy taste.

Black Abalone

After steaming the rice, the store offered a glass of sake produced in Fukuoka. After drinking, the small sucker is presented.

Underneath the soft-boiled black abalone is egg tofu made from egg liquid. The biggest feature of Mushan's small soybean is that it does not use the traditional juice made from bonito knuckle and kelp. The juice of the day's soybean is made from seven kinds of fungi and boiled for five hours. Made from kudzu, the stickiness of the juice is not the result of adding arrowroot starch, but just the natural thickening after long-term cooking.

The toughness of abalone and the softness of tofu complement each other perfectly. Mushan only uses a little salt for seasoning, and the remaining mellow and umami flavor is brought by fungi.

Ise Ebina Aoi 青りんご

Grilled turnips, shiitake mushrooms, and fried Ise lobster. The three are put on the same plate, seasoned with sauce, and covered with green apple puree. It has a wonderful taste and texture.

The flour-coated Ise lobster was fried in the pot for only ten seconds, and the meat was still half-rare. The seasoning sauce was made from boiled lobster shells and shrimp brains. It should have been a rich dish, but it was replaced by green apple. The freshness, sweetness and sourness of the mud break through easily. Such a combination of flavors can be described as young in kaiseki, so much so that the regulars at the next table also praised this dish. It is indeed unforgettable.

knots than べ

After three steps, we came to the most exciting part of Kiyama kaiseki, cutting the knots.

Juice has always been the soul of Japanese cuisine. It is used in everyone from high-end restaurants to ordinary households. The main specialty of Mushan is the ultimate juice production, the one-year barren festival, the second-year dry festival and the tuna festival. The three types of fish joints are cut on-site in Itamae. The on-site fish cutting festival has been an idea that Mushan had since before opening the store, or it may be said that it was this idea that led to the creation of "Mushan".

The sound of the blade rubbing against the fish joints echoed in the room. The diners were particularly quiet at this time, as if they were all listening to the melody before the delicious food was born.

The three types of fish joints are cut, and each type is distributed to diners for taste testing. The bare joints are direct, the dry joints are gentle, and the tuna joints are soft.

Make the juice and take it.

Then Mushan made the juice himself.

Rishiri kelp from Rishiri kelp, which is grown for three to four years, is soaked in the home's well water for two days, heated and moved to the plate. The three types of fish joints are placed in the kelp soup. The amount used depends on the ingredients in the bowl that day.

After a while, filter out the juice, and the juice is ready. The unique "little theater" in Mushan has also come to an end.

Juice The freshly made juice of Jinju Mountain Crab

will also be distributed to diners for taste testing, and the rest will be moved to the kitchen to be cooked into bowls. The juice at this time is not decorated with any seasoning, it is purely fresh and sweet, without being overly showy.

Soon, the bowl was presented, and Jinju Mountain Crab was really big.

Zhenzhang is a meatball made from fish paste and Japanese yam, mixed with various ingredients. The fish paste of the day is taken from gray conger eel. Usually crab meat is used in crab mason's preparation. However, Kiyama's dish is unique in that the crab is grilled and then mixed with fish paste. In this way, the crab meat is more obvious. The proportion increases, and after being pinched open with chopsticks, the silky crab leg meat can be faintly seen. The juice previously made by

was seasoned in the kitchen with only a little salt and a very small amount of thin soy sauce, in order to use the purest umami flavor to set off Zhenzhang.

There are three types of black throat flounder

, red throat, black throat, flounder .

The dish of the day was not paired with soy sauce that is usually used for sashimi, but with refreshing and slightly sour tangerine vinegar. The week-aged Ise Bay wild red anjali and flounder have a light taste. It is recommended to eat it with tangerine vinegar and wasabi.

After the frosting treatment, the black rice is more oily. It is recommended to season it with Tsukudani seaweed. The seaweed tastes fresh and salty. It not only replaces the mission of soy sauce, but also adds an extra layer of taste change to the black rice.

Kyoto Beef and Globata

Charcoal grilled Kyoto beef and fried alocasia, both ingredients are produced in Kyoto.

Nowadays, with the branding of Wagyu beef across Japan and the grading system of the Meat Eaters Association, the quality difference between Wagyu beef is gradually narrowing. For example, the "three major Wagyu beef" is gradually becoming more famous than reality. Although the quality of Kyoto beef has long been classified as In the highest classification, it always seems to be somewhat unknown.

Mushan uses the best part of the filet for this grilled dish. It is grilled over charcoal fire. The beef is tender pink, and the tender texture is not inferior to that of the alocasia, which is famous for its delicate and firm texture. In terms of seasoning, Mongolian rock salt, wasabi and miso are available. The use of miso is relatively fresh. The sweet miso is mixed with chopped Nara pickles, which adds a crisp texture to this soft grilled food. .

Anko Spicy daikon

Wild conger eel from Akashi, stacked with burdock and spicy radish puree, a slightly refreshing side dish.

Spicy radish, this traditional Kyoto vegetable with a spicy taste is really irritating to the mouth, so much that it obscures the deliciousness of the conger eel. In terms of taste, it is more appropriate to describe it as wasabi puree than radish puree.

Tang Mo ホウレンソウ

In the last two months of each year, mullet ovaries are salted and air-dried to make mullet roe , which has long been an annual ritual for various sushi and kaiseki restaurants. The production of mullet roe was introduced to Japan in the Ming Dynasty. Because it resembles an ink block, it was named Tang Mo. Tang Mo has been regarded as a treasure by the Japanese since it was introduced, especially the newly made New Tang Mo, which can be regarded as a winter-limited flavor.

Compared with the previous one, this dip is really much refreshing. Spinach, cowpeas, shiitake mushrooms and coarsely ground sesame seeds are mixed together. The sesame seeds have a rich aroma. Together with a piece of homemade new Tang ink, the taste is soft and mellow.

The real name is bonito, the remaining pieces

fried food, the remaining pieces and the feathers tempura.

As a kind of high-grade white fish, pomfret is rare in daily life, especially fried into tempura. The sweet and sour sauce made from pure rice vinegar and sugar brewed from rice from Tango, Kyoto, is poured directly on the tempura after it is cooked. The delicate fish does not have much flavor, and it would be better served with the common tempura sauce. The sauce must have an ordinary taste to the whole dish, but the slightly stimulating sweet and sour sauce gives it a new twist, so that when you enjoy it, you don't even feel that what you are tasting is tempura.

Yunzi Lotus root Winter melon

Autumn and winter are the times when the ovaries/testes of fish are abundant. When it comes to testes, apart from the tiger puffer Baizi , the most well-known one is the cod Shirako.

In Kyoto, the white and tender cod shirataki are often called clouds because their shape resembles clouds. The soup base of the cooking is white miso, and Kiyama's treatment of clouds is not very novel, but it is still fresh. The rice crackers are first broken into powder, and then the cloud seeds are wrapped and fried. The processed cloud seeds have a layer of rice fragrance, and the thick coating absorbs more of the flavor of the soup base.

Imperial rice

In addition to the main dish, Mushan’s staple food is also highly praised. Not only are there always three or four kinds, but the taste is also quite satisfying.

There were four kinds of staple food that day, and I ordered a small portion of each.

The first dish from the back kitchen was Kabayaki eel rice bowl. Kansai 's eel was only grilled but not steamed. The skin was crispy and the flavor of the kabayaki sauce was quite restrained, so that it would not fill up the bowl. feeling of satiety.

The second course is pearl oyster tea.

Compared with the oyster oyster, pearl oyster shells can be described as common people. Since the output in Kansai is large, Kansai people usually like to eat it. The pearl oyster tempura is added with chopped green onion and finely chopped ginger, and then poured with the juice used in the previous bowl. The umami of the juice, the excitement of the ginger and the texture of the shellfish are a perfect combination. It is the most taste bud-catching dish among the staple dishes of the day. I can't help but want to come back again. Sigh the power of the juice.

The third course is mackerel stick sushi.

Since I had been warned in advance not to eat too much of the staple food, the third course of sushi presented was a half portion. Kyoto people prefer stick sushi, especially gray conger eel and mackerel stick sushi, both of which are considered one of Kyoto’s specialties. Kiyama's great sushi uses the kelp technique commonly used when processing raw fish. The sushi is covered with kelp to soak up the flavor like fish. The kelp is not removed when it is presented, adding an extra texture to the sushi.

The fourth course, bonito festival, sansho pepper larvae.

Home-made sansho pepper larvae and bonito knuckles freshly shaved before Itamae are placed on the rice, followed by a whole egg or egg yolk, and a few drops of soy sauce. It has always been a staple food here in Mushan. The homemade sansho pepper fish is fragrant and has no unpleasant smell. After the eggs are pierced and stirred with chopsticks, the whole rice will not make people feel dry in the mouth. The taste is soft and full of aftertaste, which makes people want to eat another bowl.

foreign pears

freshly squeezed foreign pears, the fresh taste of late autumn.

The aroma and sweetness coexist, it is refreshing and drinking it is like a cup of medicine that cures satiety.

chestnut tea towel お thin

Finally, twist the chestnut tea towel and present it.

It goes without saying that the Japanese love chestnuts. The slightly roasted chestnut tea towel has a soft and restrained sweetness, and the delicate and soft taste is not sticky when melting in the mouth. After the waguri tea towel was presented, the shop owner ordered tea for the diners one after another in front of the plate. A bowl of thin tea, from a little-known tea shop in Uji, Kyoto, was mellow and had a long aftertaste, which couldn't be a better ending.

After eating, my appetite is satisfied without feeling excessively full, which can be described as happiness.

started with a dish of white soup and ended with a bowl of matcha. The theme of "water" flowed throughout the meal from beginning to end. Juice, suction, and bowl objects all use water as the carrier, which is simple and difficult to express, but Mushan handles it flexibly and freely. Not only that, whether it is Xiangfu, grilled or fried food, just in the choice of seasoning, you can see its care and vitality.

The so-called youthful taste is probably here.