What to see and do during five days in Kyoto, Japan

During our Japan trip, we spent five days in beautiful Kyoto. Fortunately, my younger brother’s (who we were there to visit) school holidays coincided with the sakura, or the cherry tree blossom that Kyoto is famous for. This made Kyoto even more beautiful, adding a layer of pink, white and purple (from the also blooming plum trees) flowers to the temples, river, old buildings, mountains and generally awesome scenery that makes up Kyoto.

But what did we do except for admiring sakura trees, eating lots of tasty food and drinking Japanese beer in frozen mugs? We went sightseeing of course. I’m a born and bred tourist, and I think that if many people tend to visit something, there’s probably a reason for it. There might be lines, yes. But I find it usually worth it. Hence we visited most of the main attractions of Kyoto, and here they are:


Kiyomizu-Dera (清水寺) is a Buddhist temple complex close to central Kyoto. We just walked there from town, paid the reasonable entry fee of ¥400, which translates to roughly $5 or so. Unfortunately there was a bit of construction going on while we where there which meant a few of the buildings were covered in scaffolds. Did not matter that much though since the temple and views over Kyoto as seen above was pretty great regardless.


Visit Gion, Kyoto’s old town. Like many other, we had to visit Gion, sort of Kyoto’s old town with pretty old buildings, tea houses and restaurants. While there we walked right into the judge trio of Australia’s Masterchef which we have watched for the last 7 years or so. I am way too Swedish to ask for a picture or similar, but it was still pretty cool to run into someone you recognise on the other side of the world. Which I incidentally has done in Japan before, read more about that story here.


Fushimi-Inari shrine or Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) is a Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto, quite close to where we lived. If you live in central Kyoto, you might need to catch a bus since it is quite a walk from there. The gates above are called Torii gates, and they lead the way to the top of Mount Inari, 233 meters above sea level. We somehow took the wrong way and walked all the way up following trails and the occassional collection of torii gates. I guess we took the backway or something because eventually we ended up with the crowds walking the proper route. At the top of the mountain we got awarded with below great views over Kyoto.

View over Kyoto from Mount Inari.


Picnic under the cherry trees and manage to tick hanami in Kyoto of your bucket list. Sakura is the actual blooming of cherry trees, and Hanami is basically “enjoying the sakura”. Hanami usually means to have a picnic under the blooming cherry trees, and hence enjoying the sakura. We did a couple of those picnics, as did the rest of Kyoto’s population.

Monkey around in the mountains. Very close to Arashiyama bamboo forest is the Arashiyama monkey park or Monkey Park Iwatayama. We walked there from the train station (the Hankyu line station) and very close to the Togetsukyo Bridge we found the monkey park entrance. The actual place where the monkeys hang out though (they roam free) is on top of the mountain. So you need to walk about 15 minutes or so quite steeply uphill to reach the place. The added bonus is an amazing view over Kyoto with great photo opportunities.


Monkey chilling in the sun. The entry fee to the monkey park was, as most other Kyoto attractions, quite low.


Visit the Arashiyama bamboo forest (嵐山). Arashiyama is a bit outside of central Kyoto, and we went there by train (with one change) from Kyoto Station in about 30 minutes. No entry fee, you just need to share space with a bunch of other people. We went quite late in the afternoon though, so it wasn’t that crowded.


Bonus: eat forest crepes. After visiting the bamboo forest we were about to leave when we found a random van in the forest with a line. Of course we had to check it out, and found out that it was a food truck with a Japanese girl producing these great crepes, stuffed with pretty much all things tasty such as whipped cream, fresh berries, marshmallows, chocolate sauce and toasted nuts. She handmade each one, so it took a while but it was really delicious. Never managed to get the name of this arashiyama bamboo forest creperie, so feel free to comment if you’ve also been and know it.

Kobe beef dinner at Gyu-an Ginza


One of the best meals of the trip, and probably one of my best meals ever was enjoyed at Gyu-An in Ginza, Tokyo. Gyu-An specialise in meat, as in good quality stuff, such as wagyu beef and the world famous kobe beef. After quite thorough research we decided that Gyu-An felt most bang for the buck for our relatively tiny kobe beef budgets and we managed to score a reservation with the help of our hotel concierge a few days later.

As we arrived Gyu-an, after a stroll through the neon lit Ginza district of Tokyo, they couldn’t find our reservation, and I had a few seconds of panic, before they found us a table, and my greatly anticipated steak dinner was, fortunately, a go. While prices are decent given what you get, there is still a considerable price for a meal, depending how you look at it. To have some reference, and to save some money, the two of us decided to share a slightly less pricey wagyu steak set menu as well as the swankiest of the kobe sets which meant you got 200 grams, 100 grams each of kobe fillet and kobe sirloin. Included was a couple of starters, a tiny dessert (below) as well as coffee or tea. Drinks were extra but was relatively decently priced.


We had a couple of starters, but the only really exciting one was this incredibly delicious beef sushi with a thin, fatty piece of beef covering the rice. A great bite that like the beef was washed down with house red.


The matsusaka wagyu beef was just a tad less delicious than the kobe beef. Hadn’t I had the kobe beef, this would’ve been the best steak I’ve ever had. Extremely flavourful and tasty with a great tender texture.

The steak of steaks. Kobe beef fillet and sirloin. Not really sure which one I liked the best. The fillet was of course a bit leaner and softer than the sirloin, but that was barely noticeable given how tender both were. The fat in the kobe beef is not at all chewy, but rather melts in your mouth. The best comparisson I’ve been able to make is, to think of how you bite into a ripe mandarin orange and how it kind of bursts with fruit juice when you bite into it. This was like that, only that the fruit juice was kobe beef fat. It was incredibly good. It was also incredibly rich, and it was almost a struggle to eat everything given the two starters, rice, soup and salad that you are also served. No doubt this was the best steak I have ever had. My expectations were really high. I’ve been eating some really good meat the last years, churrasco in Brazil, grilled bife de chorizo in Argentina and great French steak au poivre. But this beat them all, easily.


For dessert we were served three perfect strawberries. Although it is almost insulting calling this a dessert in normal cases, we were so full that we did not really mind. And the strawberries were in fact extraordinarily tasty.

Price and location
We paid roughly $280 for our two steak meals (one wagyu at 8500 jpy, one kobe combo at 15500 jpy), a caraff of red wine, and water. The restaurant is located in Ginza, easily accessible with a couple of subway lines.

Delicious sushi at Musashi kaiten sushi in Kyoto


The best sushi, and unfortunately one of the only times we had any during the trip, was at Musashi Sushi in Kyoto. The sushi is served kaiten style, which means the chefs make sushi and then put it on a conveyor belt which diners are conveniently placed around, and then you make your pick as it passes by you.

At Musashi, you can also ask the chefs to make you special ones if your favourite is constantly taken by the couple just before you. I’m not saying that this in fact did happen, just that it could have. 🙂


We sampled lots of different sushi at Musashi, for instance ones with roasted beef, melt-in-your-mouth fatty tuna belly, lobster in mayo, tuna and quail egg yolks and grilled unagi eel sushi. Everything was really delicious, the beer was as always served ice cold in iced beer mugs and the prices were quite good too. Your check is calculated by the number of plates of a certain colour you have on your table.


Lobster salad sushi.

Steak sushi.


Grilled sweetish unagi eel sushi.

Great ramen at Kairikiya in Kyoto

After finding our Air Bnb accomodation, food was on our minds. After some searching, our first meal in Kyoto was a delicious bowl of ramen at Kairikiya in central Kyoto. The place is part of a chain spread over Japan. We had a bowl of miso ramen, karaage (Japanese fried chicken) and fried gyoza (dumplings). Everything was very delicious and was celebratory washed down with an ice cold glass of Japanese beer. A very nice thing in Japan is that the beer always during our trip came in frosted glasses.


Delicious gyoza served on the side.
Miso ramen with pork, green onion and perfectly cooked creamy eggs. Delicious.

Kairikiya’s ramen was maybe not the best I’ve ever had (I will post about that one soon), but nevertheless a really tasty ramen. We went for lunch, and the place was almost full so we were not alone in enjoying the place.

Price and place
Located in central Kyoto. Prices were quite low. Around 1000 jpy per person for a ramen bowl, a couple of shared sidedishes and a beer.
Click here for website with menu (in English).

 

With the Hikari Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto


After a first night in Tokyo, during my recent Japan trip, we took the Shinkansen bullet train to our next destination Kyoto.

The distance between the two cities is approximately 450 kilometers. With the high speed Shinkansen trains however, the trip is quite a breeze. We reserved our tickets the night before departure at one of the JR offices in Tokyo Station. We got issued a small paper ticket each that we together with our rail passes showed to staff at the station before departure next day. We went to the platform about 15 minutes before departure. No check in procedure was needed.

The Japan Rail Pass
Before we left for Japan, we purchased Japan Rail Passes. The rail pass can usually only be bought before arriving in Japan, but as we arrived they’re running a trial in which you during a limited time can buy the pass on arrival at some points of arrival in Japan. You could for instance do it at the Japan Rail (JR) office at Haneda Airport where we picked up our pre-booked passes.

Anyway, the pass can be bought for one, two, or three consecutive weeks and means you can travel freely on most JR trains, buses and ferries. There are a few exclusions such as the super fast shinkansen bullet trains Nozomi and Mizuho. The slightly slower (stops at a few more stations) such as Hikari, that we used, and Kodama Shinkansen bullet trains are included in the pass.

Why a Japan Rail Pass
If you’re only planning on only staying in for instance Tokyo, a JR pass is probably not worth it. Our first time in Japan we only went to Mount Fuji once besides hanging out in Tokyo, where the transport is mainly by subway and where many lines are run by other operators than JR, and hence we skipped the JR pass that trip.

This time however, we were to visit Kyoto where my brother lived. That meant either a looong bus trip, a flight to Osaka and train from there, or a 2,5 hour bullet train trip from Tokyo. Since a one-way trip with the Shinkansen is about $150 or 1400 sek, just our return trip Tokyo-Kyoto would be the same price as a one week JR rail pass (priced 29000 yen when we bought it in 2017), that we also used for several other short trips in both Kyoto, Osaka and Kyoto (such as on the Haneda Airport monorail and Shinkansen from Kyoto to Osaka).


Train travel in Japan is not painful at all, rather it’s a quite pleasant experience. The train runs smooth, there’s rarely a delay, and the train stations are packed with great food outlets meant for taking onboard the train. No one bothers either if you bring your own beer for instance, as several of my Japanese co-travelers did. Had beer onboard that is. And it’s quiet, oh so quiet. If someone needs to receive or make a call. They leave the seating area and stand outside the restrooms where no one is bothered.


For me the Japan Rail Pass was definitely worth it. Train travel in Japan is in my experience very convenient, easy and comfortable. Next time I’ll probably go for a two or three week pass to fully explore all of Japan. I might sound enthusiastic about this, so I should probably note that I paid for the pass myself. 🙂

Back to Japan!

8 years ago, I first visited Japan, and immediately loved it. I’ve been wanting to go back ever since, but it took that my brother moved to Kyoto to force me to lift my butt, enter R2D2 and bring myself to the land of riding suns, fantastic food and great people.

The trip started with a short but decently nice flight with Lufthansa from Stockholm to Munich. At Lufthafen Münich, aka Munich Airport, we had to visit Airbräu in Terminal 2, the world’s only airport brewery. Delicious weiß (wheat) bier und a pretty good veal schnitzel with German potato salad were enjoyed.

Then it was time to board R2D2. All Nippon Airways has somekind of a deal with the Starwars franchise, meaning a couple of their planes are Starwars painted. 

The onboard experience in Ana’s economy was decent enough. We flew the semi-new Boeing 787 Dreamliner which had onboard wifi (I paid 22 usd for wifi use for the duration of the flight. There were a couple of less expensive options too), a decent personal screen with eg. live tv (for instance with CNN and Japanese NHK premium). Leg room was also fine, and the food decent. Above is dinner, I chose the ‘Western’ option which was a beef curry with steamed rice. Everyone had the same starters which was cold soba noodles, pasta salad with parmesan, bread and a small mixed leaves salad. Food was quite good, given being on a plane of course. All drinks and food were complimentary.

Then, touchdown in the greatest city on earth, Tokyo! It was cold, rainy, dark, and beautiful, in a blade runner kind of way. We checked in to our tiny 9 square meter room at Sotetsu Frésa Inn and went out for food.

The first place we ran into on the street outside our hotel, Yotteba, advertised great chicken wings and beer. Cold as we were, that sounded too appealing to resist.

Edamame, served cold by unknown reason.

Spicy, quite delicious lightly fried chicken wings.

 

Delicious gyoza!

Stay tuned for more delicious Japanese food adventures and travel. Make sure to also follow me on Instagram for the latest updates. Arigato gozaimasu!

Homemade vegetarian bibimbap recipe

Bibimbap (비빔밥) is a Korean dish that literally means mixed rice. The first time I had bibimbap was in Tokyo after a quite amazing chance encounter with an old family-friend at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo during rush hour. After realizing that us, two Swedes, had run into each other at one of the busiest, most crowded places in the world, not to mention other side of the world, we went for bibimbap.

The bibimbap was served proper Korean style in a hot clay bowl, meaning that the rice and veggies were still cooked as the dish arrived at our table. We then mixed the rice with the also included raw egg, raw and cooked vegetables and hot chilli sauce. The result was a crispy, spicy, semi-warm rice dish with fresh crunchy vegetables (and probably some meat).

Bibimbap can be quite ambitious, with hot bowls and lots of different items put in it, or just a basic ‘mixed rice’. The common denominator is that it is always delicious.

Above picture and below recipe is of and for a homemade quite easy-to-make, no fuss vegetarian bibimbap. If you want it meatier you could easily add sliced chicken or beef, or maybe salmon.

What you need for the bibimbap 2-3 persons)

2 carrots

1/2 cucumber

4 eggs

4 dl (1,75 cups) of Jasmine rice

2 stems of scallions

Hot sauce or gochujang chilli paste (you decide how much ?)

1 jar of Kimchi (buy pre-made, making your own is quite an effort)

400 grams of Shiitake mushrooms

2,5 deciliters (1 cup) of sliced lettuce (eg. Iceberg)

Sesame seeds

Neutral oil for frying

How to cook the bibimbap

1. Cook the rice until done.

2. Julienne (eg. slice into thin strips like above photo) the peeled carrots and cucumber.

3. Slice and fry the shiitake mushrooms until golden brown and cooked through. The stems are bit though, so remove them if you don’t like that. They taste great though.

4. Slice the iceberg lettuce and the scallions.

5. Fry the eggs.

6. Plate. Put rice in the bottom of a bowl, top with veggies, kimchi, eggs and hot sauce. Then mix everything around for your proper Koream mixed rice or bibimbap.

Egg, ham and cheese breakfast brioche sandwich recipe

Last Saturday I woke up with a slight headache after a night of Korean food and too much Riesling and beer. As it happened, I had cheddar cheese, prosciutto ham, eggs and brioche rolls – and no urge to go to the store for groceries. The idea then came to me to make something a bit like a Mcdonald’s McMuffin.

I’m not sure I even need to make a recipe out of this since it’s so simple, but just for your convenience I will.

You need (for two sandwiches):

4-6 thin slices of prosciutto ham

2 eggs + oil for frying them

2 brioche rolls (or English muffins or any roll you like – but preferably a quite soft one)

2 thick slices of cheese

Salt & pepper

How to cook the Mcmuffiny breakfast roll

1. Fry the eggs. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Put a slice of cheese and half of the han on each breadroll’s bottom part. Put in oven or micro-wave oven until cheese melts. Also toast/warm the top slightly.

3. Make the sandwich. Put the fried egg on top of the ham and cheese stack on the bottom bread. Sprinkle with chives if you have any, maybe some hot sauce too. Add top bread. Eat. Coffee is sort of essential. But tea should work too.

Korean fried prawns (or shrimp) recipe

 

A non-poultry take on the sweet, spicy and deliciousness of a dish that is Korean fried chicken, or KOFC.

What you need

300 grams of peeled prawns

Panko bread crumbs

1 beaten egg

Wheat flour

50 grams of salted butter

2-3 tablespoons of hot sauce, I used Sriracha

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

How to cook the Korean fried prawns

1. Put flour, the beaten egg and panko breadcrumbs in three separate bowls.

2. Dip prawns one by one, first in flour, then in the eggs, and finally in the panko.

3. Heat oil in a pan or deep-fryer. Fry the prawns till golden brown. Put on paper towels to dry/lose some oil (beach 2017 is coming up).

4. Melt butter in a pan. Add sugar and let dissolve. Remove from heat.

5. Put prawns in a bowl. Coat with butter-sugar-mix and hot sauce. Mix so that the prawns are covered by the buttery, salty, spicy and sweet coating.

Serve! For instance in lettuce leaves with sriracha mayo, kimchi and sesame seeds. Cold beer or crisp German Riesling works well with this!

Lunch at Bobergs Matsal in Stockholm

Visited Bobergs Matsal in NK (Nordiska Kompaniet) department store the other day for some fine-dining lunch. Bobergs Matsal was originally opened in 1915, but has been closed until a few years ago, when it was re-opened by chef Björn Frantzén of famous Frantzén restaurant in Stockholm.

Bobergs Matsal is a quite classic fine-dining experience, but generally only open for lunch, offering lunch eaters a in-Stockholm sort of rare opportunity to enjoy lunch with table service, white tablecloths and well executed, fancy plating sort of food.

I’ve been to Bobergs Matsal a couple of times, and it has been consistently great every time so far. My latest visit was no exception and I really enjoyed the steak tartare ‘Parisienne’ which in addition to delicious steak tartare included deep-fried capers, a creamy baked egg yolk, horseradish mayonnaise, pickled yellow beetroot, herbs and mustard. The tender steak worked really well with the pickled crunchy beets and the fatty mayonnaise. The ultra-crispy fries, topped with a fancy sprinkle of fried parsley and parmesan cheese, worked like a charm as a side. The accompanying salad was a bit redundant, but nevertheless tasty.

For dessert, I went, after much agony (was also keen to try the glace au four), for the Cardamom-baked Ingrid Marie apples. The apples were served ‘crumble pie-style’ with vanilla ice cream, a caramel sauce, an oat and dinkel crumble, and some crispy apple chips. It was a very delicious dessert, but also very rich. If you’re still hungry after your main, go for it. Otherwise, the delicious chocolate ice cream with caramelized banana and rum creme could be a good bet. I ordered a quite enormous latte to have with the dessert, and it too was very good.

Bobergs Matsal is a solid bet for a fine dining lunch in Stockholm, and during my four visits, I’ve left happy.

Price $$$

Prices are expensive, but not crazy expensive, depending a bit on what you order, of course. Mains are roughly 200-400 SEK, desserts 65-90 SEK.

Website (in Swedish)