So these reviews aint coming quick but by golly they are coming. Here’s my thoughts on Jiki Miyazawa.
Jiki Miyazawa was recommended by @NYCtoLA as a fair-priced kappo spot in Kyoto. I booked this through one of those weird booking sites in which they contact the restaurant and you pay in advance. It has a lower tabelog (3.66) than a lot of the spots we were going to, and honestly I might have canceled it were it not for the byzantine booking agency and all the difficulty involved in that.
I am sure glad I didn’t. I think at least one of us rated this the objectively best restaurant of the trip. At 6600 yen, it was about the fifth of the price of Kiyama, Ichita, and Sushi Zai. From a value standpoint, gah, Jiki Miyazawa laps the field. It kinda just made me sad that you can’t find food like this in America for that cost.
Jiki Miyazawa is just out on the outskirts of Kyoto’s covered shopping district, on a tiny street in a little courtyard. There’s one counter (hence the kappo) and maybe ten seats?
Here is a confession for you FTCers: I felt really awkward taking photos at most of the counter restaurants. I do not know why. Maybe we were trying so hard to not be the ugly Americans? At Kiyama, photos were not allowed. At Jiki Miyazawa, numerous guests alongside us were taking photos of dishes. Why didn’t I whip out the phone? Who knows? The good news for you, lovely readers, is that somebody posted their meal (which was identical to ours save for one dish) onto google reviews so I’m going to borrow their photos with credit.
Here’s what we ate.
Ayu in broth. Delicious, sweet, clean. A wonderful start.
Madai with various vegetables in dashi. I think this is when we knew that we were in for a fantastic meal. This rivaled what we had at Ichita a few nights before. (A side note, the dashis in Kyoto were just surreal. Could it really be the water?)
Tuna with koji and soy, served with wasabi greens. This was where the meal ascended to a higher level. The combination of umami from the koji, plus the perfect bite of the wasabi, plus the fattiness of the tuna. The tuna slices were thicc, and I remember being a tad apprehensive about that, but no, the thickness was just part of the vessel.
Sesame tofu, three ways. This thing was definitely in the running for dish of the trip. It’s basically baked sesame tofu that somehow is crunchy and nearly bread-like on the outside, then gooey in the middle, in a way not too dissimilar to a toasted marshmallow. And then topped with a ton of sesame seeds. Just nutty, roasty goodness that was perfect on a blustery, drizzly Kyoto day.
Clam and vegetables in dashi: I remember the depth of the brassicas and I remember a general herbiness that went great with the meaty clams.
Rice and baby sards (chirimen sansho): You get a bowl of rice and some dried, baby sards and then you top said rice with aforementioned sards. When you plow through that rice and sards, you get more rice and sards. Chirimen sansho appears to be somewhat of a Kyoto specialty which we also had at Kiyama. This type of cooking really made me interrogate ingredients as a whole: if rice and sards and pepper can be that good, what have I been missing my whole life?
Brined strawberry: On the way toward pickled, but still retaining that wonderful strawberry texture. Served with matcha. A fitting last bite.
Highly recommended.