バラエティ豊かに「摘草」を楽しむ貴重な食体験 : Miyamasou

There are a ton of restaurants that we want to go to but can't, for various reasons such as the difficulty of making a reservation or transportation, but our wish came true when we visited "Miyamaso", a Japanese Cuisine in Kyoto that has both. This is a restaurant that serves mountain delicacies, also known as "tsumisakusa cuisine", including wild plants and vegetables, as well as wild game and fish from mountain streams. The first hurdle was cleared when a junior colleague made a reservation and invited us. The next hurdle was transportation, which was supposed to be a two-hour bus ride from Kyoto Station plus a shuttle to the restaurant, but the bus we were supposed to take was cancelled just before the day we were going, which was a bad miracle. For a moment, we were in despair, but the other participants rented a car for us. We are deeply grateful. The moment we got out of the car, we could enjoy the cleanliness of the water and the deliciousness of the air. The temperature was quite lower than in Kyoto city, and even though it was late March, snow was falling during the meal. The building, which started out as a lodging for Mt. Daihi and Bujoji Temple, has been renovated and is quite beautiful, but has a tasteful Japanese setting. The Japanese-style room we were shown to was also comfortable. The food served in this setting is truly tsumi-kusa cuisine. Starting with Akebia tea, the true "hisshi mochi" (rhombus-shaped rice cakes) that are not just diamond-shaped but contain diamond seeds, the carp that are raised in the restaurant's fish tanks and other dishes foster a sense of being blessed by nature. On top of that, each dish is elaborately prepared, and you can feel the pride in carefully turning natural ingredients into dishes with high skill. There are many things worth mentioning, and the assortment of tsumi-kusa cuisine, which could be called "wild grass hassun," was exciting to look at, but the most interesting dish was the "clay pot cuisine." Minced bamboo shoots and pheasant meat are placed inside a hardened earthenware dish, topped with pickled butterbur sprouts, making for a very delicious, steamy dish. I didn't know there was a way to prepare it like that. As for the meat and fish dishes, there was rabbit meat and foie gras from Akita with sour leaf jam, a sushi-style dish of amago trout, which was once again served on top of kogomi soy sauce, and sea bream and cherry salmon from the Yura River, all of which were full of rustic charm. The ingredients are hard to find, and the uniqueness of the cooking methods is what really makes them stand out. The final dish was rice cooked with rape blossoms. This was a dish of pickled frozen radish with homemade wild boar bacon, which was also a first for me. As a Chiba resident, I get excited just thinking about rape blossoms, but the wild boar bacon was also incredibly delicious. Here again, the interestingness of the ingredients and the ingenious combinations stood out. The desserts were butterbur sprout ice cream and mugwort mochi. The thorough composition of the dish made it fun to pick the grass until the very end was good. The origin of the restaurants where you can enjoy vegetables and wild plants, such as "Kusaku Nakahigashi" near Ginkakuji Temple and my favorite "Kusakata" in Hiroo, is this "Miyamaso". It was a valuable dining experience, enjoying dishes made with a wide variety of ingredients and prepared with care.