This Thursday, I celebrated Thanksgiving at Itsuki Chaya near Fushimi Inari Taisha. 

I couldn’t eat at this restaurant without a reservation. I had been unable to eat there a few days prior because there weren’t tables immediately available. Since I was prepared this time, I was seated right as the restaurant opened. 

The restaurant served a set meal called the Harenohi Gozen: Kyoto seasonal, a quintet of gourmet bowls. This meal came with six dishes. 

The menu listed these as a golden egg rice bowl, overflowing seafood inari sushi, grilled wagyu shabu-shabu rice bowl, seasonal tempura with Dashi Chazuke, pot-cooked rice with flaked autumn salmon and freshly shaved bonito flakes and yellowtail shabu-shabu in Itsuki Chaya’s special dashi broth. 

That’s a lot of food, but I’m going to do my best to break down each dish and give them a quick review. 

Right as I was about to dig in, I was handed, presumably, another menu. When I flipped the “menu” over, however, I realized it was instructions in English on how to enjoy each dish. 

Sometimes being labeled as a foreigner can be annoying, like when I’m eating out in a group and am given a fork halfway through the meal. This was one of the occasions where I was thankful for it.

The first step was to take pieces of wagyu and rice and wrap them in seaweed. Now, I’m not a meat person, and wagyu was not an exception. Wagyu is a very delicate meat, and I’m more of a burger or thick steak kind of person. It was a delicious dish but not my favorite. 

The next step was to eat the tempura. To do so — the instructions were crucial for my understanding here — I needed to take the teapot and pour its contents over the tempura rice bowl. 

I would have filled my teacup with soup broth if it wasn’t for the instructions. I’m glad the waitress made assumptions about my culinary competency. The tempura was delicious, and the broth was a nice touch, but it I thought it clashed with the rice. 

My third step was to cook the yellowtail in the bowl provided. This was my favorite dish for me even though it was only a few pieces of boiled fish. 

The yellowtail was presented with mushrooms and a few other raw vegetables. I tried to boil a mushroom and then eat it but it didn’t taste very good. I don’t think I was supposed to do that, but the instructions didn’t say. 

The last three dishes were fairly self-explanatory. The fourth dish, salmon on rice, was a little dry but tasty. 

The fifth dish was the inari sushi. Inari sushi is a layer of rice and seafood or another ingredient stuffed into a tofu pocket. The tofu used for this type of sushi is sweet. This dish was the best inari sushi I’ve had since coming to Japan. 

The last dish was the golden egg bowl. This was a dense dish, so it would have been better to start with, but it was a nice way to end the meal. 

I would definitely recommend Itsuki Chaya to anyone who is looking for a great place to eat  with family and is willing to spend a bit for the service.

Curtin can be reached at [email protected].