Takuma Restaurant, Kyoto

Two nights before our amazing dinner, while wandering the Gion District along the banks of the Shirakawa River, SMS spotted the scene below across the water...

The restaurant looked awesome and instantly, we all knew we wanted to eat there.  We found the front entrance and tried to get in but it is reservation-only.  Saddened but not defeated, we trudged away to the lamb shop to plot our next step.  Ok, ok, that sounds much more nefarious than it was.  I had grabbed a business card at the restaurant, which was exclusively in Kanji.  I emailed it to the caretaker of our Machiya and asked him to make a reservation.  Voila!  We were in!

The restaurant was Takuna, a restaurant specializing in an amazing sushi and vegetable heavy meal presented in multiple courses.  The chef:diner ratio was about 1:1.  There were a few chefs who spoke passable English and their information greatly enhanced our experience.

The happy dining crew, before we've even started to feast!

The chefs took our picture before we even started our meal, which was nice since they were busy prepping!  The menus in front of us had the Kanji to an old Kyoto drinking song on it.  Although she's not in the picture, the woman to Rip's right was a lovely Japanese woman out celebrating with her husband.  They were first-time grandparents and they were out celebrating even though on a day-to-day basis, the woman explained, "We go like this! *makes repetitive fist bumping gestures* Always fighting!"  She was really great in describing some of the courses that were a little harder to figure out.  It also made the dining experience a little more communal in feeling.

Linda took pictures of all the courses while I took furious notes.
1. Plate of assorted bite-size treats: roasted ginan (gingko nuts), tofu, a gelatin mixed greens cube, pickled onions and the world's most perfect potato chip
2. Amazingly delicious sashimi with Shoyu foam.  It was awesome!  Soy sauce foam, so light on the fish.  Delectable!
3. Broth-based soup with mushrooms and white fish.  It was in a larger, almost tea-pot like container and the broth was poured out into a tiny cup
4. Sawara (Spanish Mackerel) with daikon
5. Steamed vegetables
6. Tempura- lotus, pepper, fish
7. Sushi with a vinegar sauce that shredded ginger was stirred into (Demonstrated by Rip's dining partner)
8.Tofu wrapped unagi in a miso-broth soup
9. Iribancha (smoked tea), rice, dark miso soup and pickles
10. Dessert plate: Apple slice, Persimmon slice, squash ice cream (YUM! For real), cake and kochi
[Two women next to me ordered the other set and seemed to have more sashimi, a small fish speared on a small wooden skewer and cooked whole, and a shabu-shabu course]

At the end of the meal we saw the sagi, or lonely bird sitting outside the window.  It was hard to tell if it was hungrily looking in or down at the water.  Probably in.

Reading the list above, some of the descriptions are very basic but the dishes were spectacular.  The vegetables were delicious and able to stand on their own as courses.  The fish was perfectly cooked.  The sawara was cooked on little skewers on a charcoal grill right in front of us, impeccably timed to correspond with our being ready for the next course.  Yum, yum!

There were two set courses to choose from and we chose the less expensive option.  It wasn't inexpensive, just less expensive but we thought it was worth every penny.  Not only was the food exquisite, but the two hour production that we got to watch as we ate the results was really incredible to observe.