Excellent and affordable lunch at a Kyoto townhouse! Eat seasonal local cuisine in the inner garden

A hidden restaurant without a sign

“Sosaku ryori to osushi Kimi” is located 5 minutes south of Shijo-Karasuma station, on the busy Shijo street known for popular sightseeing spots in Kyoto like Gion and Yasaka shrine. The restaurant has a typical appearance of a Kyoto wooden townhouse. It is well hidden between private houses and there are no signs, so it’s easy to miss it.

Enter from the entrance and you will be surprised by how long, deep and pleasant the inside is. The first floor has seats around a sunken kotatsu (charcoal brazier), while the second floor has tables. It’s great to warm up your feet on the sunken kotatsu.

The inner garden has a typical Kyoto style

The long and deep Kyoto townhouses usually end with an inner garden. The seats in this restaurant all face the garden. You can enjoy your lunch while looking at the beautiful garden. This is a very exquisite experience.

The cheapest lunch set at “Sosaku ryori to osushi Kimi” costs 1000 JPY. It has 10 pieces of sushi, red miso soup, curry bowl and a coffee pudding for desert. It’s cheaper than if you go to a sushi bar. You might wonder whether the combination of sushi and curry is good, but don’t worry – they match surprisingly well, as the curry is easy to eat in a soup shape.

There is no menu in this restaurant, so you choose between different sets. As I already mentioned, the light lunch set costs 1000 JPY, but there are other sets for 2100 JPY, 2625 JPY and 3150 JPY. I will introduce the 2100 JPY lunch set. Decide whether that is expensive or cheap by the following description.

A countless number of creative dishes

This set starts with 3 types of arranged hors d’oeuvre made of mushroom and fish. Next they bring a delicious soymilk stew and then a fantastic collaboration between salmon and honey! You will be busy taking photos and eating, as everything looks and tastes great. The most interesting novelty is the fried food on the photo. The colorful and cute thing on the back is fried quail eggs, which are also delicious, but the tickling item next to them is actually a fried chestnut. Outside it’s crispy, but inside there is a sweet and hot chestnut, and the taste is beyond imagination! Be sure to try it.

The set continues with sushi

After you have eaten 8 different dishes and got somewhat full, they bring the last one – sushi. There is pickled vegetable sushi and salmon sushi. Even if you’re full, you can miraculously eat this last dish too.

An ice cream which gives you the feeling of eating raw roasted green tea

And there are two deserts in this set! One is green tea ice cream with sweet beans and melting sesame cheese. Even this alone is satisfying, but there is also another, brown ice cream! That is roasted green tea ice cream. You might think it’s nothing special, but just try it and you will be amazed by the rich taste! It’s so rich that it feels as if you’re eating raw roasted green tea. With this ice you can feel the actual taste of that type of tea. In the end you will be given roasted green tea to drink. You can watch the inner garden and have a pleasant conversation with your company.