Aka. Three times I’ve said ‘This is the best meal I’ve ever had’
2022 – Kyoto – とう和 (Touwa)
During Golden Week in 2022, I travelled to Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara with my residence abroad friends. We came across this restaurant on our first evening in Kyoto, unwilling to venture out much further than a few hundred metres from our (bad) hostel.
とう和 was a lovely little restaurant run by an elderly couple. It was primarily a sushi restaurant, but they also offered other set meals too. I remember the price being very low for the quantity of food we were given. I chose the tempura set meal, either by choice or by it being the only thing I could read on the menu.
The tempura set meal was the best tempura I’d ever had. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of tempura. Before then, I had mainly thought of tempura in relation to prawn tempura, never seasonal vegetables.
We were the only people in the restaurant and the elderly couple asked us all questions about ourselves. Typical questions: where we were from, what we were doing in Kyoto, where we were studying, etc. They were very lovely. As we were leaving, the wife didn’t want us to leave empty handed, so gave us disposable chopsticks as omiyage to ‘remember Kyoto by’.
I remember the meal as being amazing and for years after that was the meal I picked as ‘the best meal I’ve ever had’. But more than the food, I remember the soft glow of the restaurant, surrounded by dark residential homes, filled with our excited chatter as we were still getting to know each other. And, above all, being watched over by a kind elderly couple that were happy to speak with us in easy-to-understand Japanese.
2024 – Chichibu – きのこの里 鈴加園 (Kinoko-no-sato Suzukaen)
My friends and I had a mission: go to Chichibu, hopefully see the autumn leaves, and eat all of the regional specialities to be found. We did indeed go to Chichibu. We did not see many autumn leaves, early November was still too early. But we did manage to eat as many regional specialities as we could get our little hands on.
Something we had all agreed that we had to do was visit the restaurant on an advertisement on the Seibu-Ikebukuro line that had taunted one of my friends for months. It featured two very smug-looking girls grilling meat on a large stone. We had to experience the stone-grill barbecue. And experience it we did.
Serendipitously, this restaurant also appeared on my other friend’s TikTok feed so we knew exactly where to go. It was extraordinarily out of the way for us. None of us were in possession of a driving license. While Chichibu can be accessed by train, travelling to certain areas are slightly risky since you might end up being stranded in the countryside overnight. However, we were dedicated to visiting this restaurant.
As there was no way to reserve a table, we arrived at opening time. There was already a queue of people there, so we put our names down, were told it would be an hour’s wait, and so decided to climb part of a mountain and discovered an abandoned shrine with big insects.
After that brave excursion, we waited for the rest of the time at the restaurant. An extremely elderly man pulled us into conversation and we had to admit we lived in Tokyo. He had a brusque manner and interrogated each of the waiting customers before wandering off to sit at a rocking chair in front of an irori hearth. From what we deduced through shameless eavesdropping and looking at photos, he was the owner of the restaurant and it was a family business. Were you in possession of a car and a tent, there were also camping grounds available.
When it was finally our turn, we were guided to the annex of the restaurant. There were only a few tables, with one being on tatami right at the end. We sat here. On two sides there were large sliding doors looking out at the mountain side and the valley below us. We were even able to see a few red and yellow leaves. Our waiter was very friendly, he walked us through the menu and explained everything very clearly.
My focus was mainly on the massive rock on the table, with fire licking at its underside. We decided to order the wild boar, venison, and chicken set meal — deciding against any more game or grilled fish. The meal came with an entrée of seasonal vegetables and we had mushrooms and konjac to grill alongside the meat. We were also given miso soup and friend rice as well as a small sorbet for dessert.
Naturally, since we have adjusted to life in Japan well, we also ordered huge draught beers. When he gave us our beers, our waiter asked us, very concerned, whether any of us were driving. In fact, we had walked half an hour from the closest train station along a busy road to get to the restaurant. All the staff were a little bemused as everyone else had driven there.
The food was astoundingly fresh. It was the first time I’d eaten wild boar and we were told it had been shot that morning. It was stunningly delicious. The venison and chicken were also great — melting in the mouth with incredible flavour.
Besides the wild boar, I was the most impressed by the mushrooms and konjac. I ate most of the mushrooms after my friends, not huge fans of mushrooms, donated them to me. I kept raving about them. Living in Japan has converted me into a true fanatical mushroom enthusiast.
The whole experience was very fun and it was my first time cooking using a stone. What amazed me was that the meat didn’t burn at all and cooked through very evenly. We used a lump of fat as an oil to prevent anything from sticking and there was much conversation over where to put all the food. We dipped the meat and vegetables into a sauce before grilling them. The flavours of the food really shone through. Everything was fresh and delicious.
To top everything off, it wasn’t an expensive meal either. It was around 3500-4000 yen per person.
As we ate it, my friends and I kept saying, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten’ throughout. We were so happy in the little annex, watching the golden glow of the sun hitting the mountains with the warmth of the grill making our cheeks pink.
2025 – Hakone – 松坂屋本店 (Matsuzakaya Honten)
This year, my parents visited me around Golden Week. In order to deepen their cultural understanding of Japan, I wanted to (read: begged them) to go to a ryokan together. I naturally had their best interests at heart and none of this was self-serving at all.
After some careful research, we settled on Matsuzakaya Honten in Ashinoyu, Hakone. It was a great ryokan and I highly recommend it. One of the highlights was the meals, the dinner in particular. The food was exceptional and tremendous care was placed in the presentation, serving, and explanations of the food.
Kaiseki dining is very much, ‘You’ll get what you get, et si t’est pas content, c’est pareil’ (a refrain that was often levied at me growing up). Which for someone with only one food allergy (damn you, kiwis…), is right up my alley. Despite being someone who enjoys trying new things, I will often stick to what is familiar or what I know, unless that choice is taken from me, so experiences like this are always appreciated.
After soaking twice in the onsens and drinking a beer, I was more than ready to eat my fill. Another pleasant part of the ryokan experience is that you can wear your yukata everywhere, including at meals. And so off we went, pink cheeked from the onsen and the alcohol, to the dining area of the ryokan.
One great part was that they had printed out the kaiseki menu for us and we each had an individual menu to consult in case we forgot after our waiter explained it all to us (which I did). You could also order à la carte, but we stuck to the meal and the alcohol that was included. There were eight courses and it took us around two hours overall to eat everything. We were not rushed at all.
In the meal itself, there was a bit of everything. Some of the showstoppers were the yuki shrimp with a spring onion and egg yolk vinegar sauce, all of the sashimi (Mt. Fuji trout, shrimp, squid, blue fin tuna, and yuba), and the grilled Ashigara local beef. There was nothing that I found I couldn’t eat, even the mackerel and eel (which I don’t normally like too much) were delicious. We ordered sake alongside the meal — both hot and cold — which complemented the dishes very well.
Like the Chichibu meal, what stood out to me was how fresh the food was. There was also a delicacy to the flavours that I hadn’t experienced before. The freshness of the food spoke for itself. It is safe to say that as I was eating this meal, too, I said ‘this is the best meal I’ve ever had’.
This was the first time I had stayed at such a fancy hotel. The staff were all very attentive, kind, and helpful. Yet, even though it was a fancy place, it wasn’t uncomfortable. There was a sense this was a place to relax fully and allow yourself to be taken care of a little. It was a perfect end to my travels with my parents, and a perfect end to their trip to Japan.
I look forward to all my future ‘best meals I’ve ever had’.
Justine Russell 