Saryo Tesshin 茶寮哲心 (Kyoto, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

Everybody had a great time visiting Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺) this morning. It was a pretty busy day at the famed Buddhist temple and thanks to the large number of tourists present, we had to wait a while to secure the best spots for photo. With lunch time quickly approaching, we had to pick up the pace towards the end of our tour to ensure that we arrived at our lunch venue on schedule.

Saryo Tesshin (茶寮哲心) best known for its fusion of traditional Japanese soba with a contemporary twist, is our lunch venue this afternoon. Tetsu Oda, the second-generation owner-chef of Saryo Tesshin, learned the craft of buckwheat noodle making from his father, Tetsuya Oda, who established a celebrated soba restaurant in Miyazaki Prefecture. 

A hostess led us through the narrow corridor into the main dining area.

The main dining area is as luxurious as it gets for a soba restaurant with elegant gold leaf paintings serving as the backdrop.

While Saryo Tesshin is renowned for its "Daigo Soba" dish, a creative mix of soba noodles with Parmesan chesse, raw egg yolk and olive oil on top of the buckwheat noodles, everyone, including myself, was more conservative with our selection.

Tsumane beef soba (￥5,000) – Little nugget knew exactly what he was doing, by ordering the most expensive item on the menu. Not bad he said.

Supreme Kyoto duck namban (￥3,600) – Another popular dish here featuring the succulent Kyoto duck.

I love the umami-rich broth made with bonito giving it great depth of flavors. Not surprisingly, it worked well with the buckwheat noodles.

The Kyoto duck was a little more bouncy than I expected. Took me a while to finish chewing these.

One last look at the dining hall before we took off for the Imperial Palace.

Looking back at some of the photos we took at Kinkaku-ji earlier. The sky wasn't perfect today but the view of the magnificent golden pavilion remained as breathtaking as ever.

A few more shots up close.

Food Rating: 6/10

Price: ￥￥￥￥

Address: 321-2 Shinnyodocho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto, 604-0853, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Marutamachi / Karasuma Oike

Tel: +81 (0)75 585-2420

Website: https://saryo-tessin.instatry.org/

Opening Hours: 8:00am - 4:00pm (Sat - Tue), 5:00pm - 9:00pm (Sat - Mon)