Kaiseki cuisine has a long and interesting history, and the first monks who listened to Zen would be hungry for a long time, so they put a stone in their bosom to ward off hunger, that is, kaiseki. After listening to Zen, the monks have to perform the tea ceremony, but they drink tea on an empty stomach and are afraid of getting drunk, so they fill their stomachs before drinking tea, and this meal is called kaiseki cuisine.

With the popularity of the tea ceremony among the aristocracy, the meal changed from a very simple meal to a three-dish meal. The sauce is the juice, the soup is made with seafood or miso, and the three dishes are sashimi and shellfish, stewed dishes and barbecued dishes, which is called "cha kaiseki". Some high-end restaurants saw an opportunity and began to serve kaiseki to their customers.

But how can you eat enough with just one juice and three dishes, how can it be reflected as a high-end restaurant, this is not good, let's just add a few more dishes and drink wine. But this change, it's not "kaiseki", this won't work, let's just change the name to kaiseki cuisine.

Later, kaiseki and kaiseki continued to collide, merge and develop, and what we call kaiseki cuisine is a very big Japanese cuisine with a rich connotation of kaiseki cuisine, which is a nice name. Of course, there are also many shops that offer authentic tea kaiseki.

At first, it was to ward off hunger and hone one's will, but in the end, it became a self-indulgence and indulgence. It's a history of defeat over the appetite for food.

Coming to Kikunoi, the location is east of Gion, and the environment is also very quiet and lonely. The façade is very quiet, a female general leads to the private room on the first floor, which is very bright, there is a whole floor-to-ceiling window, the floor-to-ceiling window is like a picture scroll-like courtyard landscape, the wall of the alcove is hung with a painting scroll, and the flower arrangement is placed in front of the wall, the evening sun reflects into the room, and the soft light in the room, it looks extraordinarily warm.

Kaiseki cuisine is a cuisine that is close to nature, and it is a cuisine that changes with spring, summer, autumn and winter, and not only the ingredients are selected in the season, but also the cooking is done in a way that preserves the original taste of the ingredients, and even the landscape, paintings, flowers, and utensils that hold food in the garden highlight the characteristics of the season.

On a small plate of mint jelly, cut a small piece with a sharpened wooden skewer and put it in your mouth, which feels cool to the heart and spleen, and at the same time freshens the taste in your mouth, so that you can better taste the taste of the food later.

The first payment is to use chopsticks made of real bamboo to pick up the food in the round plate and take a bite, as if a long memory comes to mind. When I looked at the menu and it turned out to be figs, I couldn't help but suddenly realize that I remembered the joy of tasting the fresh figs that my grandfather picked from the tree in the hot summer.

Figs are soaked in the flavor of Kyoto's unique white miso, and the thick white sauce contains both white miso dashi and yellow wasabi (which used to be eaten in hot dogs), and the sweetness is neutralized by the spiciness of the yellow mustard, and there is a little bit of acidity in the figs, which is very appetizing.

The red sour berries are served as side dishes and are pleasing to the eye, and they are actually hidden inside. The red sour berries are "red girl fruits", with their skins as containers, which contain Minghe sushi, bayberry and kudzu steamed buns, snakehead cucumber rolls, green beans mixed with black sesame seeds, loofah mixed with sesame seeds, and a few jade ginkgo biloba.

The lotus leaf sashimi is a good seller, and the sashimi comes with Akashi sea bream sashimi and swordfish frosted sashimi, served with wasabi and chives. Akashi sea bream is one of the most valuable sea breams caught in the Akashi Strait where the river is fast.

Frosting is a cooking method of making sashimi, which is to use a cooking spray gun on the surface of the fish, spray a flame to make the surface of the fish slightly burned, but the inside is still raw, which can remove the fishy smell on the surface of the saury while retaining the umami of the saury.

Snakehead is a type of conger eel and is one of the nobles of Kyoto's Nishiki market in summer, and is very popular. The fish slices are specially processed with exquisite knife work, and after being scalded in water, they become peony-shaped. It is also served with shiso, and the dipping sauce is also a must-eat plum wasabi sauce for eating liyu.

Kamo eggplant and shrimp ball soup Kamo eggplant is a round purple eggplant, one of the types in the Kyoto wild vegetable list. The dark purple soup bowl looks like a Kamo eggplant, and the lid of the bowl turns out to be a real eggplant. Shrimp is a very sticky shrimp with distinct stripes on its body that look like a wheel when curled, and it has a very good meaning in the Imperial Festival cuisine as a symbol of longevity and health.

The tempura is soaked in a delicate bonito kombu broth with eggplant, and the same Kyoto vegetables are blended with Takamine Tang spices and dew ginger.

I was very lucky to have a hidden menu that is rare to see in Kikunoi, and I was lucky enough to eat the stone perch undan-yaki. Stone perch is a large marine fish, and it is very interesting to know how it is cooked so evenly because of the crunchy skin and tender flesh of the two large pieces of stone perch meat roasted in oil. The side dish is pickled knotweed, and when I eat it for the first time, the taste is very special.

In a turquoise bowl with ginger with summer connotations, two delicate steamed rice pieces are served. The slices of conger eel are grilled over a small fire, steamed on top of rice, and sprinkled with white miso.

Kudzu Su's brother and translator explained to us that "the cold bowl is used to hold cooked food in a chilled container", and the female general presented a huge ice cube in a very pompous manner.

The ice cube is dug out in the center and contains kudzu noodles, which are served with tamago tofu, shiitake mushrooms, boiled prawns, shredded tea, cucumber and shiso, and the sauce is made with dashi, soy sauce, and mirin. It has a strong summer flavor and is simply refreshing to eat.

The rump is boiled at a low temperature with sugar, soy sauce, ginger, etc. The beef is sprinkled with chopped leeks, perilla flowers, garnished with mustard, and covered with mashed potatoes under the beef. The side dish is wine-soaked cucumber, pickled yuzu, pickled onion and fennel chili sauce. When you pick up the beef, it's so soft that it seems to slump on your chopsticks, but when you dip it in the sauce, you can play with it without falling apart.

When you eat beef alone, with wasabi shiso, or dip it in sauce, you can feel the different flavors, and when you combine it with pickles, the original oiliness disappears instantly, and you feel very cool. It is the best beef, and it is the best meat of A5, and it is still the best part of beef, coupled with the best cooking techniques, it is an amazing performance.

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