Hiiragiya Ryokan - Dinner

Hiiragiya Ryokan serves the finest Kyoto-style Japanese "kaiseki" (formal, traditional Japanese cuisine) on lacquer ware and Kyoto-crafted ceramics. Our dinner was served to us in our room by our room attendant. She provided us with a menu in English, which listed and described each of the dishes, and then the dishes started coming (the menu is based on the season's ingredients;there is no choosing). What would one of my posts be without photographs? ENJOY...

Appetizer (Sakizuke): Tofu pudding with adzuki beans, sea urchin, pea sauce, wasabi;

Sushi of horse mackerel, ginger; and

Octopus, cucumber, Japanese ginger, plum vinegar.

Sake.

Close-up of the octopus, cucumber, Japanese ginger, plum vinegar.

Simmered Dishes (Nimono-Wan): Clear-soup with paste of pike eel, oriental pickling melon, pickled ume plum, lave, yuzu citrus.

Sashimi Dishes (Mukouzuke): Sea bream, lightly grilled pike eel, scallop, taro stem, young perilla stems, gourd, Japanese white radish, Japanese ginger, wasabi.

Featured Dishes (Hassun): Grilled salmon soaked in Saikyo-miso, steamed fish paste noodles, prawn, corn, sea bream bound together with egg, steamed green soybeans and lily root, board shaped sea urchin, broad bean.

Grilled Dishes (Yakizakana): Grilled sweet fish, ginger stick, water pepper vinegar.

Poor whittle fish didn't have a chance.

Cold Dishes (Hiyashimono) - left: Summer roll-beef, onion, mibuna cress, tomato, asparagus, wasabi-tartar sauce.

Middle of Dishes (Hashiyasume) - right: Fig, sesame.

Simmered Dishes (Takiawase): Abalone, Kamo-eggplant, kidney bean, carrot, miso, kinome (young leaves of the Japanese pepper).

Deep-fried Dishes (Age-Mono): Sea bass, fu (wheat gluten), kidney bean, shiitake mushroom, dried tangle shavings sauce for dipping tempura, salt.

Soup (Tome-Wan): Aka-miso soup with yuba (skin of soybean milk), spaghetti squash, mitsuba (Japanese herb), Japanese pepper.

Rice (Gohan): Rice mixed sweet fish.

Pickles (Kou-No-Mono): Eggplant, Japanese white radish with sesame, cucumber.

Dessert (Mizu-Mono): Grape, loquat, cherry, mint jelly.

A full Ken.

Time for bed! The bedding was cleverly hidden in a closet in the room.

After making the bed, the room attendant left a covered tray in the room...

I guess it is time to make tea for Ken!!!

Our garden at night.