Kyoto 京都: The Encounter at Ichisun (一瞬)

18th July 2010. Written by Xin Li.
I have been slow in posting my Kyoto trips, sorry about that. It has been hectic during the past few months! What's left is the examinations to wrap up this semester.

Ichisun 一瞬, located along Shichijo Street between Nishii Hongan-ji and Higashi Hongan-ji offers Obanzai ryori, a traditional cuisine that has been passed down through generations of ordinary Kyoto locals.

I had a Tempura Set 1580 Yen which includes one salad of Kyoto organic vegetables, a bowl of miso soup, a bowl of rice, hiyayakko, a tempura platter and free flow of bottled tea.

The Local Organic Greens Salad was made up of local greens to reflect Kyoto's local produce and the restaurant chose to use organic vegetables as part their green effort. It was a nice to take a break from the usual romaine, rocket and butterheads. This vegetable has a woody, herbal kind of flavour and leaves a slight bitter aftertaste. The dressing was quite acidic and sour.

This is where I had one of my best Tempura meals. Take their ebi tempura for example, beneath its warm and light batter crust lays a juicy, succulent, crunchy and fresh prawn each bite is simply heavenly.

Other kinds of tempura include eggplant, capsicum and lotus root. All of them were done competently with the same oommmph sensation as your savour them.

Hiyayakko - Japanese Chilled Tofu, decent dish to fight the summer heat of July. The portion was very big. Its cold tofu with a soy sauce and chopped green onions to provide a spicy tinge. The tofu's texture was slightly rough.

It was a delight to find fellow Chinese in the restaurant. The waitress and waiter were actually university students from mainland China. We had a conversation in Mandarin and slowly, Min-Kyung, a Korean lady joined in our conversation too as she was fascinated by the language. It was as like a family gathering!

But not before the solemn looking Japanese sensei who sat next to me joined in our multilingual conversation that ranged from Singapore, studies, food, English and Kyoto. Qianqian, the waitress as well as the waiter were busy translating Japanese to Mandarin and Mandarin to Japanese for all of us.

The sensei, being in a good mood decided to treat us some drinks (or a “present”) of sake or wine! It was the first time I drank so much alcohol at once. It was amazing how a group of strangers actually open up to each other in such a spontaneous manner.

The sensei and Min-Kyung were very sweet to walk me back to the ryokan I was staying after the meal. Needless to say, this was one of my best moments in my short trip to Kyoto. If only I could grasp the Japanese language. Luckily universal language of drawing, signs and some head-scratching figuring out of linguistics were there to help. I must thank the sensei for introducing Ryoan-ji which he described as very beautiful.

Ichisun (Shichi-jo)
一瞬 七条店 （いちしゅん）

Tel:
075-352-7005

営業時間:
11:30～14:00(L.O)
17:00～24:00(L.O.23:00)
ランチ営業、
夜10時以降入店可、日曜営業

住所:
京都府京都市下京区七条通油小路東入ル大黒町220