0.1 mile (200 meters) away from Kyoto’s top tourist spot Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) is Kijisoba Kijiya (きじそば 雉弥) that is operated by a traditional Japanese restaurant Oshokujidokoro Kinkaku (お食事処 錦鶴) during the lunch hour between 11 am and 3 pm. Pheasant meat ramen (kiji soba / きじそば)* is the only option by ambitious Kijisoba Kijiya.
*Soba (そば) means buckwheat noodle. But it’s also the posh way to call ramen (ラーメン).
Kinkaku-ji-esque Kijisoba Kijiya.
Past the entrance is a shokudo (食堂)-style cozy dining room leading to the dramatic main dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a Japanese garden. Good old soba noodle shack smell was wafting through the air in harmony with zen Japanese background music like the one played while naked Samantha Jones arraying sushi on her body in Sex and the City: The Movie.
The main dining room at Kijisoba Kijiya.
As soon as I sat at my table, a seemingly local high school student waitress approached me like Gogo Yubari of Kill Bill: Volume 1 and offered me a shot of pheasant broth in a cute yellow cup. “Please have a taste and pick salt or soy sauce,” said the waitress. By that means I had to taste the broth first and choose my favorite seasoning flavor. I sipped the broth (it tasted like pleasantly salty leftover turkey soup without leftovers). And I chose salt since I didn’t want to wash the flavor with soy sauce.
A shot of pheasant broth.
Kijisoba Kijiya’s menu.
Pheasant meat ramen (kiji soba / きじそば). 1430 yen ($10.15).
Pheasant meat ramen came with an unconventional posh presentation as a ramen dish, which explained the elegance of a traditional Japanese restaurant and the unconventionality of what it takes to offer ramen at a restaurant like this. I found it pretty. The offerings were a bowl with noodles in soup, yuba (湯葉: tofu skin), pheasant meat slices, a nitamago ramen egg (marinated egg), and green onions.
Noodles in soup.
The soup was a mixture of the pheasant broth and the seafood broth (kombu seaweed, shellfish, dried shrimp). It almost tasted like a shrimpy, delicate seafood soup with a hint of chicken. Pheasant meat lovers (if any) might expect more. But the soup went great with the noodles. I loved it anyway.
Pheasant meat slices.
The sashimi-sized pheasant meat slices were lukewarm and the skins were charred. They tasted like lean and chewy chicken with a charcoal flavor which I believed must have been the labor-intensive work to bring pheasant meat to this level. With the seafood flavor-dominated soup, it might not be strong enough to be a pheasant ramen, but indeed a pleasant ramen.
Kijisoba Kijiya (きじそば 雉弥) | 43 Kinugasa Babacho, Kita Ward, Kyoto, 〒603-8362, Japan
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