Hi I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate.
Today we're in Kyoto, Japan. Kyoto is known as the cultural capital of Japan
and there are dozens of shrines and temples to explore today we're at Fushimi
Inari shrine but first food!
The thing to eat in this area are inari and kitsune udon. So the shrine is dedicated
to the god of rice and you'll see sculptures of foxes which are kitsune
in Japanese and they are the messengers of the god of rice and it's
said that the kitsune's favorite foods are inari sushi and kitsune udon or soba
Inari sushi is really really good, if you've never tried it you might
look at it and sort of think it looks a bit boring a bit tasteless but
trust us, it is the best! Basically it's a rice ball that's been filled inside a
deep-fried tofu skin and the tofu skin is really sweet because it's been
marinated in mirin which is a really low alcohol rice wine, sugar, vinegar and
soy sauce and it is so juicy I'm gonna get in and try it
that tofu skin is so moist, the sweet flavor of that with the rice, that's just heaven.
You have to try inari when you're here. The udon is really simple it's just in
a simple broth with spring onion and strips of the tofu skin. Mmm udon are a wheat
noodle and these are quite soft but they're thick, they're bouncy they're
just a really comfort food style eating if you can call it that and the
spring onion, the tofu skin, you feel so healthy when you eat it.
The broth is really delicious too. It's like a dashi, which is a seasoning for stock,
bit of soy maybe a miso too, flavor. Oh that's just killer.
I just can't get enough of inari. This one- the rice has got tiny, tiny
little fish inside and also black sesame there's so much flavor in the
tofu it's unbelievable
I've gone with not the local traditional dish but an absolute classic- curry with
soba noodles. So soba are a buckwheat noodle, Japanese curry and this
sauce is the thickest, most luscious thing in the world
So I'm just gonna have some sauce to start with oh wow oh that's so good it's a great thickness,
it's really smooth actually when you eat it. It's actually a little bit spicier than most
Japanese curries I've ever had. It's not spicy, not at all but
Japanese curry generally is very mild oh wow. Is there turmeric in Japanese
curry? Why is it so yellow? I'm going to find out a bit more about that I'm going to try the
noodles, this is tofu spring onions and the noodles. Mmmm
it's like Sheena's it's so simple it's all about the curry- like the
curry is king so they're coated- the noodles are coated in the curry the
tofu is really soft it's almost like egg actually it's well it's tofu definitely
but it's like a scrambled egg which has been diced almost. Oh this is great it's super
hot outside like 30 degrees centigrade this is normally what you'd think to have in the
cold weather but man alive it's almost cooling like eating this hot
beautiful curry it makes your body go oh yea, I'll cool down. It's so good. So we did
some research and it's pretty interesting about the Japanese curry it
was introduced to Japan by the British during the British occupation of India it's
basically just curry powder and some oil and stuff so really simple so it would
be turmeric if it's coming from India and that's why it's so yellow it's so
interesting those little facts you learn I like that about food when you
you eat it but you don't really think about it and then because of what we
do we often want to know that little bit of knowledge and it's so cool that you
can just grab google, look it up and it's like wow it came here from the British via
India crazy. And I'm so glad it has because its incredible. I'm with the foxes on that
one those two dishes could definitely become firm favourites we ate at
Oshokujidokoro Inari restaurant quite close to the station get here if
you're in the area. Time to go and check out the shrine
So the god of rice was also a patron of business and people come here to give
thanks and pray for prosperity and all of these Torii gates have been donated
by businesses to give thanks for their prosperity- incredible
Fushimi Inari temple was beautiful, very atmospheric especially those orange
torii gates they were incredible. On your way up to the temple there are a ton of
street food stands so you can grab a snack from there if you feel like it but it
wouldn't be a Chasing a Plate kind of a day if there wasn't an ice cream
involved and we spotted something pretty damn interesting on the way in so
let's go and find it
Tofu soft serve! Mmm it's really creamy and it really does taste like tofu. I got
a mix so I got plain tofu and green tea tofu. Cheers to that! Cheers to that! That tofu soft serve
was epic but fun fact it is rude in Japan to walk while you're eating so if you
have got some street food with you you should find a place to sit and finish it
there or find a place to stand and just eat on the spot. We are now heading to
Gion, Kyoto's most famous geisha district
We've arrived in the district of Gion which is the traditional geisha district and it's
super weird because there are tourists everywhere of course we're part of the
problem here but it's like Disneyland for geishas. So the buildings are
beautiful this area is so nice but because the buildings are so
beautiful and the geishas are coming out of little alleyways and stuff and
there might be like 50 people with their cell phones out and cameras and stuff
and it's super strange. We haven't really been taking photos because it feels
intrusive I said to Sheena this is like being at a
zoo for geishas
We've left the geisha area it was super beautiful like we said but kind of
weird as we said so we got out of there and just had a nice explore. It's time
for dinner and we couldn't think of what to eat
so default position is always ramen
so we've come to Ippudo for ramen and there's a bit of a story about why we've
chosen this particular restaurant. If you know of Ippudo, you'll know that it is a
chain and it is all around the world now we've had it in Australia and Japan
but I definitely know it's in other countries too and it's a bit like the
Starbucks of ramen restaurants it's a proper big chain now and this is not the
place we'd normally go. I mean if you have a local owner operated cafe versus
Starbucks we're going to go to the local owner operative operated cafe every
single time because that's what we do and we like to discover new places to
show you guys but I'm going to throw to Sheena to explain the story about why
we've chosen to come here tonight. So our first ramen experience was at Ippudo
in Fukuoka six years ago and it totally blew our
minds. I ordered the spicy mince ramen which I
had that first time Thomas had this too for the first and he ordered
it like spice level 5 which is just off the charts and you basically couldn't
taste the bowl of ramen but I just loved it so I am super keen on trying it again
I'm going to add sesame. So it's just the ramen noodles, I added a soft boiled egg
it's got spring onion and then like the spicy mince. So we had it you know six years ago
so we're taking a bit of a trip down memory lane
that tonkotsu broth! So Ippudo specialize in tonkotsu ramen so the
broth is made from simmering pork bones for hours and hours and so it becomes
really creamy and milky and that with the spice is damn good. I'm going to get in with the noodles
they say with ramen you have basically seven minutes before the noodles start
deteriorating in the broth so. Firm, so a bit of bite really good. And when you eat
ramen you're allowed to slurp because slurping shows your appreciation
of the food, cools down the ramen and apparently it enhances the nuanced flavor of the
broth. One of our subscribers Tosh T reminded me of that so thank you Tosh T!
I went with the classic ramen here. I'm really keen to try this
because it's just the simple broth and my seven minutes is rapidly ticking so I'm going to get in
pretty quick and give it a go. The broth is a really nice thickness
it's actually quite watery compared to some other ones. It's good I'm going to add
things I'll just try it first with the noodles but I think it's definitely worth me adding there's
ginger and you can get garlic cloves and mustard leaves I think I'll be
adding some stuff to just bring it up another level- enhance it a bit. That broth coats those
noodles so well oh look at this meat. Beautiful piece of pork that is just
going to be the tender thing I'm just ripping it apart with my chopsticks
the classic egg which you have to get in a ramen. If you don't have an egg in your ramen you're
missing out so badly look at that ohhhhhh so if you've never had ramen or
you're in a place and you want to make sure you get a good one look up Ippudo
because it's all around the world it's got such a high standard
after now having- this is the third location we've had it, so Sydney, Fukuoka, which was the
original Ippudo which i think is pretty cool for our first ever one and now
having it here- the standard is incredible
that's so worth getting, I'm going to add some bits and my seven minutes is
pretty much gone so we better stop filming and get eating Sheena.
That's a decent bowl of ramen it's not as mind-blowing as I remembered. N me neither
but I'd certainly eat it any day. Yep any day of the week but it didn't change
our lives like it did six years ago but also because I didn't have the spicy one and I didn't have
number five I'm going to wake up much happier tomorrow then six years ago when
we had that ramen because it blew my socks off literally. Such a great day in Kyoto, thank you so
much for watching we hope we've inspired you to eat and explore like a traveler
not a tourist
Sayonara!