Kyoto was the capital of Japan for more than 1,000 years and it’s home to more than 3,000 temples and shrines. It’s also our home for the next four days; and since the kitchen is the heart of any home, we’re spending a lot of our trip eating our way around this beautiful city.

We arrived yesterday at 3:00 PM and we started our Pontocho Food Tour at 4:00 PM. The highlight was dinner at a restaurant called Yuzugen that specializes in (you guessed it) using yuzu.

We also learned about the history of Japanese sweets and that the flavors and beautiful packaging typically reflect the season.

It’s been raining steadily since we got here, but this morning we grabbed our umbrellas and made our way to the open-air handicraft market at Chion-ji Temple. It only happens one day a month, so we were lucky (and a little muddy). But it was worth it to get some really special gifts made by local artisans and this photo of plastic food (which is BIG here, btw).

*Plastic food helps foreign tourists navigate Japanese menus. The plastic food industry has spread all over Japan and is now a $90 million business.*

This afternoon, we had a great time at the famous Nishiki Market where were challenged to learn some Japanese as we shopped for the ingredients that we’d use later in a sushi making class.

Michael was told by several Japanese locals that his Japanese pronunciation was “perfect.” He also won at the cooking class when the instructor told him that his tamago-making skills were “impressive”, so this will definitely not be our last trip to Japan!!!

One more thing to dish about here in Kyoto…cat cafes. We didn’t go in, but we did take this pic because well…cats are cute (or “kawaii” in Japanese).

The Dish on Kyoto