We originally planned on only staying in Kyoto for two days – a shame, as we love Kyoto, but necessary if we wanted to spend more of our three weeks in Japan enjoying the outdoors in Hokkaido and on the Kumano Kodo. But we ended up spending a bit longer there in the end. As the weather in Korea was such a washout, we abandoned our final week there and flew back to Japan for a bit more time in Kyoto and Osaka. That means a lot of good food to review! Let’s tackle the ramen first, as always.

Kyoto Engine Ramen

We often reminisce about how great the food was here on our last visit. Back then we hadn’t eaten a lot of ramen and this has since stood out in my mind as one of the best I’ve had. Now that I’ve eaten a lot more ramen, I wasn’t quite so dazzled any more – but still happy enough! Engine Ramen is not all vegan and it’s very popular. They don’t take bookings. We went for an early dinner and got in without any problems, but we did have to sit at the bar, which I’m never a fan of. There were two vegan options on the menu, so we tried one each. In fact, the options were exactly the same as back in 2019, and we each chose the one we did back then.

Dr HH tried the zesty vegan ramen and thought it was delicious. The broth was thick and creamy and has an almost cheesy flavour. There was a little bit of chilli heat that built up slowly, but it wasn’t particularly spicy. Nor was it particularly zesty though. It was topped with lots of green onions and various other vegetables. These all added some different textures and taste, but weren’t too exciting.

I got the beaning vegan ramen and the broth was very similar – I said to Dr HH that it reminded me of a mac and cheese sauce. The fried buckwheat topping provided a good toasty flavour and crunchy texture. The black mushrooms on top were really nice, and I would have enjoyed a few more. It was tasty but overall a bit too rich for my liking.

Overall, we enjoyed our meal but it doesn’t hit so high on our all time ramen rankings anymore.

Uno Yukiko – Gion Soy Milk Ramen

We almost removed this place from our Kyoto wishlist because we thought the ramens didn’t sound too exciting. I’m glad we gave it a try though, because at least one of them was delicious! In fact, we ended up going twice. On both of our visits there was no wait for a table and it was fairly quiet (as always in Japan, no reservations possible). We had to access the menu and order via a QR code (there’s a password available for the wifi), and service was very quick after that.

We tried the steamed soymeat dumplings, which were very meaty indeed, The wrappers didn’t stick to the filling at all though, they just slid right off. They were tasty, but tricky to manage!

I had the soy milk dandan noodle gekka on both visits. The broth was creamy from the milk, as expected, and the chilli oil gave it a lovely warm hit and depth of flavour that developed throughout the meal. The boiled gyoza maintained a decent texture, and the tofu was really good. The menu said there were 15 vegetables in the dish and to be honest, that’s a few too many for me, though I did enjoy some, particularly the beetroot crisp. However, there were a lot of some kind of green stalk that was a bit too tough for my liking and not very enjoyable to eat. Besides that, I was very happy. One slightly odd thing – according to the menu, this dish is “very popular along women”, which just seems unnecessary to mention and like it might deter certain men from trying it.

Dr HH had the soy milk ramen yuki zuki, because the menu said it included some Kyoto specialities. He found the broth pleasant but a bit bland, and relied on the seasonings provided on the table to balance it out. He thought the addition of a rice cake sounded fun in theory, but was actually a little difficult to eat in practice, and the large chunk of radish was difficult to deal with too. He liked the mince for texture and taste, and the bamboo. It wasn’t one of his favourite ramens of our trip to Japan, but it was fine. On our second visit he switched to the one above and much preferred it.

For dessert, we both tried the creme brulee. The top was beautifully caramelised and it was nicely sweet and flavoured with vanilla. Unfortunately though, the texture below the surface was more like a custard, it hadn’t set. We may just have been unlucky, but we didn’t risk it on our second trip. Despite a couple of dishes we were lukewarm on, we were overall quite impressed with this place.

Vegan Ramen UZU Kyoto

I saw a few social media accounts raving about this as the top vegan ramen spot in Japan, so I was very keen to visit. Throw in the fact that it’s connected with the teamlab art project, and I was even more excited. Reservations are required for this restaurant, and are available exactly one month before your chosen date. And I do mean “exactly” – when I tried to make my reservation for 7pm, I had to wait until exactly 7pm before the table was available to book. There’s just one big table and it seats I think a maximum of 16 people, so definitely don’t leave it too late to book if you’ve got your heart set on it.

Much like the tea house in teamlab: Borderless in Tokyo, it’s a big dark room with digital calligraphy art. The art reflects on the dark table, and the walls are mirrored, so it looks like everything is constantly in motion. I have very poor vision in the dark, but it was totally fine for eating and chatting, nothing to worry about. When we arrived, before being shown to our seats in the main room, we were asked to hold out our hands which were then sprinkled with essential oil. We were told to hold our hands close to our faces, close our eyes, and inhale deeply a few times. We were ready enough to be impressed by the art and the food that we didn’t really need this additional bit of theatre, but we played along and got into the spirit of things.

The menu was pretty small, but it was still hard to decide what to get – everything sounded quite interesting and unusual.

We shared a couple of starters. We really enjoyed these gomi no yuba rolls, which had good savoury flavours and a fun slippery texture. The shiso sauce that came with it helped elevate it further.

We also shared the sushi, which Dr HH enjoyed but were too wasabi-heavy for me – the entire topping you can see above is a pale green wasabi cream. I’m not a fan of wasabi, so I was hoping it would be quite subtle, but it absolutely was not. If you like wasabi, you’ll probably like it!

Dr HH had the tsukemen dipping noodles and it was the first time he’d had or really seen a dish like this. We googled this dish beforehand to try to understand how it was supposed to be eaten and if it was worth foregoing a proper ramen. In short: it was worth it. The sauce had lots of Sichuan and sansho peppers so it gave a good tingly mouthfeel. There was miso, shiitake and more chilli, so it was spicy and savoury with great depth of the flavour. The noodles were also excellent, flatter and thicker than regular ramen noodles. As they weren’t submerged in the sauce, they kept their texture better. When he finished the noodles, the staff topped up his bowl with dashi to turn the leftover sauce into a drinkable soup. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him so happy!

I got the green tea ramen and absolutely loved it. The broth was good and savoury and didn’t taste like green tea (which I was happy about). The spiciness of the whole dish built as I ate more of it, but it was never too spicy. The noodles were the same flat, thick ones as Dr HH had above, and they kept enough bite for me. The only downside is that there were huge onion rings (not battered ones) on the top which were quite tricky to eat without splashing hot broth all over my face.

We had room for ice cream too! Dr HH had the kinako ice cream, which is roasted soy bean flour. It had a nutty and slightly savoury taste and was served with a sweet brown rice sauce. It was really creamy and very enjoyable.

I went for chocolate ice cream and this also came with the same sauce. As someone with a big sweet tooth, I enjoyed the chocolate flavour and sweetness of the whole thing, but it might be a bit much for some people.

This was our favourite spot in Kyoto. The dishes were unlike anything else we had in Japan, and it was such a fun experience. It’s a shame the cost and reservation requirement meant that we couldn’t go again! Also, in classic Japanese style, they’re only open four days a week, so you have to make sure you’re there during the week to even stand a chance!

Activities Around Kyoto

We did a couple of day trips while staying in Kyoto. First, we planned a three hour hike between two towns on the outskirts of the city, Takao and Hozukyo. After a one hour bus ride, we climbed a very steep hill up to a temple, Jingo-ji. The temple is in some really beautiful scenery, but I would not recommend visiting when it’s 39 degrees, it’s quite exposed and we were dripping in sweat from the climb!

We descended again and began the hike proper. It was a largely flat and straightforward three hours walking alongside the river, meaning that we saw a lot of beautiful scenery. There were a few trickier sections where we needed to use a provided rope for support scrambling up a few rocks, but generally it was very pleasant indeed.

Another day trip was to Nara, a very popular tourist destination. A lot of people go to see the deer, which wander freely around the city. We saw some extremely bad behaviour from tourists towards the deer (which we stopped), and I don’t really like that aspect of Nara. Deer are fine, awful tourists are not. Anyway, we were focused on visiting the main temples, starting with Kohfukuji, which was surprisingly almost deserted when we visited.

It was quite a long walk through deer territory to Kasuga Taisha shrine, which I loved for its many lanterns.

And then another walk to Todaji temple which is home to a giant Buddha statue. This was the busiest of the three spots. They were all very different, and well worth a visit.