After eating at the Tokyo branch in the first week of our trip to Japan (review here), we were all excited to try the newly-opened Kyoto branch too. The menu is a little different, with fewer pieces of sushi and a selection of little side dishes instead, which helped to justify the decision to (essentially) revisit the same place.

The sushi was well seasoned with good toppings – all of them the same as the offering in Tokyo, but only six rather than ten in this branch. They were: scrambled egg, tuna mayo, vegan meat, Japanese ginger, shiitake mushroom, and tempura. None of us were very keen on the scrambled egg, and were quite disappointed that that was one of the repeat items. The others were all good. The tuna remains incredible, and the pickled ginger packs plenty of flavour without being too ferocious.

There were five obanzai (small dishes) as well: matcha soba, yuba, karaage, agedashi, and pickled turnip. The matcha noodles were the highlight from the side dishes. The soy meat and agedashi tofu were really tasty, but both suffered from being a bit cold and soggy. Imagine how good they would be crisp and fresh! But I understand that it’s much easier to serve them this way.

There was also a miso soup, which was tasty too and definitely one of the better ones of our trip.

It was a really good experience overall, even if there were a few things that weren’t to our personal tastes. The service was excellent, and it’s still a really exciting menu, in a place without that many vegan sushi options. This was a more spacious restaurant than the Tokyo one, and we were pleased to be sitting at a table rather than a bar for a change!