Last week in Kyoto, living a Travelife, we had a very nice meal at one of the city’s top restaurants with three Michelin stars to its name.

I was just invited, so I didn’t do the choosing or the booking; but apparently when my friend made the reservation, the lady had not asked about a menu or informed him of a price or our options.

And when we sat down in our private tatami room finally, we were not handed a menu or any details either. The restaurant mistress, whose grandfather started this very famous restaurant, simply came in to greet us and to make some small talk about their private label sake and the fine weather outside.

Then she basically handed us over to a smiling young lady in kimono who took care of us for the next three hours or so.

Then the meal commenced — and what an amazing meal it was in terms of ingredients used, cooking creativity and artistic presentation. If I could give four stars for creativity and presentation, in particular, I most certainly would. Several courses were especially designed to shock and awe — and so I just couldn’t stop taking photos.

Very cold private label sake in a sterling silver ice bucket

Our kimono-ed attendant was quite amused at my never-ending photo activities and my friend was on the verge of embarassment,  I’m guessing, because it is so touristy to take so many photos after all — especially in this particular restaurant patronized by food connosieurs from all over Japan and the world.

Of course no one knew that I was going to be posting photos in the Travelife blog or using these for an upcoming Kyoto special in Travelife Magazine. The restaurant staff probably just assumed I was going to be posting these on Facebook.

But that’s how beautiful everything was — that I simply couldn’t stop clicking away. Watch out for the  truly beautiful photos in the upcoming issues of TRAVELIFE Magazine. I’ve saved the best photos for our special Kyoto supplement, of course.

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This restaurant cooks two kinds of rice for every room, in case guests want a certain kind of rice on the spur of the moment.

The top restaurants in Kyoto are divided into the very traditional ones and the more adventruous ones that like to put some innovation and novelty into the menu. Although this restaurant is over 70 years old — that’s still young by Kyoto standards — and so I would describe the dishes as on the playful side.

They served juicy pieces of toro sashimi, for instance, with a special soy sauce and slices of fried garlic — treating it almost like a Kobe beef steak.

I really appreciated that, by the way, as it made the meal so much more enjoyable for me.

Unfortunately I can’t divulge the name of the restaurant or more details, as this restaurant experience is going into the Kyoto special of Travelife Magazine — but I can tell you that between the places I and one of my contributing editors stayed in and ate at, we pretty much have been able to cover the best of Kyoto in a way I am so confident no other magazine ever can.

We’re certainly not Travelife for nothing.

Still on sale until October 15

At the end of the meal, when the damages were assessed and my friend was done with the bill, we were very respectfully escorted by the mistress of the house and her team all the way to the pretty imposing gate of the restaurant.

We had decided not to call for a car yet as I wanted to take photos of the river and the trees all lit up so beautifully even at night. Wrong move. It took us a good ten minutes to walk from the restaurant gate to a point where we were sufficiently out of sight — and for this few minutes that seemed like eternity, the restaurant team stood at the gate bowing formally.

I’ve never had this experience as there’s usually a car already waiting at the restaurant entrance by the time I finish dinner, and so we’re able to turn a corner in a minute; or else the walk out is just a hop and a skip out of sight.

But this time, for a good ten minutes, I felt seriously responsible for the sore backs of three very nice people.

My companion said: “The next time we’re eating here, I’m going to make sure we have a car or a taxi already waiting.”

I replied with a smile: “Oh. So there’s going to be a next time.” It was a truly lovely and delicious restaurant after all, so I was very happy to go again. And again. And again. But I’d spied the credit card bill at the end, and with those prices, one of us could have flown on a KLM promo ticket to Europe  instead of having a meal there.

KLM, by the way, has among the best promo fares for business class and economy class from Manila to Europe via Amsterdam.

But as that very catchy credit card advertisement goes, some things are just priceless. And a meal at Kyoto’s top restaurant probably ranks right up there with them.

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The other day in Kyoto, living a Travelife, we checked out of our ryokan — supposedly the best traditional inn in Japan, if not in the world — to stay at the holiday home of a friend in the neighborhood of Saga, in the hills around Arashiyama in Kyoto.

This friend has lots of holiday homes, but two stand out in my memory: one is in the very tony holiday resort town of Karuizawa in northern Japan, and the other is this one in Arashiyama, at one end of Kyoto.

Both are huge homes because they used to be holiday villas owned by multinational companies for their employees; when these multinational companies began cost-cutting, he bought these from them and had them refurbished, and now the luxury Japanese hotel chain Hoshino is managing these for him.

So basically, when you stay at his home, you’re getting the services of a top ryokan, including a very good breakfast and butler services.

Anyway, we decided to go to Arashiyama just because it’s so pretty in the fall and there was this invitation to stay at my friend’s home. We also wanted to walk around the great Zen temple of  Tenryuji again and to seek out the villa of “fallen persimmons” nearby, which was once owned by one of the top ten disciples of the great Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Basho.

I like Basho a lot, and he reportedly visited this particular villa, to see his friend, several times.

The villa of “fallen persimmons”

When we arrived at my friend’s house, it was such a perfect day in Kyoto and he had a bunch of bicycles; so we all took bicycles and cycled around the entire Arashiyama area — and beyond. I used to visit Arashiyama a lot in a previous lifetime, but I hadn’t been at all recently. It was nice to see everything again.

What a beautiful place this neighborhood of Saga is, just behind the Tenryuji temple. I never thought I would want to own a vacation home in Kyoto, and I certainly am not attracted to owning a machiya, which is a dark and narrow wooden house usually found in the center of Kyoto.

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Still on sale everywhere until October 15

Many foreigners dream of owning and fixing up machiya but I’m not one of them, although I like staying in the top machiya ryokan of Kyoto for a night or two.

But on that day, bicycling around Saga, I actually had house envy.  Everything was so picturesque, with so much beauty in the small details. And in this historic neighborhood, I saw some of the most tasteful houses in Japan.

As far as Philippine holiday homes go, these Kyoto houses aren’t very big. But these have such a wonderful patina of history and culture, acquired through generations and generations of existing in a world of depth and beauty.

Watch out for our one-on-a-kind Kyoto supplement in an upcoming issue of TRAVELIFE Magazine.

No one travels like us. Or writes like us. And this is why we’re #1.

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The post The beauty of Arashiyama in Kyoto appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.