It felt like forever since I last made a food-related post, I’m feeling hungry. And I just finished watching all 17 episodes of tvN’s “Let’s Eat 2” which, I must say, has enough food porn to make me hungry every time I watch an episode. Darn all those Korean food; they all look sooooo sooooo good! I gotta make sure I taste some of them when I go to Seoul in a couple of months. 🙂 Until then, I’ll just have to flash back to some of the places we ate at when we were in Japan. This time, it’s this small, nondescript place in Gion, MIMIKOU.
The place is also known as “Mimikou Curry Udon“.
Peach and I resolved to try eating something Japanese while we had our kimonos on. Oh, wait, we resolved to eat mostly Japanese during the trip, haha! So we walked out of Yasaka Shrine, walked to the direction on the east side of the shrine entrance. It was still around 11am, so most lunch places were still closed. We saw only one place open, and it seemed like there weren’t a lot of patrons. We walked on further and saw there weren’t other options, so we retraced our steps and entered that one lone open store.
It was MIMIKOU, a place that is famous for their Kyoto-style Japanese curry udon. Udon are Japanese thick wheat noodles. Mimikou makes use of Kyoto-style dashi (Japanese soup stock), which is basically thrown in with bonito and kelp, making it thick and creamy. We will find out what that’s like soon enough.
The place was quite small, and the moment we entered, the kind-looking ojiisan at the counter gestured for us to proceed up the stairs to the second floor. He didn’t even blink at the two foreigners dressed in kimono; proof that they are used to these things by now.
We went upstairs, and there were only about 2 other tables with occupants. It turns out lunch hour has not yet begun in these parts; it’s just the two of us thinking of having an early lunch.
When we were seated, we were immediately presented with English menus, and the nice lady made recommendations. For drinks, we ordered their orange juice (300 JPY). I liked how it wasn’t too sweet.
We ended up ordering one bowl each of one of their bestsellers, their Tori ten (Chicken tempura) soup udon. Partly to blame was my awakened affinity with karaage. Haha! So we passed on trying curry noodles. Oh, and we also opted not to have any rice, because we figured the noodles were already filling.
You can choose the level of spiciness, but we settled for the classic taste – no spice at all. To be honest, I was worried if the spice and the dairy will have a bad reaction, and I still have half a day of sightseeing ahead, so I wanted to prevent accidents from happening as much as I can. 🙂 *wink wink*
That white blob, if I remember correctly, was something like cheese or cream cheese, which made the soup even creamier.
The bowl cost around 850 JPY. Very filling, and very rich! I can totally see how this’ll be a problem for those on a diet, but hey, when in Japan, screw diet. 🙂 It’ll be a sin not to sample the Japanese food selection you are presented with!
This is officially my favorite type of noodles! Even today, in the food stall at work, I pick udon over other types of noodles. 🙂
Check out the consistency of the dashi~
And here’s a random stolen photo of another diner, because his phone case just tickled me pink (no pun intended).
After our hearty meal, we made the slow walk back to Yume to return the kimonos. This was definitely another colorful experience: eating udon wearing traditional garb, in MIMIKOU!
MIMIKOU is around 3 minutes away from the entrance of Yasaka Shrine – 1 minute if you’re really hungry, 5 minutes if you’re wearing kimono, and 10 or more if you have no sense of direction. *peace*
Visit their website, or like them on Facebook here.
Address
528-6 south Gion Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture