Review: Gion Kida

6 December 2018

I certainly needed that excellent lunch at Rikichi to get through the afternoon in Kyoto. It was pissing down hard, and I was drenched for most of it. Plus a lot of fruitless hiking. I got to see much of what I wanted in town, thanks to some hilly hikes (at times it was so steep in the rain I thought I was gonna slide all the way down), but missed out on the most important thing I had planned to see.

Part of my Kyoto trip involved going to pay respects to one of my heroes growing up, one of the individuals that made me want to go into physics — Hideki Yukawa. Unfortunately, due to construction work at the historic Chion-In, the path to the lower cemetery where he is interred was closed. It was so frustrating to have hiked way up the hill, to look down and see his grave but not be able to reach it. I tried to go around and hiked up 3 other hills, just to be stymied by fences and threats of trespassing — which I wasn’t about to do, especially one of them involved the Tomb of Emperor Hanazono. The last thing I need is to be deemed a defiler of an Imperial Tomb…

So after hours of trekking around, a very soaked Mel gave up and hid in a park gazebo and dried off. No one was around since it was also rather cold and windy, which is perfect for me sitting around in a wet shirt drinking cold barley tea. All before I made it to dinner in another part of the Gion district. Tonight’s destination is another 1-Michelin kaiseki restaurant, Gion Kida.

I got there and there was a couple that went in before their 6pm opening time, and they were already being served. So despite me being there at the same time, they grouped me, service-wise, with the rest of the counter customers. That would affect my dining experience all night…

I relaxed and thank goodness was pretty dry thanks to that rest in the park gazebo…and I managed to change shirts thanks to the early sunset. I relaxed with some sake and the busy kitchen was at work, since several groups have also come in and occupied the private rooms. This seems to be a bigger thing down here in Kansai, that most kappo kaiseki places also cater to more private rooms than back up in Tokyo. Then a good start for a wet, cold evening – soup.

Tho I was getting weary of crab on this trip, this was a delicious start. A good combination of spinach, crab and nut tofu here. Nice warming start. Then we have some saba (mackerel).

Fun presentation, delicious fish. The daikon-persimmon “sandwiches” were cute and delicious as a side here too. So far so good. Chef Yasuo Kida was in good form, clearly showing a bit more flare than most other kaiseki chefs. He’s bantering with some of the customers and enjoying some wine with them. Fun night coming I think. Then something comes from the charcoal grill…mochi!

I’m never a fan of mochi since I’m always worried about choking on these things, but this was filled with karasumi (bottarga). Lovely juxtaposition here. I enjoyed a bit more sake with this dish…

And enjoyed…and enjoyed…ordered another…and enjoyed. This was what I was alluding to earlier, being grouped with the rest of the counter diners caused a massive delay. Two major factors here. First, clearly a VIP group had come in, and Chef was busy going to the back room to chat with them. Second, his main assistant had made the crucial decision to mis-group me, and that caused a half-hour gap between dishes…

I’m sorry, but that is just not good for a kappo kaiseki experience. That really, really soured me on this evening very quickly. I nursed my drinks and I think at some point their realised they messed up, so they tried to serve me first. The next dish — eventually — was amadai (tilefish) soup.

Sadly, the wait was for nothing, as the broth was really weak. What is with the poor dashi these days? Everyone’s taste buds messed up at year’s end? The fish was nice, but ruined by the poor broth. Sigh… Then it took awhile to put the large dish together…

A good selection of stuff, finally! The sashimi selection, of tzuke akami (marinated lean tuna) and buri (wild yellowtail) was quite nice. The crab was also delicious, with generous amounts of roe. The namako (sea cucumber) was a surprise and really good. And finally, the fugu with shirako was a total miss, drowning in ponzu.

At this point the entire service has collapsed. Chef has completely disappeared to the back room and we can hear him having a blast with the VIPs back there. The kitchen team is now dealing with chaos being a man short, to deal with not just the impatient kappo diners but all the back room folks too. They were busy working on some live crabs…

Then some lame karasumi and whitebait came out…so lame I forgot to take a photo. It’s just trying to make us drink and order more sake — with the stupidly long wait.

I’m not fond of watching them torture a poor crab, as they removed limb after limb, and the poor crab is moving the empty socket to see what he has left, and his mouth is hanging open…yet another of the crab is trying to fight off the chef with his final leg… This is NOT the type of dinner entertainment I like.

Then eventually the first crab dish, the leg, comes out…

It took ALMOST ONE HOUR between the large dish and the crab, and that is completely unacceptable — especially if we hear Chef Kida laughing with other customers… The crab itself was wasted. I saw how they did this dish. They took all the lovely coral and tomally and heaped it into the dashi and cooked the crab in it. All of it almost wasted, and did nothing for the crab flesh… It was ridiculously boring…

The second dish, the claw, was not much better. This seems to be a waste of some good ingredients… And at this point, the single lady diner next to me is starting to show clear signs of inebriation. She’s loud, increasingly incoherent, and drinking twice as fast as anyone else. Oh, extra entertainment…

Then a surprise, Chef Kida reappears! Oh, just so he can wok fry the rice with a lot of crab. He’s doing it like if he’s got a TV camera on him, and it’s done and he’s made a mess, and he walks straight off to the back room to rejoin the VIPs again. So unprofessional…

The fried rice was quite good, but only one small bowl? Then we were presented with a dish somewhere between porridge and risotto…

A bit of truffle on it, but it didn’t do that much for me. At this point I was asked if I wanted more fried rice or porridge, and I went with the former. By now I was almost wishing this meal was over, as we were about 2.5 hours into a trying evening mostly of waiting around… Then an odd item…

Saba (mackerel)…is this a snack? Lol, quite a nice roll. Is this dessert? Apparently not…

A good strawberry and pear dessert here. At this point Chef Kida re-emerges to cook another set of fried rice, and goodness there was rice flying everywhere…a total mess. It’s borderline comedic at this stage… The fact this meal was starting to approach 3 hours is not what I planned, since I need to still run back to Osaka.

So I took my leave quickly, trying to escape the now completely soused lady that tried to solicit my opinions on the porridge vs fried rice debate (she was still asking for more food…and drink), and I headed out before another prolonged wait. Chef Kida actually came out to wish me well, surprising considering how most of his attention was paid to his VIP back-room guests. Sadly, not professional at all.

Compared to today’s excellent lunch at Rikichi, this was not worth it. I’d recommend Rikichi over Gion Kida any day. The food here was mediocre, with some poor dishes (tho some excellent moments), but it’s the chaotic kitchen and unprofessionalism here that makes me not wishing to recommend this place. However, nothing was as bad as last night’s rudeness at Koryu, but this really was a wasted evening.

Oh well, now for the crowded ride back to Osaka, even at this hour…

Gion Kida [祇園 きだ]
570-192 Giommachi-minamigawa, Higashiyama-ku
Kyoto, Japan