Winter
in Kyoto PrefectureCold days and nights & warm foods
Kyoto is well known throughout Japan for its cold winters. The valleys of Kyoto Prefecture fill with cold, somewhat humid air and in many places there is much snow throughout the long months before spring. People love to eat well in winter and Kyoto Prefecture is famous for its winter cuisine. Here are three exceptional dishes that will warm your body.
Buri-shabu
Buri-shabu is written with two words: shabu, which comes from the well-known Japanese hot-pot food shabu-shabu, and buri, an oily fish (yellowtail). In shabu-shabu cuisine you select thinly sliced pieces of choice beef and briefly dip them in a boiling watery broth of the hot pot for a few seconds. Then, when the beef has turned light brown, you take it out of the pot and dip it one of two popular sauces (one, ponzu, is spicy and a bit sour, and the other, gomadare, is a thick sesame based sauce).
Buri-shabu is like beef shabu-shabu except one dips in pieces of yellowtail (buri), a fish that is common to most of the sea around Japan but which is considered to be most tasty when caught in the winter months. The Sea of Japan off the northern coast of Kyoto Prefecture yields some of the finest buri in Japan. The winter buri season begins in late November.
In buri-shabu the hot pot also contains other winter vegetables. The soup broth in the pot is made by boiling kelp (kombu) in water with a fair bit of Japanese sake.
There are several places in Kyoto prefecture where visitors can enjoy buri-shabu. Some of them are in Miyazu City and Ine Town. Miyazu City is very popular as a tourist destination. Ine Town Ine Town is on the Tango peninsula facing the Sea of Japan and well known for its fishing industry. The Miyazu Tourist Information Center can introduce visitor’s to some nice restaurants for buri-shabu (¥5,000-¥11,600). Tel: 0772-22-0670. Or call the Kyoto Prefecture Tourism Federation, Tango branch office: Tel: 0772-22-8030. Only Japanese is spoken at both of these places.
To get to Miyazu City, take an express train from JR Kyoto Stn. to Miyazu Stn. (about 2 hours). To get to Ine Town take Tango Kairiku Kotsu Bus from the Miyazu Stop to Inne-yakuba-mae Stop (about 1 hour).
Yudofu
Yudofu is an extremely popular and ancient type of tofu-based cuisine. Kyoto, with its long winters, many temples (monks are traditionally vegetarians), is the biggest center for tofu in Japan. Excellent tofu requires high quality soy beans and, more importantly, fresh pure well water which Kyoto has in abundance, even today. Kyoto has countless well-known tofu shops, usually family businesses that have been serving major temples in their area for many generations. Naturally, there are many places in Kyoto city and prefecture where visitors can try superb yudofu. Yudofu is especially popular during Kyoto’s cold winter months. The yudofu hot pot is filled with water and large pieces of sea kelp. Various vegetables and square chunks of silky tofu are placed in the simmering broth. The vegetables and tofu are then removed with chopsticks or a ladle and dipped in a fine soy-based sauce.
Botan-nabeAnother very popular and interesting winter food is a hot-pot dish that uses the dark red meat of the Japanese wild boar (inoshishi). The meat slices are arranged on a plate in such a way that they look like a large peony flower and thus the cuisine is known as botan-nabe (peony hot pot). Botan-nabe is served in winter is because wild boar tastes best after the animal has fattened itself up for winter by eating a lot on the steep mountain slopes of their habitat. The botan-nabe hot pot contains vegetables and is flavored with miso, a salty pasted made of fermented soy beans.
The recommended places in Kyoto Prefecture for botan-nabe are the Yunohana Onsen hot spa area in Kameoka City, Miyama Town, and Sonobe Town. All these locations are all blessed with abundant natural resources and the local people are known for their warmth and hospitality. At the Yunohana Onsen, people can enjoy very Japanese style bathing as well as fine botan-nabe. For more information about Kameoka, in English, visit: http://www.city.kameoka.kyoto.jp Kameoka Tourist Information: Tel: 0771-22-0691 (Japanese only).
To get to Kameoka City, take the JR Sagano Line from Kyoto Stn. to Kameoka Stn. (about 25min.). To get to Miyama Town, take the JR bus to Shuzan from JR Kyoto Stn. (about 90min.). Then change to a bus bound for Miyama Town and get out at Agake (40min.).