You’ve gotta eat, and as we walked around the Kitayama / Kamigamo area, things evolved into lunch time. Passing this little place sequestered in a small street, the smell of soup stock was overpowering and sorta bewitching.
Inside was very ‘timeslip’, as we say here in Japan. Time had definitely slipped for the two women working, one of whom was a bit oblivious and the other of whom was clearly hard of hearing.
The various maladies of the other old customers, I couldn’t tell at a glance (other than the guy who was smoking. No prizes for guessing what’s wrong with him.). But they sure were picturesque.
You know what else is picturesque? My ‘tanuki udon’. Usually ‘tanuki’ noodles mean they’ve scattered crumbs of tempura fry on the top (and some soba shops actually keep a jar of these bits on the table for you to add grease to your otherwise fat-free meal). In this case it means ‘covered with a disgusting layer of translucent sludge not fit for human consumption but which keeps the contents of the bowl too hot to eat’. Or words to that effect. I make the picture big to remind myself to stop ordering stuff you don’t understand. Big dummy.
Someone had more luck with the standard udon, which had the good soup that we smelled from outside. Damn.
Well, all too soon it was time to bid a fond farewell and head off on our bikes. Actually neither of us was much fond of this place, and it wasn’t a shame to leave, and we wished we had had bikes, because you could get anywhere in Kyoto on a bike if you had 30 minutes. Really, it’s a terrific bike city.
You could probably get to a better udon place too. I know, I should have ordered more wisely, but hey.
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