I used to go out to the suburbs if I wanted to have unagi in Korea.
I didn’t have time to eat out except for near school when I was studying at Doshisha university in Kyoto. When the summer came, professors said that in Japan they had unagi to refresh themselves in summer. As I was languishing due to the heat and needed a refresh from all the studying I did, I ate at downtown unagi restaurants several times. They said that if you wanted to have unagi you had to eat out, not at home, as unagi had a lot of thorns and wasn’t easy to handle.
I found a remarkable unagi restaurant in Kyoto this time. It was a small place with tiny space for customers.
If you go in one of the numerous alleys in Gion, you will be walking along a path along a narrow stream Shinagawa, and if it’s springtime you will be walking under cherry blossoms. You cannot help but admire. On the left side of the stream are restaurants and you can see through glasses people eating inside. And on the right side are old Edo-era houses built with dark-colored wood. I couldn’t see the sign, but I assumed that they should include restaurants, tea houses and bars.
And one of those places had a sign-curtain, a white cloth with an eel drawn on it. I thought the aesthetic sense was extraordinary, so I went in. I went through the narrow inner alley and went in an old wooden door of the unagi restaurant.
The tiny space inside held a table and a counter table adjoined to the kitchen. They seated us at the edge of the counter table. I wondered why they did that instead of seating us in the good spot in the middle, and I soon found out why. That was the best spot for watching the whole process of preparing the eel.
A young cook swiftly cut an eel with a knife. He cut, broiled and boiled down the long life with a skilled hand and put it on the rice prepared with care – the whole process was like a performance.
So it was visually interesting, and what about the taste?
The unagi and rice were easily swallowed. It was the best of the unagis that I have tasted. As we were the only customers there, I was worried they might go out of business. And I heard that they haven’t opened for long, and that they had hotels in several cities, and that their company was quite big with several western-style food and Kyoto-style restaurants just in Kyoto – so maybe this was just a hobby for the owner.
An eel was drawn with ink on a long wooden plate in the inner wall as well as on the outer sign-curtain. There was also another wiggling eel drawn on a sheet of paper, which all showed extraordinary taste. I asked who had painted them, and they answered that the owner did. It was a place for just unagi, yet it was cool that the owner painted his identity with a stroke of brush. Most of all, watching the whole process of quietly cooking unagi was a fresh experience. In Korea, they always cook in the kitchen and never show the customers the process.
Sure enough, the next day, I went in the place without having made a reservation. I had been worried that the place might go bankrupt, and voila, they had no room even with their price several times that of price I was used to when I studied at Kyoto several years ago.
So I tasted unagi once there. And when I visit Kyoto again, I will visit Kyouman again, where the chef, who performed the high art as if he was painting or playing a musical instrument for me, saw me off even though he already bowed several times inside.
I give them best at their artisan spirit and meticulous service mindset.
If one gesture one act of kindness come from one’s heart they will become the force softening a hard heart
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