French and Italian - Japanese style

In Kanazawa we found out from our hotel that the best seafood restaurants were on the road we'd found the night before (the tuna heads at Bunke).

So we went back there the following night and tried out the Kaburaki Izakawa. After watching the chef cook we asked him if he was French (to the amusement of everyone there) as he cooked with lots of butter and French wine. Our meal was a fusion of French and Japanese style - not something we expected but went down very well all the same. The precursor to the main event was fish and pasta cooked in two sauces, yum.

And now in Kyoto, we'd chosen well for lunch - vegetables and seafood on individual skewers deep fried, each with their own unique sauce. Accompanied by salad and rice. The highlights were the prawn (yes with some shell still on but we knew how to eat that this time), cheese, white fish and asparagus.

Dinner was more difficult we walked for hours trying to find somewhere that didn't do just meat and wasn't completely empty of people. Eventually, approaching 9pm we stumbled on Ristoria Radice - not a Japanese sounding place but by that point it was that or room service!

We asked the lady if they served fish and the gentleman eating at the bar said we were very lucky to have found this restaurant as the food was exceptional. Fortunately for us he was a great interpreter as the lady spoke a little English but the Japanese chef spoke Italian not English as he'd trained over there. The gentleman preceded to order (and pay for) a lovely fish starter which was his favourite dish. You can only get the fish in Kyoto. It tasted lovely, was beautifully presented and it was amazing to see the attention to detail of the chef whilst he was cooking (and despite his Italian training he still used chopsticks to cook and serve the spaghetti). The seafood pasta with a light tomato sauce and copious amount of olive oil was superb. I couldn't resist the vino frizzante to complete the Italian experience. We were a little worried about how much it was going to cost but we're pleasantly surprised with the 60 yen bill. And they took credit cards so there was no chance we'd be doing the washing up for them.

It turned out that the gentleman worked for a pasta importer and came from a well known family in Japan (Toyota). He knew Derbyshire and a number of famous racing drivers (Tiff and Damien Hill) and he'd just been over to Monte Carlo for the formula one racing.

Thanks to this helpful, enthusiastic gentleman, the chef and his lovely lady front of house we had a tasty interesting meal. I'm so glad we didn't succumb to Subway or Starbucks on the walk home!