Kaiseki – The ultimate vegan feast!
Presentation, flavors, seasonal ingredients, and ambience come together in the original vegan cuisine of the Buddhist Temple. What better way to nourish the body and spirit than Kaiseki in a Buddhist Temple!
Shunkoin Temple & Zen Center has been an excellent home for us in our explorations of Kyoto. In a room with shoji sliding doors and ancient painted screens, we had the full set of Kaiseki dishes laid out in front of us. Following instructions, we ate the warm dishes first. Particularly notable was the goma tofu. Basically this is tofu made with some tahini – remember how much tahini helps the flavor of hummus and babaganoush? Well, it does even more for tofu! How much more seasonal can you get than salt mixed with dried cherry blossoms for seasoning the vegetable tempura?
And then the cool dishes – here particularly notable were the mountain vegetables. On yesterday’s hike, we saw the fiddle heads of the emerging ferns. And there was the uncurling mountain vegetable in the Kaiseki, just like we saw in the mountains. Another tofu miracle was some sort of grilled item with a flavorful sauce. And the rolled-up sheets skimmed from heated soy milk were another delight.
Clearly, I am in my element with food in Japan! And Kaiseki is the haute cuisine of Japanese food! Awesome, incredible and so very Japanese. No single item was more than a bite or two, so there were dozens of mingled flavors.
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| A professional photographer took these pictures of us |
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| The cherry blossom salt -- final seasonal touch |
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