I’m going to admit to a number of romantic notions about Kyoto being a quaint medieval city where it’s perpetually twilight, the streets are cobblestones lit by lanterns and geisha walk amongst the common man in Gion. I think Memoirs of a Geisha did a real number on me. Plus I love the word Kyoto. And the word Gion. Lovely aromatic words. And then my Kyoto guidebook told me about Kitcho, a world class restaurant with 3 Michelin stars serving food kaiseki style (Japanese slow food) and I thought “Lanterns, geisha, twilight and amazing food? I’m in, in, in and so in!”
Dinners are at least 3 hours and 10 courses, all fresh and seasonal, most of it caught or picked on the grounds of the restaurant and served in private rooms facing Japanese gardens. You set your own price for dinner with the bidding starting at 42,000 yen per person, or roughly $450. Gulp. Ok, well, none of us are big spenders but we were getting a per diem and were not paying for hotel rooms, so it’s free money. Right? And we’re in Japan for what feels like 12 seconds working like crazy for most of it; so, we should treat ourselves. Right? Plus we all love food and it’s a once in a lifetime experience and we can, so we should. Right? Carpe Kitcho!
We booked a reservation and then we read the fine print that we owed the restaurant the money whether we ate the meal or not. There were no cancellations without penalties. Then we did the math on getting to Kyoto in time for dinner and it went something like this: work ends at 3pm, we run 6 blocks to catch a train to get to the train that gets to Kyoto at 6PM giving us 1 hour to run 7 blocks to the hotel, check 5 people in separately, change clothes and look longingly at the shower after all that running before catching a cab to the restaurant in the outermost portions of the city, arriving panting on their doorstop by the stroke of 7. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?
First hurdle, train tickets. All of us were slavering to ride the Shinkansen (another amazing word), which is sleek, fast and runs like alien clockwork. I can’t adequately describe what it’s like to try to buy a train ticket in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and you can’t read the language. Figuring out which station to leave from, where it’s located, which train to take, what connections to make and how to get from one to another within our time frame took years from my life and hours out of my day. But after lots of mangled English/Japanese, writing and pointy talk we finally got our tickets.
And the fruit course, with an amazing grapefruit custard that I didn’t really enjoy since I was suddenly guesstimating on the price of sake. Finally we asked how much each bottle of sake cost and the smiling server bowed and said “35,000 yen.”
Brief thudding silence as everyone did sake-addled math.
“Well, that’s $350 apiece. I think we’re done with the sake.”
Ryan was frozen mid-sip when that number came out. He put his glass down, sighed and said “Well, I kind of figured I’d spend as much on alcohol as I did on dinner.” Cate had her sake glass in her hand. She heard the number, took a careful sip, looked at me with big eyes and whispered “That just cost $80.” I tried to mentally split the price of six $350 sake bottles amongst 5 people adding in dinner, figured I should just rest at the $1000 mark and took a very deep breath.
The next two minutes were pretty quiet as everyone retreated into their own little world of private finance and I’m sure some very dark and dirty deeds were considered. But by the next course we all rallied, because what are you going to do? You already drank it! Too late now… lesson learned for later… small chuckle, small sob, etc. etc. We finished the meal with matcha served in 400 year old tea bowls, the beautiful girls bowed and thanked us for our presence, gave us gifts and pictures and asked us how we wanted to pay.
We handed her credit cards, propped our faces in our hands and waited. When the girls returned with our bills, waves of shock swept through the room. The bills were only $600 apiece! What?! The sake is 3,500 yen a bottle. That’s only $35! What?! Never in my life has $600 of anything seemed like such a bargain.
Outbreak of relieved laughter, casual quick signing of bills, unwinding of long American legs, standing stiffly, getting in cab, riding away while everyone bows and waves and laughs and says “Come again!” and we all say “We’d love to!”
And then as we turn out of the driveway, someone says “I’m still hungry. Anyone else?”
