Wakana — Restaurant in Kyoto

This restaurant is conveniently located near the busy tourist area but tucked away on its own quiet street, offering a calm escape from the crowds. We visited on a Sunday without a reservation and waited about 20 minutes. The restaurant is English and Chinese friendly, though the free Wi-Fi was too slow to place an order, so the staff kindly handled it offline for us. We tried both the trio menu and the main meal. The vegetarian dish had an interesting flavor—hard for me to say whether it was good or bad, just different. The highlight was the meat dish with egg, which had a nice portion and satisfying flavors. Like many rice bowls in Japan, expect plenty of rice with minimal vegetables and meat. Overall, it’s a good spot for a quick and reasonably priced meal in a calm setting.

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It took a few months for this restaurant to get registered with Google Maps. I hope it got plenty of patronage between the initial submission, because the dumplings were absolutely wonderful.

Wakana was the first place where I finally got to try some confectionery staples of Japanese desserts. Dumplings, roasted over a window-side charcoal burner, produced a lovely and aromatic experience for dining on these exceptionally sticky desserts.

Washing these dumplings down with a traditionally prepared matcha tea, which started out as a few spoons of powder that was dissolved by hot water and whisked into a bubbly concoction, produced a rather frothy and slightly bitter after taste. Green tea, go figure.

Anyways, give these lovely people your patronage, and check out the kimono rental store on the...

It’s an authentic dango on a street in Kyoto which kids can also enjoy a lot. There are different choices but “Mitarashi” should be the best as it’s so crispy when you eat which is so rare at ordinary dango shops. Inside of dango is so soft and will melt on your toungue (of course you need to chew a bit).

The only problem (though it’s typical Kyoto situation) is we had to ate it on a narrow street even taxis and cars pass by.

But its taste is awesome and you can’t have similar experience at many other...