Beer Garden Tour @ Neo Sujin Beer Garden, Shimogyo, Kyoto
Whuut? Another food tour? Yea you guys got that right. I am actually amazed as to how many food tours you can actually do in Kyoto.
Japan as a whole is known to have a very strong food culture, but you do not usually associate food with Kyoto, with obanzai and tofu as exceptions. So it was a pleasant surprise when I found a very interesting place for some drinks and food in the late evenings. It was also another surprise as to how I did not gain any weight during my Kansai food binge. Must be all that walking. Seriously, the scattered transport system in Kyoto and Osaka calls for alot of walking, which is a blessing in disguise. But that will be a topic for another day.
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| A map to guide you through |
"Sujin shichimachi" (崇仁新町) or "Neo Sujin" in English, is located just 5 minutes away from Kyoto station. It is a fairly new container style food court and beer garden that starts to rev up its energy about 6pm. And I personally like the feel of this place. Unlike the well curated temples, traditional tea houses, and the beautiful gardens of this ancient city, there is a gritty cyberpunk aura to this place. And being a beer garden and food court, there are alot of food items to try.
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| A peek on the inside |
With a total of 16 stalls and a drinks bar, you have the choice to eat the usual Japanese suspects, like noodles and teppanyaki, or Western style dishes like sausages and steak. Still being on an adventerous mood, I had horumon (ホルモン) to start the evening. For those that you do not know, its beef organs!
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| Tastier than it looks. The lighting doesn't do this justice. |
Fried using a teppanyaki with lots of cabbage, beansprouts and sweet miso, you would not have guessed that something so rugged would have been this delicious. The smell was absolutely delightful, with strong hints of caramelised onions and cabbage inviting you to chow down. The organ meat, which is mostly tripe and intestines, did not taste gamey or intense at all. There was still some chewy bits, which is expected. Still, this was thoroughly enjoyable and went down with a serving of highball, which I got from the same stall, stall no 8. The meaty delight and the fizzy beverage was ¥850 and ¥300 respectively.
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| Fizzy! |
On a side note, the size that I ordered was a "small". But it was a pintful! I could not imagine what XL would be like. Great way to start the evening.
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| The basics, done right. |
My second munch down came in the form of gyozas, which came from stall no 7, just next door. It was basic, but the basics done right. Well rounded meat filling, crispy skin at the bottom and a velvety exterior on the top, that was just sheer perfection. And with a dip of black vinegar, this simple dumpling became some flavour meteorite that just hit deep impact into your mouth. A set of 5 was for just a mere ¥350.
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| The stalls that I have visited. |
There were other food stuff here as well, but they were mostly Western style food like tacos and sausages as mentioned earlier. They do smell good and since its a food court, you can really smell what is being prepared in the premises. But I am in Japan. So might as well go as far as I can go, no? So then I found a place that sold matcha beer from stall no 9. You got that right!
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| Hulk blood? |
It was some green magma which looked like blended celery juice. Although I did not hate it, but the flavour is definitely something getting used to. It tasted like fizzy green tea with an alco-kick to it. Not something I would recommend off the bat, but if you are adventerous, why not? It was kind of expensive though, being ¥800 a pint.
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| Making some new friends. |
But what made this very fun was not just the interesting food options, but I made a lot of new friends, and really drunk ones at that. One thing I have to admit, is that Kansai folks are much friendlier than their counterparts in the Kanto region and up north. They genuinely have a great sense of hospitality that is very different and open. A group of locals invited me to sit with them and it was really fun just having a chat. Really glad that the language barrier was not as bad as my previous visits, and seems that me speaking in Japanese made more sense than my new found friends speaking in English. It made for many "lost in translation" moments that were very funny.
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| Making more new friends! Our mini UN gathering. |
Still, even if you are here on your own with some non-Japanese friends, you will still have a good time here. A good amount of the staff here speaks English. Some tourists do come over here too, so I am sure you will find someone that can speak your mother tongue, which I did. I met an Indonesian who speaks Malay, two Chinese nationals who speaks putong hua and another Japanese. In the end, since Japanese was the only common language we all knew, it became a mini UN-nihongo gathering!
Just a few things to take note of. As this is a food court after all, it has an open kitchen concept. Meaning to say that you will smell like the food you eat since its cooked in the same premises. And secondly, being a food court again, a good amount of stalls, like most of Japanese street food vendors, may not accept card payments. But once you are prepared, rest assured you will experience a fun-filled and probably boozy evening on the cheap. So if my seal of approval has piqued your interest, then the address for Neo Sujin is as follows:
19-6 Kaminocho, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto 600-8207, Kyoto Prefecture
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| Front of the containers? |
PS: Remember I mentioned of the bar I mentioned earlier? It was so good ( I had a private whisky tasting session sort of good), that it deserves a separate post. So stay tuned for the sequel.
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| to be continued. |
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