Sakura Indian & Nepali Restaurant: Authentic Indian Cuisine in Umekoji Kyoto
Strangely enough, I found that Indian restaurants were quite common in Japan. Since I was in the mood for some Indian food, I decided to go to an Indian and Nepali restaurant called Sakura while I was in the Umekoji, Kyoto area (by the way, I stayed at the The Royal Park Hotel here).
It was a small, homely restaurant and there were pictures and names of all the available dishes on the walls. I could see something called special naan and special biriyani. If the food really looked like the pictures, I was sure it would all be delicious.
There wasn’t room for too many tables. There were some two people tables and some four people tables scattered around.
I could see paintings of the Himalayas, peacocks and tea gardens on the walls. It was very typical of Nepali and Indian landscapes and colors. The menu was absolutely huge. I took a table and sat down.
The staff brought out some water very quickly. Since there weren’t many people in the restaurant, the service was actually quite fast.
The first thing that I ordered was a cola and an ice chai. They were served in pretty glasses, with lots of ice and a straw. The ice chai was very creamy and refreshing.
Then I decided to order an appetizer, which was the chatpat. It had some puffed rice, fried noodles, spices and coriander leaves. There was a sweet, spicy and tangy taste to the dish. It was like an explosion of different flavors.
The samosa was served with some sauce. They had a crispy outer shell and were filled with potato on the inside.
Finally, my main course arrived. I had ordered a garlic naan and some mutton palak. The mutton was served in a thick, creamy, spinach gravy. The naan was soft and full of that lovely garlicky flavor. The naan was so big that it was larger than my head! I had no idea how I would finish the whole thing.
On the other hand, the seafood biriyani was quite subtle. It was garnished with cashews, raisins and green onions. I found little pieces of prawn inside. It wasn’t too fishy and when I tried some of the biriyani with the mutton palak, I found that it went together surprisingly well. I was very pleased with my choices.
Menu
Sakura had a separate dinner menu.
I looked through it and found there were pictures with every dish. Some of the dishes that looked really interesting were the mix grill, momo, the prawn chowmein and paneer pakoda.
They also had set meals with options for vegetables, chicken and mutton. The Nepali dishes like chicken sadeko were quite new to me.
The drinks menu was also quite extensive. I saw that they had so many different kinds of beer.
Other options were shochu, wine, whisky, rum and soft drinks.
Indian staples like butter chicken and palak paneer were available.
The set menu included vegetarian and couple meals. They had things like cheese naan and bhatura.
There was even a party menu that would be perfect for a big group of people!
