I found Sumiyagura right in Shijō Kawaramachi. Hitsumabushi is the way of eating unagi where you split the bowl into parts and eat each differently, and I had long wanted to try this here in Kyoto. Before I had tasted eel at Kamanza in Ninenzaka, but now I really wanted the hitsumabushi way.
I got to my seat and ordered some cold drinks while I looked at the menu.
My Hitsumabushi Lunch at Sumiyagura in Kyoto
First came the first unagi don, grilled eel right above the rice with thick sauce. It had a smoky burnt smell that filled the nose even before you take the chopsticks. With it there are also miso soup, pickles and wasabi at the side.
The eel was soft and the skin had a little crunch that perfectly goes with good grilled unagi.
Later came the hitsumabushi served in a round wood box. Hitsumabushi with unagi comes from Nagoya so finding it at Sumiyagura in Kyoto felt cool; they make their kind of it. The eel were cut into smaller parts with small dishes of toppings for the different eating ways.
I had tried hitsumabushi at Okafuji in Nagoya before so tasting it again here is actually an “old experience” for me.
Here you follow the steps of hitsumabushi where you add toppings and mix everything together. I took some pictures of how to eat the hitsumabushi and would show you later. In fact, there are youtube video from this shop teaching you the correct way to eat hitsumabushi, you could juts search it on the youtube.
The menu showed many kinds of eel dishes plus some picks with Omi beef over that. They had a bunch of set meals with noodles and different toppings.
Some pages showed sake from Kyoto, which makes sense because around here there are nearby makers.
The page about hitsumabushi had steps about how to eat it that are good for first-timers.
Extra pages about stone-cooked eel sweets and grilled meat picks.
