Last night I went along with friends to dinner at the Gozanbou teppanyaki restaurant on the top floor of the Kyoto Granvia Hotel. I was gobsmacked at the high quality of the food, the surroundings, and, indeed, the entire experience. What a treat!

The evening started with garlic, and lots of it. Frankly, I think that the amount of garlic that the chef cooked up at the start of the meal rivaled anything you could find at, say, The Stinking Rose in San Francisco. These ended up serving several roles during the meal: appetizer, beef accoutrement and post-meal rice accompaniment.

The meal was elegant in its simplicity and prepared in perfection.  As with most Japanese meals, there is a wide variety of flavor on offer during the meal, but no one element of the menu swamps the rest.  Instead, there is always a nice balance of color and intentional asymmetry during the meal, supporting a Japanese aesthetic view called “wabi-sabi.” (Not to be confused with “wasabi,” which is a strong spice used in Japanese cooking.)

Speaking of wasabi, I had never before considered using it with beef — it had always occupied a “use with sushi and sashimi” role for me before. However, at the chef’s suggestion, we tried topping the small, cooked cubes of beef that were delivered to our places with coarse salt, wasabi and, of course, some garlic. Doing so delivered a wonderful taste, and one I hope to repeat in the future.

The close of the main meal was signaled by the preparation and delivery of garlic rice.  Some of the garlic left over from the initial garlic serving was crushed into a white paste and warmed, while white slightly glutenous rice was cooked and seasoned.  At first the chef left the rice to slightly overcook (so I reckoned) on the bottom, but in fact he was allowing a small film of cooked rice to develop, which he tore off and set aside like a piece of paper.  Then the resulting rice was mixed together with the garlic and thoroughly cooked.  Once divvied up into individual bowls, the chef used the previously prepared, and deliciously edible, “rice paper” to decorate the serving before its delivery.

Once the meal was finished, we retired to an anteroom for a light dessert of mousse or fruit, accompanied by either coffee or one of the varieties of tea available.  Again, although simple in its preparation, the hand-made desserts were clearly a cut above.  My melon mousse was accompanied by a dollup of caramel ice cream of excellent quality. And the tea that followed made a nice end to a fantastic meal, surely one of the best I’ve ever had.

As a final note, I should point out that the restaurant, situated on the top floor of the Granvia Hotel and directly above the epic-sized Kyoto JR main train station, has a commanding view of its surroundings. In daylight it has a view of the mountains while at night the subdued interior lighting showcases the famous Kyoto tower that is just opposite the train station. A trip to this restaurant will set you back about ¥5,000~7,500 at lunch or about ¥10,000-12,500 for dinner, but it is surely worth every yen spent.