Stepping through this door felt like traveling back in time to some 100 years ago.
A portrait of Prince Kan-in-no-miya was hanging high on the wall in the dining room.
Five different dinner sets are available from 5:30pm to 9pm daily. There are only minor differences in these five sets, mainly with the main course (fish or beef) and the price ranges from around ¥5,500 to ¥11,000.
We decided to order one fish (Yuri set@¥5,500) and one beef (Fuji set@¥6,600) just to check out the difference.
First, a quick toast for health and happiness, as they always do to start a traditional Kaiseki dinner, this time we did so with plum wine.
Immediately following our toast, we were offered a small welcome dish of Japanese beans, spinach and potato.
Dinner officially started with an adorable appetizer platter that both looked good and tasted good. Let me try to count all the items here - a duck meat confit, crackers, some ginkgos, a poached shrimp, egg pudding, some walnuts, caramelized chestnut.....
There's more...inside the beautiful porcelain container was some crab meat marinated with vinegar.
And last but not least, a mini-salmon sushi wrapped around an autumn leaf. All and all, it was a very impressive array of nibbles representing different flavors and textures (7/10).
The meal continued with a white miso soup with pumpkin. There was a strong lemon fragrance coming out of the soup that was both savory and tantalizing (9.5/10).
Another beautifully presented dish was the sashimi platter that included 3 slices of amberjack, tuna and flounder each. Unfortunately, this was a utterly disappointing dish as only the amberjack has relatively fresh taste with good texture (3.5/10).
A small bowl of taro, braised pork, mushroom and spinach was next. This was a good change of pace to get us ready for our main courses (5/10).
Now it's time for our main course to shine starting with my grilled Japanese mackerel. It was neatly decorated with a sushi-like turnip and ginger at the corner of the plate.
The taste of the mackerel was very rich while the seasoning was adequate (5/10).
Slightly better was our other main course, grilled Japanese beef with house special sauce (5.5/10).
We were down to our last dish before dessert and as it's often the case in a Kaiseki dinner, it's a bowl of plain rice with pickled vegetables and dark miso soup as the final savory dish (5/10).
Dessert was a pear pudding with slices of fresh pears on top. A rather refreshing end to our enjoyable Kaiseki dinner (6.5/10).
There's a passage near the reception that led us to the onsen and private villas. Of course, we were not allowed to access these areas since we were not hotel guests here.
Apart from the inviting ambiance and delightful Kaiseki cuisine, Kaiseki Kadan also did wonders with their pacing. Every time we started craving for more food, the next dish seemed to be there just in the nick of time. That was outstanding timing by our server and the kitchen staff.
Food Rating: 6/10
Price: ¥¥¥
Address: 1300 Gora Kadan, Hakone, Ashigarashimo District, Kanagawa 250-0408, Japan
Closest Metro Station: Chokokunomori
Tel: +81 0460-82-3333
Website: www.gorakadan.com/kadan/
Post a Comment
Please tell us what you think