Yuuki, Gion (遊亀 祇園店)

As the tofu restaurant my friend wanted is closed, we strolled along  Hanamikoji (花見小路) to see if there is anything that interests us.  When we were finally too tired to walk anymore, we found two gentlemen sitting in front of this izakaya.  It looks crowded inside so we decided to give it a try.  At first, one of my friends was worried that it might be too expensive / the portion will be too small.  It turns out we did not have to worry about either of that at all!

Upon entering the restaurant, I knew we made the right choice!  Almost everyone dining there are locals!  There was an English menu but we know the authentic items are in the Japanese menu.  Thus, we asked our waiter to recommend the popular menu items to us from their Japanese menu.  Some friendly neighbors even started chatting with us and even gave us some recommendation on what to order!

Love his shirt!

金亀 actually means "good catch" when referring to man in Cantonese!  hehe~

Today's special

I have no idea what most of the dishes we ordered in the end are called but everything was delicious!  We later saw our neighbors having a grilled fish in sauce and wished we had known about it earlier.  Well, there is always next time!

Beer is a universal language :)

Anago

Onion Tempura

Pickled eggplant

Grilled gingko

We have no idea what this was but wanted to try it so bad when we spotted it at our neighbor's table

It was delicious!

Grilled mushroom

This one was much tastier than I expected

Grilled eggplant with white miso

I love eggplant!  The pickled eggplant was good but this was what I was hoping for.
The white miso is sweet and very tasty!

Again, I was hoping for fried chicken but this is tasty too.

The best part was seeing my friends trying to tell our waiter they want "grilled chicken wings" by acting a charade!

Miso marinated grilled fish

This was super yummy too!
At first, I thought the garnish is a cherry tomato but it turns out it was a kumquat.

Grilled squid

It's not until I returned when I found out this restaurant scored pretty high in Tabelog (3.57/5)!    It's also one of Kin Kame (金亀) direct sales stores.  We should have ordered the sake!

I love discovering places that are not on guide books because these are the kind of places that always give me surprises!  Hopefully, I will discover more "best kept secrets" in my future travels.

Yuuki, Gion (遊亀 祇園店)

京都市東山区富永町111-1

Tel: +81 075-525-2666

Hours: 17:00～23:00 (L.O.22:30)  

Closed on sundays and public holidays

Disclaimer:  I am not affiliated with the restaurant and I paid for my own food.