Taisho Hanana is one of the most famous restaurant located in Arashiyama, which is a suburb region of Kyoto in Japan. Many people come to Arashiyama just to try out this restaurant. Taisho Hanana is famous for the way how it processes and serves the bream fish and it has many different ways of serving it. Since we are in Japan for vacation and headed to Arashiyama, this is the restaurant that we definitely need to try.
The restaurant opens at 11AM and we rushed there at 11AM because we know there will be a lot of people. We got there around 10:55AM and there was already a line of people. It is that busy. We were waiting outside during the extreme hot and humid day and luckily they offered outdoor AC for us.
Fortunately we did not wait for long and able to get a table right away when the restaurant opens. The restaurant has 2 floors and we sat at the upper floor. The restaurant also provided a basket underneath the table for people to place their purse and bag.
We looked at the money and soon decided to try a signature meal and a limited meal. After we placed the order, we were served with warm towels to wipe our hands. The tea and water were served right away as well.
After just a brief moment, the meals are served. That was quick! The signal meal came with bream fish sashimi with 3 different ways to eat. First, the break fish is served as sashimi dipped in wasabi peanut sauce. So the first way is to eat it as a sashimi. The second way to seat it is place it on the rice and seat it with rice. The third way to seat it is to place it on the rice and dump peanut sauce on the rice as well, then pour tea into the rice bowl. The saltiness of the peanut sauce make the third way of eating very tasty.
The limited meal is similar to the signature dish, with an addition of fried break fish. The fish was fried perfect and the fish meat is still juicy. The restaurant also served an addition basket of rice in case you are still hungry and want to have more.
The dessert was then served with mocha and ice cream, and the dessert is quite good, but just not unique enough.
Overall, Taisho Hanana provides an incredible experience on eating bream fish. It is highly recommended. Just keep in mind that the price is high and we spent around 5500 Japanese Yen on this meal.
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