Iroha North - Sukiyaki Restaurant at Pontocho Alley, Kyoto

Dinner with kids at traditional Japanese restaurant, Iroha North - Kyoto

Still talking about food in Kyoto, this time I gonna write about a new dishes that I found when I was visiting Kyoto. Everybody knows that restaurants in Kyoto mostly serve traditional Japanese food, which different with other food that found in Tokyo and Osaka. When we were in Kyoto, we went to Pontocho Alley at Gion area. Pontocho Alley is a popular place in Kyoto where you can find rows of restaurant. At that time we're just randomly chose a restaurant which looks promising for a dinner. Based on my experience, even though it's just a random restaurant, but every food in Japan are delicious and won't disappointing. Well, the restaurant that we chose is Iroha North.

We chose Iroha North as a dinner place because they serve "soup dishes" which perfect to be eaten at the chilly night. As we stepped in to the restaurant, and old lady told us the price ¥6000 per person (kids are free) and asked whether it's ok. We thought it's a reasonable price because they also serve beef and beef in Japan is expensive. After we agreed, she told us to open our shoes and led us to the second floor. The place itself was a traditional Japanese building. They have private dining rooms which separated by a sliding wooden door. We felt excited to have a dinner at this unique place and wished they also serve a great food.

They only have a few options for the menu, and we chose sukiyaki because it's the popular dish at Iroha North. Before the food served, an old woman came into our room and served an appetizer. Seems like every peoples who works here are old women, and they are wearing kimono. Not long after that, she came again and brought her equipment to start cooking. Yup, at this place they cook it from the beginning at our table, so we could see the cooking process.

At the first step, she started by put a couple spoon of sugar, and also a soy sauce at the hotpot. When the soup start to boiled, she put some slices of beef, followed by other ingredients such as onions, spring onions, tofu, enoki mushrooms, yam noodles. She told us to wait just for a while until the beef slices cooked, and dip it into the beaten raw egg before we eat it.

While she was cooking for us, we began to smell fragrant from this delicious sukiyaki. It smells really good and we're thinking it's gonna taste good as well. And our prediction was right. This sukiyaki taste amazing. The beef slices was really tender. We tried to eat the beef with her advice (dip it at the "egg sauce"), and it's taste really good. There's no weird and fishy smell of the raw egg at all. Above all, my favorite was the soup. The soup at sukiyaki dish has sweet flavour, and their soup taste very perfect. Not forgetting their good quality Japanese rice which makes our tummy full and we're ready to explore Kyoto again.

Sukiyaki at Iroha North, Pontocho Alley - Kyoto

Orange for "dessert"

At the end, I just wanna said that I was really satisfied with all the food they served. The taste and the food quality is worth it with the price. However, I just don't like their service. It's not at the moment when they served the food, but it's from the person who welcoming us at the "front door". Since the first time we came, she kept rushing us. We have toddler which is hard to manage and we also used shoes with laces. With this condition, she should be understand that we need more time than other guests to take off our shoes and take our belongings with us. It also happened when we're going out. We need to do a lot of preparation before going out such as open our stroller, hang our shopping bags, wear our jacket, use our shoes, but she wouldn't understand. She didn't let us to sit and do all this things at the restaurant. Even she repeatedly told us to get out of the restaurant in "angry tone". To be honest, it's the first time we were treated like that by a restaurant staff. It's something that they shouldn't do with guests. Will I come back?? Maybe. I love their food and I'll come back when the kids growing up, so they won't be that annoying.

Iroha North
Address : Japan, 〒604-8015 Kyōto-fu, Kyōto-shi, Nakagyō-ku, 先斗町通四条上る鍋屋町215
Phone : +81 752210403
Opening hours : Mon - Sun 5PM - 10PM
Website : http://www.sukiyaki-iroha.com/en/sheet/