Manma

Eating well is hard enough when you're abroad, but when your cooker is a solitary gas hob and your dining table a kotatsu, the search for taste, space and fresh vegetables, takes on a new meaning.

But you needn't dine at Denny's every day. At Manma, a Kyoto obanzai-ya, you can enjoy the taste of mum's home cooking — obanzai in Kyoto dialect — as often as you can afford, which here is often. Ok, so it's not quite mum's cooking, unless she's from Kyoto, but for many this may be a good thing. Manma serves tasty, healthy food, made with ingredients bought fresh daily at Nishiki market. Frozen pizza and mushy peas do not feature on the menu. Neither do lashings of E numbers and junky culinary shortcuts – Manma may not be 'Slow' but they do avoid chemical-based seasoning and prefer local, seasonal food to the strawberries-in-January stuff that's so common we forget how freakish it is.

Even the Taisho-Roman interior (the 'Western' style all the rage a century ago) indicates a slower pace. Eating here isn't just staving off hunger, though the servings are generally generous. The croquettes for instance, are superb. Crispy on the outside with a melts-in-the-mouth middle, they have none of the greasiness of lesser examples. The sesame tofu and the namafu sashimi (uncooked wheat gluten — tastier than it sounds) also come recommended, as do their many sake and shouchu. If the homely vibe hasn't got to you, it will after a few ochoko cups of those excellent brews. It's hardly surprising that Manma (pronounced 'mama') customers call the owner 'okaasan'.

Open
1F Twin Nakaze Bldg , 446-5 Sasaya-cho, Higashinotoin, Oike-sagaru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto.
Five minute walk from the subway. Karasuma-Oike stn.
Tel: 075-223-0888.
Closed Sundays and national holidays.

Menu highlights
Croquette. Pickled plum rice-cake shumai. Vegetable salad with cottage cheese. Dishes: ¥500 – ¥800

Text and Photos: Miki Nakano