[Japan]Michelin 1star, 50-year-tradition eel restaurant in kyoto, Unagi Hirokawa

Unagi Hirokawa

Address: 〒616-8374 京都府京都市右京区嵯峨天龍寺北造路町44-1

Phone number: 075-871-5226

Category: Japanese Specialty in Unagi (unagi=eel)

Business hours: Tuesday ~ Sunday,

Lunch 11:00 ~ 15:00 (L.O 14:30) Dinner 17:00 ~ 21:00 (L.O 20:00)

The restaurant located in Arashiyama , Kyoto.

The Michelin 1 star Unagi Restaurant has a 50-year-old tradition

Providing a reservation site through english

Site address for reservation: https://unagi-hirokawa.jp/en/

I made a reservation at 5PM, and arrived 10 minutes before the reservation.

Guests who also made a reservation are waiting in front of restaurant.

When the restaurants are opened, they checked the Reservation status.

You should ready to show your reservation confirmation e-mail to server.

After checking the reservation, Server check the number of people, and guide to a seat.

This restaurant has two floor, and we are guided to 1st floor.

I heard that 2nd floor needs additional charge.

These small scenery was interesting to me.

This is the Menu.

That Japanese letters means Unagi Hirokawa, The restaurant name.

Unagi Hirokawa provides a English Menu.

This is the picture of the English Menu.

I ordered the Main dish, Grilled eel with special sauce on top of rice, Large size.

This is a side dish and beverage menu.

We didn’t ordered any beverage this time.

After the order, they served a steamed towel and green tea.

After a little wait, Our Main dish were served to us with a small pickles.

I think they use a 2 eel in one large size dish.

I could be evaluated the amount of dish are a little bit small

considering the price of the dish.

After finish the meal, I can understand why they could get a star.

The texture of eel was quite different compared to normal ell dish.

Unagi Hirokawa’s eel are so soft, and this points satisfied me.

Most of all, What made me surprise was, special sauce on top of rice.

Well-balanced sauce.

Normally,

If sauce’s salinity weak, taste fall.

If sauce’s salinity strong, taste is okay, but get bored easily.

Unagi hirokawa’s sauce was well-balanced in this point(salinity),

So it was not easily bored, also delicious.

This sauce also has a unique rich flavor, it performed great combination with eel.

I can understand 100% The reason why they got a star.

Not, I’m about to talk about a one slight weakness.

Too many fine bones of fish in the dish.

It was too many even if consider this is eel dish.

For those of you who care a lot about fine bones of fish, this may be a inconvenience.

General Review

Unagi hirokawa is the restaurant has a weakness, also strong point.

And it would be okay to say expensive considering the amount of dish they serve.

(you can enjoy a 1 star lunch course at 5400 yen. Quite much cost for one dish.)

This is the reason why many people’s answer about one question is different,

The question ‘this restaurant service is worthy or not to take that cost.’

For me, This restaurant’s strong point is clear and valuable,

So it would be satisfy the guests, who likes eel dish.

I recommend to these guests

The guests who want to experience high-quality japanese eel(unagi),

The guests who want to feel the best unagi sauce.

So, thanks for reading my review,

It would be glad to see you again through my review.

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