At the heart of the meal are freshly cooked rice from a hagama pot and dashi, whose flavour builds with each sip. Breakfast brings together the rice, small dishes arranged in a bamboo box, dashi-maki tamago and miso soup made with seasonal ingredients. The accompaniments vary, from komatsuna greens pickled with wasabi and silver salmon dressed with mentaiko to Manganji pepper stir-fried with tiny fish and sansho. The selection changes with the season and ingredient availability. For a morning meal built around a variety of small plates, MUKU's “One Soup, Many Dishes” breakfast is an option to consider.
At lunch, a seasonal set menu begins with an opening dashi, followed by a smooth roasted aubergine soup, seasonal vegetables steamed with dashi, dashi-maki tamago and rice from the hagama pot. The day's small plates might include yoro tofu with simmered conger eel and yuba, grilled striped jack in the style of sangayaki, young sweetfish escabeche or amberjack grilled with lemon koji. The dishes offer a chance to sample fish and vegetables in smaller portions. As the selection varies with the season and availability, the course makes a lunch centred on dashi and rice, with the day's plates part of the discovery.
Some diners who tried the lunch course have remarked on the lustre and aroma of the rice, cooked in the hagama pot to coincide with their reservation. Another visitor described enjoying the rice both freshly cooked and after it had rested, giving a sense of a meal that invites attention to the rice itself as well as its small-plate accompaniments. A lunch review also mentions the option to have more rice. Matching each small dish with a mouthful of rice is part of the experience here.
For an extra dish, consider the drip-dashi sea bream ochazuke, listed as an add-on for breakfast and lunch. One diner who ordered it at lunch reported pouring Rausu kombu dashi over bonito flakes and finishing the dish themselves, bringing the flavour of sea bream together with the dashi and rice. The menu lists it as a limited-quantity extra at both breakfast and lunch. A rich rice dish topped with egg and dashi soy sauce containing sea urchin is another add-on available with either meal.
To drink, there's Hozugawa Yuzu Cider, made with hand-pressed yuzu juice from Kameoka, Kyoto. Described as free of flavourings and colouring, it has restrained sweetness and crisp carbonation, making it an option alongside a meal without alcohol. Breakfast is served from 7 to 10, and lunch from 11:30 to 13:15. Choose between a morning of assorted small plates and a lunch course featuring seasonal dishes, according to the timing of your meal in Arashiyama.
