TAK47
I had lunch in Sakyo-ku, Kyoto City. The restaurant is located along Shikagaya Street, near Kinkaku-ji Temple, to the northeast of Kyoto Station, east of Kyoto University. It is a traditional Japanese house with a white sign that says "Omen" and a wooden sign above the entrance. I visited a famous udon restaurant in Kyoto. The interior is a mix of traditional and modern Japanese style, with mainly tables but also a counter. The menu features the specialty omen noodles, seasonal dishes, mackerel sushi, tempura sets, plate udon, children's set, kinpira gobou, tuna and avocado with wasabi soy sauce, three meals of nama-fu, and Oyama jidori chicken with sansho pepper, as well as rice dishes like jyako vegetable rice and beef shigure rice. The specialty omen is a dipping noodle dish from Gunma Prefecture, where you dip the noodles in a broth with kinpira gobou and other condiments. You can choose between warm and cold noodles, and for an extra charge, you can have a combination of both. I ordered the warm vegetable noodle combination with mackerel sushi set. The regular noodles were chewy and you could really taste the wheat flavor in the warm noodles. The purple sweet potato vegetable noodles had a vibrant color, although the taste of sweet potato wasn't very pronounced, but you could taste the sweetness. Adding kinpira gobou to the dipping broth gives it a different taste, similar to Gunma udon. Eating the mackerel sushi in between the noodles was a refreshing contrast. With other condiments like green onions, you could vary the flavors and enjoy it until the end without getting bored. It was different from the light udon I had imagined in Kyoto, but it was very delicious. I visited on a weekday and noticed many out-of-town tourists from the conversations. Most people were eating the omen noodles, which come in various types like warm, cold, and different noodle varieties, allowing you to combine them with tempura or mackerel sushi, offering countless ways to enjoy the meal. Besides this main branch, they also have locations in central Kyoto and New York. Since there are many other udon restaurants in Kyoto, I look forward to trying more of them.