“Wabiya Korekido Gion Hanami-koji Honten❞ main branch is a chicken speciality restaurant located in the heart of the geiko (geisha) district of Gion. The restaurant is using the original Wabiya-dori chicken brand along with organic vegetables and seasonings with no additives. Ki-Yan chose the motif of the golden rice ear as a symbol and origin of the Japanese food culture, also because of the custom in Gion district of decorating geiko’s and maiko’s hair with rice ears for the New Year Day. The “Gold Rice”, painted on the wooden walls and glass sliding doors of the second floor, adds to the original dining experience in the renovated kyo-machiya (Kyoto townhouse).
Offering homemade pickles made from fresh, locally grown vegetables, Tsukemono YAMASHITA is a Kyoto-based tsukemono (pickle) shop located on the Sannen-zaka Street near Kiyomizu-dera. The shop owner, Hiroyuki Yamashita, started his farm in Kameoka more than ten years ago with the purpose of making delicious pickles with his own kyō-yasai (Kyoto-grown vegetables). And you can surely taste the difference! Ki-Yan visited this farm for inspiration and, of course, to draw sketches for the mural. Even the owner, a devoted farmer and vegetable expert, was impressed by the resulting colourful, super-sized flying veggies on the walls of his shop.
The CHIRIRI’s tsuyu-shabu is an original style of thinly sliced pork boiled in water and flavoured with a special five-step tsuyu broth of white negi (spring onion) and yuzukoshō (a paste of chilli peppers and yuzu citrus peel). This exquisite flavour was first introduced at the Hyōtanya restaurant in Shiga, the prefecture where CHIRIRI originates. The most delicious flavours are achieved by using 0.8 mm thin slices of meat combined with the secret recipe for the tsuyudare sauce. Because of the delicious Shiga-grown vegetables and red konnyaku root, this original shabu-shabu has gained popularity in Kyoto as well. Ki-Yan’s paintings of CHIRIRI’s logo-the hyōtan (bottle gourd)-on the restaurant walls are based on several sketches drawn on a summer morning in the Kyoto Botanical Garden.