Kyogoku Kaneyo

This eel restaurant has been in business for seven generations, dating back to the Meiji period. Every day finds the shop crowded with customers, many seeking its signature dish of ‘Kinshi Don’: rice covered in dipping sauce and topped with Edo-style eel and a large Kyoto-style omelette. What makes this east-west marriage of flavours work so well is the dipping sauce, a staple since the restaurant’s inception. The Kanto-style kabayaki, which involves steaming eel before grilling and dipping it in sauce, is a technique from a cook recruited from Tokyo during the founder’s generation. In both looks and taste, Kyogoku Kaneyo bears traces of Japan’s east and west.