I spent a morning in the nearby Byodo-in in the matcha capital of the world, Uji. And as I was walking towards the Uji The Tales of Genji Museum, the rain started to come down as if it was a signal for me to take a break and have lunch.
Blessed with lush green hills and clear waters, Uji is a place of scenic beauty renowned for its tea and its connection to The Tale of Genji. During the Heian period, it became a favored location for aristocratic villas; temples such as the Phoenix Hall (Ho-o-do) of Byodo-in were constructed, and the area inspired numerous literary and poetic works—most notably the “Uji Chapters” of The Tale of Genji.
As I was walking towards Uji Shrine, the rain started pouring and I decided to break for lunch. Apple Maps told me that there’s a restaurant along the way called Kunugi, and when I walked towards it, it looked legit from the outside. A 300-year-old kunugi (sawtooth oak) tree—the inspiration for the restaurant’s name—once towered over the entrance. The kanji character for kunugi (櫟) is formed by combining the characters for “tree” (木) and “pleasure/ease” (樂), a name so apt for a restaurant.
In the Japanese-style tatami room, you can enjoy your meal while feeling the traditional Japanese atmosphere. The beautiful view of the Uji River spreads out from the restaurant. From the window seat, you can enjoy a relaxing meal while watching the gentle flow of the river. I don’t recommend that seat if sitting cross-legged while having your meal is not your vibe.
I order a cold green tea buckwheat soba set, aka zaru soba. Zaru soba is simply boiled buckwheat noodles shocked in ice water and served on a bamboo mat (zaru). The set came with tempura, a couple of small side dishes. Nothing fancy, this is the typical tenzaru soba you get in any washoku restaurant.
Uji (宇治) is about 30 mins from Kyoto and is famous for matcha (green tea), and to have matcha soba in this town is a rite of passage for many. You have to know this trivial: 70% of the matcha consumed in the world comes from China and less than 10% comes from Uji. So if you think that your matcha soba is made with Uji tea, then you are most probably wrong. Kunugi claims that they use authentic Uji matcha, but I couldn’t taste any difference in the soba. And this is what I observed as well, the cold soba noodles in Japan are served at room temperature, and not exactly cold on a bed of ice like in Singapore. Because we were misled by Yaohan (which opened the first Japanese family restaurant that offered zaru soba), I always assume that the soba is always served on a bed of ice. Now I know.
The tempura that came with the noodles was rather tasty. Perhaps I was really hungry from all that physical exertion in the morning, but I wanted to believe that I had stumbled on a gem of a restaurant accidentally. Kunugi happened to be midpoint from where I was and where I wanted to go.
Awamochi is a traditional Japanese confection made from pounded foxtail millet rather than regular glutinous rice. If you are not familiar with millet, that’s what the Chinese called Xiaomi 小米 as opposed to the regular white rice 大米. When it was served, I was surprised that it was an entire rice bowl of mochi with a generous blob of matcha sauce poured over it, served with salted konbu (kelp) on the side. The millet mochi was a bit savoury, dry and quite boring like the regular mochi, the matcha sauce was sweet and sticky. There was not instruction on how to eat it.
I am not sure if I was eating it correctly, but it didn’t taste very good on its own. But when I mixed up it like a bowl of natto, the awamochi became delicious, especially when I ate it with the salted kelp. In the end, I finished the whole thing despite it looking rather horrible.
This is the only place in Japan that you are going to get matcha awamochi, so if you are in the vicinity and wanting to try this surprising good matcha dessert, do walk across the Uji Bridge and come over.
Sabo Kunugi 茶房 櫟
〒611-0021 66-4 Uji Matafuri, Uji City 京都府宇治市宇治又振66−4
Tel : +81 0774-22-7140
Visited Sep 2026
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