Huge rice cooking pots at Kongobuji Temple, Mt. Koya
All temple lodgings on Mt. Koya offer sh?jin ryori, purely vegetarian food intended for monks. People who equate vegetarian food with blandness will be surprised - in their hundreds of years of experience with vegetarian cooking, the monks have invented amazingly tasty dishes. An exception is the local specialty, K?ya-d?fu, prepared by freeze-drying and then reconstituting tofu, which manages to be even more tasteless than the original.
Hanabishi (花菱), next to the east Senjuinbashi (千手院橋) bus stop, tel. 0736-56-2236. This classy restaurant has been serving customers for over 120 years and is a good option for sampling Buddhist vegetarian fare if you're not staying overnight. A shojin ryori lunch set runs �2100, while a full-on multi-course vegetarian kaiseki experience runs �5000-10500 (cheaper at lunch). Note that some of the Bento sets are not vegetarian, so stick with shojin ryori for the "real thing".
For those unwilling to eat vegetarian, a number of restaurants offer regular Japanese and Chinese cuisine. There are also many reasonably priced izakaya around the center of town that offer a range of many traditional Japanese pub foods.
Ima-chan. A fresh fish based pub on the left hand side of the road on the way to Nyounindo from town, just past the Mausoleum of the Tokugawas, prices range from �300-1500 and much of the menu is based on the time of year. English menu not available.
Inoue Diagonally across from the CoCo convenience store. Boasts the largest Om-Rice (omelette filled with rice and some meat) in Japan, �550. English menu available.
Miyasan. Centrally located in the middle of Koyasan, just South of the main traffic lights, it has a menu of about 50 items ranging from �200-1000. The inn's banner states that its specialty is fried chicken, although all the items are of high quality. The Ramen is particularly filling. English Menu available.
International Cafe (Bon An Sha). Located on the the left hand side of the main road as one walks from the centre of town to Okunoin cemetery, 150m from the main traffic lights, this cafe and art gallery specialises in organic vegetarian lunches (price varies depending on contents of set. �800-1200). The menu changes daily, and a number of homemade cakes are available, as well as coffees and teas (�300). The couple who run the cafe are collectively native speakers of French, English and Japanese and also fluent in Italian and Mandarin Chinese.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Mount Koya
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Mount Koya - updated May 2024
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Mount Koya Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
