Hayashi-ya is located on a back street in the charming residential area of Hiroshima's most famous, Miyajima island, this small cafe-restaurant specializes in high quality shaved ice, lunch sets and drinks.
This charming cafe is fitted out with comfortable, modern wooden decor and traditional Japanese themes like a rock garden viewed from the dining area and the large paper lantern hanging from the vaulted ceiling. There are a few restaurants and cafes along this street, you can also find the Kubota liquor shop, so look out for the classic shave-ice machine in the window. Once you enter the front of the shop, you will find a small shop where they sell some select eco-friendly and organic cotton goods from Japan-UK eco-brand PeopleTree.
On the menu, they offer a daily set lunch consisting of a few small healthy dishes, rice and fish (or eel in season) dish, soup or salad and a dessert for around 1,000 yen. There are soba noodles available served cold (in summer) and hot in the colder months.
There are also drink sets including green tea "cappuccino", green tea espresso, coffee and juices. Shave-ice (kaki-gori) dishes are quite big and beautiful, the signature one comes with a deer shaped cookie on top. I ordered the black sesami (goma) flavored shaved-ice (kakigori). Although it looked a bit daunting covered in black syrup and white balls of pounded rice (mochi) it was delicious if you like the flavor of sesame. I would ask for more syrup next time, though, as there wasn't much flavor once you ate the top ice. Really a perfect dish for a hot day of sightseeing.
All the foods are delivered on beautiful plates, bowls and wooden trays. The all-female staff seem to take great pride in the presentation of all the dishes.
I can't remember if there was an English menu (sorry) but there are pictures of the dishes on the menu so pointing to order shouldn't be a problem. At the moment, they only accept cash, but that may change over time.
Hayashi-ya is closed on Wednesdays and the occasional Tuesday. But it is usually open 11:30-17:00 on weekdays, and 11:30-18:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays.
