Kyozuan Arashiyama

Kyozuan is a small takeaway counter at the start of the path to the Arashiyama bamboo grove, and it sells one thing most people come for: tofu soft serve. The shop's own sign says it will not fall out even if you turn the cone upside-down. That is a bold claim for ice cream in a Kyoto summer, and you will still want to eat it quickly, but it is noticeably denser than ordinary soft serve.

It is made with silken tofu rather than just soy milk, and the soy milk comes from Japanese soybeans the company buys from farmers around Kyoto. The taste is clean, with soy rather than cream up front. Plain costs 500 yen. The flavour this branch recommends is black-sesame kinako (580 yen), which is nuttier; a two-flavour swirl is 550 yen. If you have seen photos of a green matcha version, that one is sold only at the company's Fushimi Inari shop.

There is more on the menu than the cones. Soy-milk doughnuts come in bags of six for 400 yen, there is a soy-milk pudding, and two floats are sold only here, a black-sesame soy milk and a tofu melon soda. In summer there is yuzu shaved ice, in winter steamed pork buns.

Kyozuan was founded in 1998 and opened this shop the following year. The neighbourhood's tofu connection is much older. Saga's best-known tofu maker, Morika, has been making tofu here since the 1850s and supplies Zen temples including Tenryu-ji.

Two practical points. The soft serve contains milk as well as soy, so it is not vegan; the plain soy milk drink is the dairy-free option. And there is nowhere to sit. Hours are 10:00 to 17:00, with irregular closing days. Randen Arashiyama Station is about five minutes' walk away.