Photos: nakashi · CC BY-SA 2.0 (1, 2) · Ian G Shingler · CC BY-SA 4.0 (3, 4)
Meoto Zenzai has served sweet red-bean soup in Hōzenji's alley for over 130 years, and a single order arrives split into two bowls. Thirty steps away, worshippers at Hōzenji have splashed water on the Mizukake Fudō statue for so long it is entirely furred in moss. Both sit in Hōzenji Yokochō, two stone alleys about 80 m by 3 m.
Why it's unique
The two-bowl serving is unique to the shop: the founder, a bunraku chanter, did it because two bowls look like more.
The pairing is the experience: a sweet shop custom and a temple ritual thirty steps apart in a lantern-lit stone alley, the setting Oda Sakunosuke used for his novel.
Before you go
The convention is that a couple shares the two bowls for luck; alone you still get two.
At the temple, buy a small incense bundle, ladle water onto the Fudō and pray. Do it after dark, when the lantern-lit alley is at its best and the coach groups are gone.
