Week 13 part 7 - Tsukiji and Ishikawa

One of the must-do things when we visit Tokyo is to have sushi breakfast in Daiwa in Tsukiji market. We started going when we lived there almost 15 years ago. We'd take our out of town visitors there, wait in line for an hour to squeeze into the tiny counter seats and have the set menu. Over the years the restaurant remained the same, two mirror image sides, one side helmed by the father, one side by the son. The long lines of waiting customers are herded by a little lady, making sure that people don't spill over to either side of their own shop frontage so as not to cause "meiwaku" (trouble) to their neighbors.

Even though the restaurant looks the same, the content of the set menu has become more tourist-centric. Instead of going from light to richer taste, starting with a white fish and ending with toro/uni, we were presented with toro in the beginning, which made J very happy. This is the 3500yen course, with a torigai and another piece of uni added in by us.

After breakfast we had the cakes that I bought from Idemi as dessert. I don't know about you, but I always crave for something sweet after sushi.

Although the unseasonably cold weather the previous week has caused a delay in the blooming of sakura, we're determined to find some cherry blossoms, so we set off for Chidorigafuchi, one of our all time favorite hanami (cherry blossom viewing) spots.

We walked from our hotel to the Imperial Palace and followed the moat towards Chidorigafuchi. On the way we saw a cherry blossom festival outside the National theater and went to take a look. And sure enough, there were a few trees in full bloom.

I never get tired of taking photos of sakura against a perfect blue sky.

Soon enough, we reached the stretch of moat near the infamous Yasukuni shrine that's called Chidorigafuchi (千鳥ヶ淵） There are sakura trees lining the banks of the moat so when the trees are in full bloom it looks like pale pink clouds floating above the water, like this:

But for now, we'll have to settle for this view

This would've been a perfect image of nanohana against sakura, like the sunflower against lavender fields of Provence, but alas, we're one week too early =o(

After this long walk burning off some calories we met up a friend we knew in Singapore, who has moved to London a few years ago. It seems like everyone's visiting Tokyo! We arranged to meet in one of the places I used to frequent, Salon du The of Marriage Freres on Ginza's Suzuran-dori.

I again ordered the limited edition sakura flavored dessert: a sakura and pistachio tart, but this time it was a little strange. The flavors didn't really go well together, but the tea is nice as always.

The dinner on our last night in Tokyo was a special one. We had friends from Singapore who happened to be in Tokyo at the same time and one of them managed to snatch us a booking at the three Michelin starred Ishikawa in Kagurazaka.

The restaurant is tucked away on a little side street off the main road in an unassuming building.

We started off with an amuse-bouche of nanohana and crab with crab roe sauce

Tempura of pumpkin flower and seabream. The fish was cut into cubes but still connected by the skin, texture was very firm.

A light soup of clams and turnips

Sashimi platter made up of fish that was caught this morning and flown in

I've never been a huge fan of fugu, but this fugu sashimi gave me a glimpse of why people are willing to risk their lives to eat this fish.

Roasted bamboo shoot and anago was so yummy. The waitress says the bamboo shoot was "freshly picked". I bet it was picked the same morning too =oP

Braised yam and broad bean with fish had such delicate flavors

Hot pot of Aka-ushi from Kumamoto. Seems like we've been eating Aka-beef left and right on this trip ;o)

And the final dish of the meal was rice cooked in a stone pot with grilled fish on top.

The chef came to our table to personally mix the fish into the rice while all six of us took deep breath not wanting to waste any of the sweet intense fragrance of the grilled fish.

I had two servings of the rice and J forgot all about his carb-restrictions.

Dessert was Yuzu agar agar with match sorbet, caramel mousse and red bean paste.

The leftover rice were made into onigiri and packed for us to have as breakfast. So that's what we did, along with some baked small cakes from Idemi and one of the "only available in Japan" Kit Kat flavors: Hokkaido red bean. The rice balls were still very tasty despite being cold (I didn't refrigerate them but kept them at room temp overnight)

This concluded our Japan trip, but I do want to mention the cookies that our friend K gave us. It's a matcha wafer sandwich with a thin layer of matcha cream fillings from Zen Kashoin, a traditional Japanese sweets shop that originated from Kyoto. I've had my share of Japanese sweets/cookies but these by far has the most intense matcha flavor. They have a store in Shibuya, which is definitely going on the "to check out" list on our next trip to Japan =o)

Week 13 Part 6 - Hidemi Sugino and more

 

My all time favorite Japanese patisserie is Hidemi Sugino's eponymous shop in Kyobashi. I will never forget the first time I visited with friends of my Le Cordon Bleu course all those years ago. I've been a fan ever since and even after moving away from Japan I religiously visited his shop every time I was in Tokyo. Back in the days when the shop was first open, we used to stand in line an hour before it opened to ensure we get first seating. The one time we were late we had to wait for the first round of people to finish eating until we could be seated and that took more than 2 hours. After that J refused to go with me again, so I went alone to buy take-out. In colder months there are more cakes available for takeout and you could choose the cakes early (they get sold out around noon) do some shopping in Ginza and go back to pick up later before the store closes in the evening.

What I loved about Hidemi is that every time I go, besides the classic there will always be something new to try. The difficult part is eliminating the ones I will skip this time.

These are my final selections. Clockwise from top left:
Figue Figue: fig and pear mousse with fig gelee filling
Strawberry Pistachio
Helen: chocolate red wine cream with fig gelee topped with chantilly
Agrumes: orange and kumquat mousse
Caramel tart with dried fruits and nuts filling

Cappuccino, which was destroyed when a businessman swung his briefcase and hit the paper bag I was carefully balancing in my hand. You can see a recreation I did a few years ago here.https://www.flickr.com/photos/lynnintokyo/3275589037/in/set-72157603663091840



 The night before while walking back to our hotel we passed a restaurant specializing in Kobe beef that we wanted to try for lunch. It seemed to be very popular and we had to share a table with someone. Lunch sets were reasonably priced but the beef was just ok, and we were a little disappointed.

I think J ordered a filet and I had the sirloin.

After lunch we wondered around Ginza and went to Uniqlo to pick up some essentials. J likes their basic T-shirts. He used to get their pima cotten T-shirts but on this trip discovered another range that's better for Singapore's climate: Airism.http://www.uniqlo.com/us/men/innerwear-and-loungewear/airism.html I like their Airism range of tank tops with built-in bras and literally live in them when I'm at home. Prices are much cheaper in Japan so we stock up. This time we lucked out because Uniqlo had just launched a Kabuki themed T-shirts. The designs are so nice I bought a few for myself and some as gifts.

 

In the afternoon we met up with K, who recommended our lunch place yesterday and went to Meguro river for some sakura viewing. Meguro river is a famous Hanami (flower viewing) spot but this year we're a little early. It's always tricky to catch the sakura in full bloom because they're very much affected by weather. Last week there was a cold front so the flowers that were ready to bloom were shocked into staying closed. We did manage to find a couple of trees that had bloomed more than the others though.

And some bonsai sakura in a store that were in full bloom, along with some bonsai Japanese maple and wisteria.

And a regular sized purple magnolia tree

K showed me a bakery she liked along the river and of course I had to buy the sakura flavored scones and ang pan.

For dinner we went to K and her husband J's favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant called Cujorl. We had been there once on our last trip to Tokyo and liked their unpretentious food.

 The tempura that we shared.

 J's beef tongue with bamboo shoot and broad beans.

 My smoked swordfish with marinated kumquat.

 My bouillabaisse

 J was so happy to find Aka-ushi on the menu! Although pretty decent, it's still not as good as the one we had at El Patio Ranch =o( We definitely need to go back...

We ended the dinner with a cranberry souffle cheesecake with raspberry sorbet made by the restaurant.

Week 13 part 5 - birthday in Tokyo

Our Tokyo stay started off with a great lunch recommended by our good friend K. As soon as we checked in and connected to Wifi I found a message on my phone from K. After I told her the location of our hotel she said there's a fish restaurant nearby that she frequents with great lunch menus. I entered the address in Google map and lo! It's all of 300m away! There was no question that we were going there, pronto!

The restaurant Ginbei was tucked away on a back street of Ginza, on the 5F of a non-descript building, with not much of a sign. There was no way we would've found the place if K hadn't told us. 

J again goes for the biggest set there is, and I chose a seafood sashimi donburi (kaisen-don) set.

A big vat of silky tofu steeped in soy milk came out first for us to share. You could eat it as it is, or pour some light soy sauce over it. It was creamy and full of soya flavors. The sashimi in my donburi was super fresh with a lot of silver fish in it. The tempura was also lovely, with a nice crunchy coat. Soba was delicious, although not as good as the one we had in Kurokawa.

J's sashimi platter deserves it's own photo. Not sure if this is exactly appetizing if you're not used to looking at a whole fish, but it sure is fresh!

The rest of his lunch set was equally impressive. He had a choice between grilled and braised fish and he chose braised. It was half of a very large fish head. Again, I think you need to be used to eating every part of a fish to enjoy this meal ;oP

After lunch we went to meet our friends T & A for tea. I chose a place called Glaciel that specializes in gelato desserts in Omotesando when I saw their sakura season specialty.  The menu is extensive and there's a daily rotation of ice-cream cakes that you can sample. A ordered two scoops of gelato: passionfruit and coffee cinnamon. T opted for the dessert platter, which consists of your choice of either two or three ice cream cake/dessert from the daily roster. The friendly staff also brought out a platter of mini palmier for us to sample.

Of course I had to order the seasonal special cake called Sakura. It took 15 minutes to prepare but when it was brought out we couldn't stop woo-ing and ah-ing. Would you look at this?

Each of the perfectly shaped cube is a little bite of sakura flavored peach sorbet, piled on top of a ball of mascarpone sorbet and sakura ice cream in a meringue bowl. The whole thing is then doused in two kinds of sakura syrup. 

On the way out we checked out all their ice cream cakes available for ordering. If you order online there were only a limited choices (which is already a lot if you ask me), but if you make your way to their Omotesando shop you have the whole range to choose from. They deliver to all parts of Japan, for FREE, but not internationally =o(

I'm a creature of habit and always climb to the top of the La Foret building and take in the view when I'm on Omotesando, and today we caught a beautiful sunset!

Since we've been doing so much eating and not a lot of exercising, we decided to walk to Shibuya. We thought about skipping dinner because we were still so full from the late lunch and even later tea, but once in Shibuya nostalgia hit J. He started looking for the tiny yakitori place we used to go once in a while under the train tracks. So this ended up being my birthday dinner.

Department store basements (depa-chika) is a unique experience not to be missed when visiting Japan. You are surrounded by all kinds of beautiful, mouthwatering food, and if you're lucky, some counters will be handing out samples. We went to Toyoko depa-chika after dinner and I picked up a chestnut pie from Henri Charpentier, and two mochi from a Japanese store: sakura and kusa mochi.

This is to be breakfast tomorrow =o)