Matsuri |
2010.08.17
カテゴリー: Entertaining, Food, Restaurant
The Colonel
I love Matsuri (festivals) in Japan especially at this time of year. It’s hot, it’s humid and everybody is in the streets dressed in their yukata, drinking beer, eating yakitori and generally having a great time. At night there are fireworks and street parties. All in all great fun for everyone. Even my old friend Colonel Sanders gets into the action, as you can see from the photo of him presiding outside the Hiroo Plaza Kentucky Fried Chicken Store.
But honestly what Terry and I love to do most on these hot early evenings is to wander down the hill to the back of Hiroo and into our favourite little sushi shop, MIYA. Introduced to us only this year by dear friends, we were immediately smitten with the quality of the sushi and sashimi and by the friendliness of the lovely three generations of family that runs the place. And the air conditioning. My apologies to the planet, but sometimes I really need the AC.
Back to the food. The Dad of the family makes the sushi and the sashimi whilst the son cooks up whatever seasonal fish and sea food is on hand. We begin usually with the kanpachi (amber jack) and otoro (the lovely belly meat of the tuna marbled with fat) sliced thickly and served raw with a ponzu style dipping sauce. Other sauces are available but I love the citrus tang of ponzu with sashimi. A mixed plate of tekkamaki sushi follows before the son takes over and starts grilling fish. Recently we had grilled ginbuna, a Japanese freshwater fish, and deep fried octopus tentacles. Much better than any calamari, these little curly florets are very morish and I sometimes over indulge (I know! How surprising!) and then have to give then next course a miss. But not when they serve oysters. And at the moment the oysters are fantastic!
On our last visit we had a dish of two different kinds of oysters. One, the Kumamoto oyster from Kyushu is small and quite creamy with a milky residue that occurs naturally when the oyster is prepared. I’m not overly fond of this type of oyster but when eaten fresh, as it is at Miya, it offers an interesting comparison to the Fukui oyster with which it is served. Now these, I love. Medium sized and quite compact they are the perfect mouthful and have a clean finish. They taste of the sea but are not overly salty. The idea of the dish is to compare the two, the warm water Kumamoto and the cold water craggy shelled Fukui oysters. It is an interesting idea, but give me the Fukui oysters any day.
Enjoy your sweet life,
cheers
Cheryl
It’s not all smoke and mirrors |
2010.08.02
カテゴリー: French, Restaurant, Vegetable
The seasonal menu at Restaurant J (www.msinter.co.jp )was a welcome relief from the horrible heat this week.
Pumpkin Ravioli
Light and unusual, it is offered in sets or a la carte and the staff happily substitute bits and pieces from one part of the menu to another. This is a welcome and rather novel idea as many restaurants don’t like substitution for any reason. So I started out ordering the set but substituting the pumpkin ravioli for the cold pasta with fresh pumpkin. This was, in my humble opinion , an inspired choice. The creamy ravioli and gorganzola cheese was good down to the last scrapping and the pretty little pumpkin that was its serving dish was entirely edible as well. It too was delicious.
There were other courses of vegetables, some in jelly, some under foam, one encased in a glass dome that released a cloud of billowing sakura smoke. All of which were tasty and some were fantastic. The chef here really knows his stuff and his organic produce from the farms of Ibaraki is top notch, but somehow it was all a little much for me. Drama and theatre are all part of a great dinner but this was exhausting. And when the main meal arrived, mine was a pork “Chiyogenton” from Nagano with a yuzu and pepper sauce topped by a crispy piece of crackling, I was underwhelmed. I must admit that Terry usually orders the pork and indeed it was he who devoured the crackling, but I had ordered it because the smell of it cooking was almost irresistible. Restaurant J serves fantastic fare, but sometimes I think they just try too hard.
The next night we joined a group of like minded souls ( wine lovers all) at Paul Bocuse’s Cave in Hiroo.(www.paulbocuse.jp)
Sardine in potato flakes
We had a set seasonal menu and a set vin degustation. No substitutions here, although we were permitted to add extra wines, for comparison. Things started out well with a pan fried sardine in crispy potato flakes with a parsley coulis. This was great as I love sardines and Terry doesn’t, so I got to indulge in two of these plump little babies.
The ravioli Hagi was my first fish ravioli and I loved it, served as it was in mornay sauce with fried aubergine. I would gladly eat this everyday. Again the main was pork and once again I was underwhelmed, so maybe it is just me. A concentrated apricot compote with honey ice cream provided an ideal ending to a lovely meal. The wines were not so bad but nor were they so good. Standard fare for a set priced dinner. The only honourable mention would be the Chardonnay: a Reserve, Skalli 2008 which was very drinkable.
Enjoy your sweet life until next time,
Cheryl
Aux six arbres, thats Roppongi to you and I. |
2010.07.26
カテゴリー: Food, Restaurant
Gooey chocolate cake
Having lived in Tokyo for close on twenty years and having eaten at many of the city’s best restaurants, Terry and I consider ourselves somewhat knowledgable about them.
As they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It sometimes means that you can overlook whats right under your nose. Friday night was a good example. Having met up with Terry for a week’s end nosh up in Roppongi we headed for a few of our favorite places. Lamentably for us, but great for them, they have become so popular that there was no room for us!
Terry is a little less ambulatory than usual due to a slight ankle injury and I am not at my best when hungry, so we were cursing our luck and hobbling the back streets of Roppongi when out popped a pretty looking place called “Aux Six Arbres”. (7-13-10 Roppongi). Being just around the corner from our tiny favorite “Bon Monsieur” you’d think we would have stumbled upon it before now. But no, so we decided to give it a try.
What we found was a delightful dining room with a very convivial host and a chef who met most of our rather tough critera for restaurants. Most importantly for me is the mantra not to over do it. I often complain because I feel that some chefs try too hard to be clever and end up putting one too many ingredients on the plate. Terry has many more demands, and even though his top priority wasn’t in evidence on this night (let there be pig), he was delighted by the sublime fresh tomato in jelly and the other five dishes in his summer vegetable set. Indeed, the mushroom soup that I also had was intense and flavorsome and not at all too much on a hot Tokyo summers evening. I had the fish ( snapper at its very best) and followed it with a dessert of gooey chocolate cake and petit fours of jelly and macarons. Altogether a wonderful dinner and a great little restaurant. Which, by the way, has been there for thirty two years, just how did we miss it?
One thing you can’t miss in Tokyo however is this love affair with macarons. They have always been popular and the beautiful Peltier shop in Omotesando certainly showcases them as if they were some form of precious jewelery, but
Richard and his cake
just recently it seems that they have popped up everywhere. Including, to our great delight, on our good friend Richard’s birthday cake last week.
Served with tasty hors d’oevres from the talented Marcus Yip’s 148 restaurant in Hiroo (1-4-10, Hiroo, Shibuya-ku) and some very delicious champagne, the cake was topped with colourful macarons and tasted fantastic. This is a trend I intend to embrace, along with more gooey chocolate cake.
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Sounds Yummy!
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I am not demanding. I prefer the word “discerning” or “particular”. And, what does six trees mean?
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Mushroom soup sounds delicious, but I couldn’t handle soup and chocolate cake on a summer evening. Some would say I’m the one with the problem…
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Mushrooms, chocolate …. is there anything else in life??? And yes one often misses what is under one’s nose, isn’t it wonderful when you do make a great find?
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I am in love with macarons at the moment. Do not torment me.
And the wine indeed! |
2010.07.17
Margaux wine bottle
A recent welcome comment to the blog asked an interesting question regarding my Bordeaux adventures.
To quote, they asked ” and the wine…” which is a fair enough comment. Bordeaux is of course internationally reknown for their (mainly) red wines. Those of you who know me also know that I drink mainly white wines and so for me Bordeaux and the chateaux that we visited was a wonderful adventure into new, drinking territory.
It was of course fantastic. Shot magazine had a unique opportunity to visit some top chateaux and to chat with their owner/managers or chief wine makers. Naturally these wonderful people were extremely generous with their time and offered us tastings of their new vintages (2009 they say is possibly the vintage of the century). They also kindly opened classic vintages to illustrate the longevity and character of Bordeaux wines.
Put simply they were all magnificent. It made me wish that I had a more sophisticated palate to really appreciate the magnificent wines we tried. However as one of the wine makers said “we all have to start somewhere” and I suppose the likes of Chateau Margaux (we tasted 1996 Premier Grand Cru and 2009 Pavillion Rouge) , Chateaux Lafite Rothschild (Lafite Rothschild 1994 and 1995), Chateau Rauzan Segla (2006 and 2009), Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte (2007 Grand Vin de Grave and 2007 Grand Cru Classe de Grave) Chateau Canon (Grand Vin 1998) Chateau La Cabanne (2007 and a 1971 Pomerol!) are a good place to start my Red education.
Naturally, I thought I’d buy a couple bottles from each Chateau. As an Australian, cellar door sales are normal to me. But of course this being France and Bordeaux at that, the only way to buy these precious drops is through a negotiant or big city wine shop. It’s probably a good thing too as I had not quite got my head around the figures i.e. the cost of these devine drops. Surfice it to say I’ll be working a little bit longer to be able to afford to quaff these on a daily basis. But of course there are plenty of reasonably priced Bordeaux wines about and they’ll be on my list for tasting this year.
By the way, I did get to taste two delicious white wines from Bordeaux. The first was a Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte sauvignon blanc blended very nicely with a touch (5%) of sauvignon gris. For me, it was perfection.
Equally as good was the Chateau Margaux Pavillion Blanc 2009. This young wine was easy drinking and had a delicious perfume that hit exactly the right note with me.
So for the wine? I hope that answers your question.
Even in Bordeaux home cooked is best. |
2010.07.05
As some of you may know I have been abroad. In fact I spent last week in Bordeaux. Yes I know, its a tough life for some. It may come as a huge surprise for you to also learn that I was actually working. Fortunately I was also actually eating and drinking my way through some of Bordeaux’s finest culinary treats. I suppose its not surprising that the best meal I had was cooked by a lovely man named Francois in a fireplace over some burning grape vines. A huge T bone steak was seared and grilled, it was served sliced still blood red and yet not bloody. Accompanied by a mixture of sauteed wild mushrooms and little bundles of beans, it was nothing short of fantastic. The only thing better was the foie gras that he had served before the steak.
His mother makes foie gras every year and Francois had kindly saved some for our visit. I had never had such a delicious foie gras. The flavour was subtle and refined. Everyone gathered around the table enjoyed more than one helping, some may have had thirds. To finish the meal Francois served a chocolate cake made by his wife that morning. He was apologetic that it didn’t look so good, but that didn’t faze us, fresh chocolate cake is always delicious!
Croque Monsiuer
My other culinary surprise was the Croque Monsieur that I bought for lunch at St Emilion. This toasted cheese and ham sandwich was so morish that I had eaten half of it before I managed to take a photo of it. As regular readers know that is a bit of a habit of mine. My colleague Fed had a similar croque but it was topped with goats cheese. As it disappeared even faster than mine I think its safe to say that it was equally tasty.
My time in Bordeaux was short but extremely enjoyable, now back to the real world.
Until next time,
enjoy “la douceur de vivre”
Cheryl
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Glad to see you back safe and sound. It makes me sooo hungry when I read your blog, makes me want to go to the kitchen and make something yummy. Oh well, I can dream!
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why not:)
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And the wine….?
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Well you might like to know that the Hickson Mandarin I am eating right now is DELIGHTFUL!!!
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A long term resident of Tokyo, Cheryl enjoys dining out with her husband Terry and their friends in any of the thousands of wonderful restaurants in Tokyo.
I just finished eating and now you have made me hungry again. I just love sashimi and oysters. The dipping sauces sound soooo good.