Sushi Kyubey - Hotel Okura

My first experience at Sushi Kyubey will always be remembered as the night I dined with Hugh Grant. I mean sure, he sat at the bar about 3 feet away from our table, but I think that proximity is close enough that it counts to say that we had dinner together. Actually, for the first full hour of dinner, we didn't even notice him. We were halfway through when my friend suddenly said: "that guy looks so much like Hugh Grant. He sounds like him too." And I turned around looked at him and replied: "that IS Hugh Grant." After debating whether to do the teeny-bopper thing and ask for a picture with him, we decided not to. I guess because we are no longer teeny boppers?

In any case, Sushi Kyubey is supposed to be one of the very best sushi places in all of Tokyo. Gunkan-maki, the sushi that is wrapped in nori (such as uni or ikura), was created at Sushi Kyubey in the 1930's. The original location is in Ginza, but we decided to dine at the Hotel Okura location, which was recommended by a friend as her favorite location for its intimate setting.

Verdict? The slices of fish are fresh and delicious, the uni was silky with no briny flavor at all and the tuna roll that was served at the end was surprisingly super-delicious. It was unlike any other tuna roll I've had - it just had a little something extra.

When I used to live in the States, sushi was sushi. There was good sushi and bad sushi, but I didn't have sushi often enough to be able to tell the nuanced differences between different sushi chefs. But that is one of the luxuries of Tokyo - you have access to so much good food, so much amazing sushi, that after awhile, you actually can talk intelligently about different sushi.

While Kyubey's fish as fresh as you would expect from a high-end sushi restaurant, the rice to me was a bit bland. They must use a milder vinegar, or less vinegar, because I couldn't really taste the vinegar in the rice at all. Like all foods, I think how you like your sushi rice is a matter of personal taste, and I think I prefer mine a bit more vinegary.

We ordered the omakase (the chef's selection course), which included 10 nigiri, tuna roll, cucumber roll and unagi.


Otoro, hirame, another white fish, buri, maguro (not pictured: amaebi)


Delicious aji, uni, bonito and kohada


End of the meal - Surpisingly delicious negitoro roll, cucumber roll and unagi two ways (grilled with salt and with unagi sauce)


Green tea ice cream - tasted more like vanilla ice cream than green tea (not part of chef's course)

Food Rating: **** (delicious, fresh fish, but rice falls short)
Bang for Buck Rating: 3 (Sushi Dai at Tsukiji is less than half the price!)

The essentials:
http://www.kyubey.jp/
Location: basement of main building of Hotel Okura, Kamiyacho, Tokyo
Average price of meal for two (dinner): 22,000 yen (~$250)

Tokyo Weekender

I'll continue to update this blog when I can (have a backlog of great restaurants I need to write about!) but for now, I can also be found here: http://weekenderjapan.com/

I've been asked to be a food writer for Tokyo Weekender magazine, as well as the blogger for the magazine's "Tokyo Foodspotting" blog! The blog is updated every Tuesday morning and covers unique, interesting or wacky food discoveries in Tokyo, while the food reviews will be in the bi-monthly issues of the magazine, as well as the on-line magazine.

Argento Aso

Argento Aso is technically an Italian restaurant, but the kind of Italian restaurant that serves steamed sweet potato and tsukemono - pickled vegetables (albeit a fancy version) with your meat course and deconstructs traditional Japanese "curry rice" into an Italian-esque risotto with curry foam. It's modern Italian influenced by Japan, with a flair of molecular gastronomy. And for its innovative take on Italian cuisine, the 2010 Michelin guide awarded Argento Aso 2 stars, which they clearly worked very hard for, evidenced by the flawless service, well-executed dishes and creative presentation.

Argento Aso is the kind of place you take a date you really want to impress, or celebrate a special occasion. It's the kind of place that brings you a cart with a choice of fancy bottled waters - everything from Voss to Aqua Panna to San Pellegrino. It's a teeny bit pretentious, but the 2- and 3-starred Michelin restaurants often tend to be so. All in all, it works. From the initial bread offering, consisting of 6 different types of breads baked on the premises to the post-dessert sweets offering, presented like a bouquet of flowers in a vase, Argento Aso definitely impresses. Be warned - you may feel like you don't want to eat for another week afterward!


Assorted breads, served with a trio of butters (plain whipped, olive oil and smoked - each person gets their own set of butters!)


Amuse bouche - salmon trio: baked salmon toast, salmon mousse (in the bottom of the cup, suspended upside down), salmon tartare


Foie gras terrine with flower petals and honey foam


Seared foie gras with balsamic reduction


Pasta with scallops and dried fish shavings - sounds funny but tasted delicious


Spaghetti with mushrooms - you pour the pasta yourself over the mushrooms and sauce


"Curry rice" - creamy risotto with a perfectly pan-roasted fish with delicious crispy skin and curry foam


Roasted duck breast, served with a side dish of the duck's liver (not pictured)


Delicious charred medium rare steak with polenta cake and mascarpone filled pasta shell


Pickled vegetables and mushroom tempura


The sweetest steamed sweet potatoes ever - steamed over rocks


Tiramisu with freshly ground coffee bean dust - delicious!


Millefoglie with berries and vanilla bean gelato


Post-dessert sweets: fruit jellies, berries, marshmallows and tiny financiers

Food rating: **** and a half
Bang for buck rating: 3 (VERY pricey!)

The essentials:
http://www.hiramatsu.co.jp/eng/restaurants/argento-aso/index.html
Location: on the 8th and 9th floors of the ZOE Ginza building, a block from Yurakucho station
Average price of meal for two (dinner): 36,000 yen (~$400)

Mayo Shrimp Crackers

Japanese snack companies are always coming up with new flavors to try to appeal to the Japanese palate. Some, like carrot and apple flavored Kit Kats, fall short. But others, like these mayonnaise flavored shrimp ships are instantly addicting.

Cafe Intermezzo (renamed Cafe Mattina)

Cafe Intermezzo is the best evidence I have to offer you that hippie vegan food can in fact be amazingly, outstandingly delicious. On my trip home to the SF bay area for the holidays, my list of must-eats mostly consisted of tons of vegetables, salads, and of course, burritos. A Tokyo salad usually consists of exactly 3 bites of greens, usually drenched in sesame-soy-mayonnaise dressing. For the most part, a typical Japanese diet consists of rice, mayonnaise-covered boiled potatoes, rice, deep fried nuggets of some sort, rice, over-boiled vegetables or meat stewed or braised in the same sweet soy sauce reduction, rice, raw fish, rice, rice and more rice. My body was screaming for vegetables.

There are salads, and then there's Intermezzo's salad. A gigantic bowl heaped to overflowing with chopped romaine lettuce, tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, cucumbers, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, croutons and avocado. There are a variety of dressings but their homemade poppyseed is their signature and hands down the best. The salads are served with a thick wedge of their homemade honey wheat bread, a dense, chewy, hearty bread, the likes of which you will not be able to find anywhere else.

Their sandwiches range from veggie versions including Tofu Madness (highly recommended) to PB, banana and honey to various versions that include meat. I usually switch between the Tofu Madness or Hummus, but this time a friend and I got both and decided that the Tofu Madness is definitely the winner. The portions are big enough that sharing one sandwich and one salad will be more then enough for two.

Rabbit food never tasted so delicious.

As a very minor sidenote, Cafe Intermezzo has changed their name to Cafe Mattina but the menu, interior, concept and food is exactly as I remembered.


Tofu madness sandwich - thick marinated tofu patties with tomatoes, lettuce and alfalfa sprouts on Intermezzo's homemade honey wheat bread


Intermezzo salad tossed in signature poppyseed dressing - a humongous bowl of delicious green goodness

Food rating: ****
Bang for buck rating: 5 (you're not gonna get better than this - even Telegraph Ave's homeless people can afford it!)

The essentials:
No website
Location: Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, California
Average price of meal for two: $20

Bangkok

My first month after moving to Tokyo, there were three earthquakes, my laptop died a sad, quick death after I spilled tea on it, I was working until 1 or 2 am on a daily basis, I got food poisoning after eating raw chicken livers (in my defense, the menu listed them under the "grilled" section), and I came down with a severe cold that I couldn't shake for almost the entire month. On top of that, summer in Tokyo is excruciatingly, unbearably hot and humid. Needless to say, I was in a pretty miserable state.

Whenever I catch a cold, my go-to remedy is tom yum gai, Thai chicken soup. The lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf completely clear my sinuses, the hot broth sooths my throat, and the bright, fresh flavors inject life back into me. So after about three weeks of trying to fight my neverending cold, I decided I NEEDED tom yum gai. And it had to be REAL tom yum gai, not a Japanified, dumbed down version stripped of all flavor and spices.

After an hour or so of googling Thai restaurants in Tokyo, I decided to seek out Bangkok, a tiny Thai restaurant in the backstreets of Roppongi. I ordered tom yum gai. And it was perfect - so perfect, so comforting that I wanted to cry from joy. And that was when I decided I could survive Tokyo.

Bangkok serves up authentic Thai cuisine - spicy, sour, sweet, savory, intense flavors that delight your taste buds and take me back to memories of street food in Thailand and my favorite Thai restaurants in San Francisco. Strangely enough, this tiny Thai restaurant in a random location was the first thing in Tokyo that reminded me of home. I may not be Thai, but along with my grandma's Korean home cooking, Thai food is comfort food to me.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the tom yum gai, but below are some other terrific dishes by Bangkok.


Red chicken curry lunch set - 1000 yen gets you rice, curry, soup, tea, larb gai salad and dessert


Close-up of the red curry


Som tum - green papaya salad, a refreshing salad with the perfect blend of salty-sour-sweet-spicy, a trademark of Thai cuisine


Minced beef with basil - the default version on the menu is extra spicy, but we asked them to tone ours down a bit


Sticky rice with mango - a solidly executed version of the classic Thai dessert

Food rating: *** and a half (some of the best Thai in Tokyo)
Bang for buck rating: 3 (lunch is a great deal but dinner can get pricey)

The essentials:
No website
Location: on the 2nd floor of the Woo building, on a small street behind the Don Quijote on Gaien Higashi in Roppongi. Close to Oakwood Roppongi
Average price of meal for two (dinner): 7000 yen (~$75)

Tofuya Ukai

When I moved to Tokyo this summer, I resolved to eat through at least 20 Michelin stars within one year. I printed out a list of all of the Michelin-starred restaurants and started researching some of the ones that sounded good. How does a restaurant "sound good" just by the name? I don't know, it's a lot like choosing a book based on its cover. For example, an Italian restaurant by the name of Monnalisa was immediately noted with a "pass" because the name just sounds so cheesy for an Italian restaurant, whereas the name Tofuya Ukai immediately caught my eye because I suspected it might be a restaurant specializing in tofu, which it is. I put a star next to it, indicating it was one of the restaurants I wanted to garner a star from (along with Tapas Molecular Bar and Ryugin and a few others).

Maybe it was the Michelin star or maybe it's the picturesque location with Tokyo Tower in the backdrop of a beautiful, serene traditional-style building with a lush Japanese garden, but securing a reservation at Tofuya Ukai was the most difficult one I've encountered to date while living in Tokyo. Weekends get booked months in advance, as do dinners, so I had to settle for a lunch slot. The full menu is available at lunch, as are a few lunch-only options. We opted for one of the abbreviated lunch options since we had reservations at Tapas Molecular Bar that night.

The first impression is quite...well, impressive. After you walk through the garden, which makes you feel like you are in a small town or village rather than steps away from the chaos of central Tokyo, you are greeted by extremely polite female servers in traditional garb who escort you through the silent hallways to your private dining room, each of which has a gorgeous view of the garden.

However, like a book with a captivating cover but badly written story, Tofuya Ukai's cuisine was sadly disappointing. It wasn't bad, per se. Just...underwhelming. I love the tofu kaiseki at Ume no Hana, which was not on the 2009 Michelin list, so I (falsely) assumed that Tofuya Ukai would be even better. But I think Ume no Hana does a much better job of presenting a vast array of tofu-derived food items that dazzle and delight, while Tofuya Ukai leaves you slightly hungry and wanting (for more variety, more flavor, more...tofu - strangely, there weren't all that many tofu dishes in our tofu kaiseki). Afterward, I couldn't help thinking: "THAT was a Michelin-starred restaurant? The Michelin guide is SO losing its credibility."

I recently purchased the 2010 Michelin guide and discovered that Tofuya Ukai lost its star. So maybe the Michelin guide isn't completely un-credible.


Lotus root cake and simmered mushrooms in starch-thickened broth.


Deep fried tofu skin and tamago (sweet omelet roll)


A tiny (but beautifully presented) portion of sashimi


Quail meatball and yam in simmered broth. The quail meatball had some strange crunchy bits, which I couldn't help but wonder were bones or beak of quail. Shudder. Needless to say, I didn't finish the meatball.


Hassun - assortment of small dishes. Our hassun included rice cracker-batter fried shrimp, pickled turnip and salmon roe and tofu with peanut dressing


Fresh tofu in soymilk broth - this was my favorite of all the courses. The broth is savory and very satisfying.


Rice with salmon, pickles and miso soup. The salmon was severely overcooked and I refused to eat it - after one bite, I declared: a Michelin-rated restaurant should NOT overcook salmon (which even the most basic decent chef will not screw up)


Steamed sweet potato dessert with red bean paste - slightly bland and not very good


Private dining room with view of garden

Food rating: ** and a half
Bang for buck rating: *** (the scenery is gorgeous, at least!)

The essentials:
http://www.ukai.co.jp/shiba/
Location: at the foot of Tokyo Tower
Average price of meal for two (lunch): 13,000 yen (~$145)