Tokyo Day 4 - Joel Robuchon L'atelier and Tokyo Tower

One of the meals I planned for before leaving for Tokyo was Joel Robuchon. The lunch at L'atelier is very affordable, ranging from 2900 yen up to 5400 yen. However, the 5400 yen lunch had lots of foods which I didn't eat like orange (no. 1 most hated food on my list) as well as beef.

Here's the menu we had - it's either in French or Japanese, but since we could read neither, they had a very nice waitress to explain everything to us in English.

Amuse Bouche - some pork thing on a baguette

The butter rolls were nice - I ate 2.5 pieces Olive oil with 4 drops of balsamic vinegarScallops with celeriac puree and celeriac salad
I quite like the pureed celeriac - it's quite creamy and has a slight acidic taste. The salad was crunchy and had a light, oil based dressing. The scallops were sweet and tender, but not spectacular or mind blowing.

Curried eggplant
I quite liked this dish, especially with the pretty colours on top (looks like a little vegetable patch!). And eggplant is one of my more favourite vegetables. But greedy me wanted scallops :P

Cauliflower soup with iberico ham
The ham had a very light smokey taste, and went really well with the cauliflower soup. The soup wasn't overly creamy, but it was very tasty and frothy.

The French do their foie gras very well, so I thought it'll be a waste if I didn't order it. It's a whopping 1600 yen extra (on top of the 2900 yen) for the foie gras choice, but it didn't dissappoint. It was a pretty large, wobbly piece of foie gra As I sliced my foie gras and ate, the lovely foie gras oil oozed out and mingled with the rich, pearly risotto rice, forming an extremely tasty, creamy sauce for the rice. The portion of rice looks deceivingly small, but I was really quite full after this dish.

The grilled snapper was really delicious, considering how I don't like snapper. I must say this is probably one of the better snappers I've had (but then again, it doesn't say very much cos I don't go out of my way to order snapper). The skin was grilled to a delicious crisp and lightly marinated, while the flesh was white and flakey.

For dessert, we all chose the chocolate since it sounded so good on the menu. Basically, it's a really interestingly presented dish, with chocolate in various forms.

So there's a chocolate lid with a hole in the middle, covered in gold dust...

And under that, there's chocolate mousse, chocolate rice balls and a ball of chocolate ice cream, sprinkled with powdered oreos. And under all the mousse, there's some more chocolate fudge.

Yummy chocolate ice cream. It was a bit too overwhelming after a while. I think the Japanese like their desserts really sweet -couldn't finish this dessert. But then again, maybe I was super full from eating all that delicious soft breadrolls (must learn to control myself when it comes to the bread department! I really like eating restaurant bread!)I really enjoyed the whole lunch experience, from the classy yet relaxed feel of the restaurant, down to their spick and span toilets (which had automated opening lids!) and I was really sorry when lunch ended. It's casual yet chic, and since red and black is one of my favourite colour combinations, I really liked how the whole place was designed.

They have an open concept kitchen, so you can see all their chefs, all smartly dressed in red and black uniforms, preparing your meal.
Joel Robuchon L'atelier is coming to Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore somewhere in the second half of this year - I didn't know about this until the staff asked us where we were from... Ok I think I have been living in a hole for the past few months -_- and would probably continue living in another hole for the next 4. SIGH! My eyebags are exploding.

The Mori Tower building has some interesting structures including a huge metal spider with huge legs (didn't snap a shot of that) and you can also see the Tokyo Tower (and the matching cranes in the construction sites behind it).

The Tokyo Tower looks much better at night cos it's lighted up... We took a monorail which went past Odaiba bridge from Shiodome, and we had a nice view of the Tokyo Skyline, but the monorail isn't like Sentosa's placid and slow monorail. Instead, it feels like you're rushing from one stop to the next, because the monorail travels at quite a high speed, with lots of noise from the tracks. Somehow, I felt so stressed during the monorail ride cos the monorail was speeding away, and its not very sound insluated so you can hear all the air rushing past and the wheels moving along the track.

A tip from Lonely Planet (which I found online, cos I didn't bring my Lonely Planet - luggage bag was exploding already) is to take a walk from ____ station (crap I forgot what station already! but I found this tip online, and the person quoted lonely planet).

Tokyo Day 3 - Diakokuya Ten-don

This is the ten-don that ieatishootipost ate when he went to Tokyo. Since it's pretty affordable, and we were going to Sensoji Temple (not for the shrine but for the shopping street), we dropped by to try it. Also, I was pretty intrigued - I've never seen tempura dipped in sauce before serving. The day started on a wet miserable note, and we trudged through Ueno park (full bloom but it was really deary) to look at the cherry blossoms. It was mega hard to take photos since everyone was carrying an umbrella, and it was really dreary weather.

We got to Sensoji Shrine somewhere around 2pm (cos we were waylaid by the 100yen shop), as well as the various touristy shops in Nakamise shopping street.

The Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate) has a huge red lantern hanging under it.

Holy smoke which people will fan towards themselves for blessings.

Though it was so rainy and cold, it was an absolutely perfect day for ten-don (tempura rice bowl). We arrived at Diakokuya pretty late (around 2-230pm) so thankfully, there was no queue. Can't imagine waiting for an hour to get in cos it was raining quite heavily the whole day. We were greeted with the warm blast of the heater, and ushered into a corner seat, and given an English menu and hot green tea.

We both ordered Tendon #1 because it had "one each of prawn, mixed tempura and kisu fish"
which comes with a tempura fish, tempura vegetable, prawn cake and a huge prawn. I don't know how much it costs cos there's a reflection on the menu I snapped, but I think it's around 1700-1800 yen? I think I paid 1950 yen including my soup.

We did have to wait quite a while before our food was served, but it was well worth the wait because the tempura hot off the deep fryer was delicious.

Humongous prawn - it's really huge and it's a pleasure to eat. I also liked the mixed tempura, which was many small prawns in batter. There was also a piece of vegetable which wasn't very memorable (like a small, non spicy chilli) as well as the Kisu fish, which is this boneless filleted fish.

Taste wise, it was just right - not too salty as I feared since the Japanese are very generous with their salt. Coupled with the fragrant Japanese rice, this meal is extremely satisfying.

I thought that the batter was a bit soggy, because it had been dipped in sauce, but it's quite an ingenious idea to serve tendon pre-dipped in sauce, especially for the working crowd as they always have to rush through lunch (more so since there's usually a long queue for this during the lunch hour)

Since it was quite cold outside, I decided to order the Kakitamawan ($320 yen, about $5 sgd), which is Japanese egg beaten soup. I think it's very nice to drink a hot bowl of soup in such cold weather - too bad Singapore is so hot all year round all I feel like doing is eating desserts and hiding in air con. The soup was quite thick, and came with lots of egg. There's a cute knot of fishcake inside too.English menu - our favourite phrase in restaurants/cafes was "Ego men-u" ;)

Interior - it was nice and peaceful, and had no other tourists in it unlike the jammed packed Nakamise shopping street. Service here is good - there was a table who started smoking next to us, so we requested for another table, and the lady ushered us to a closed section where there was no one else. I'm so glad that they were kind enough to open up a section for us so that we could enjoy a smoke free meal :)

The outside of Diakokuya - no queue at our unearthly lunch hour (about 3 plus in the afternoon)...

For directions, go ieatishootipost

Another way to get there is to walk down Orange street, and you'll reach a T-junction, turn left and you'll see Diakokuya.

I returned to Asakusa for unagi (eel) on one of my last few days, so I'll be blogging about that later (including the eel liver soup I ate :D)

The photos in this post were taken by the Canon Powershot S90 - it's pretty good in low light, but can't beat my ancient dSLR when paired with my powerful (but very heavy) lens...

Kyoto - Tsujiri 茶寮 都路里 - Drinking High Grade Green Tea

My posts on Japan are taking longer than I thought... plus I'm really very busy (even though I don't need to study, I don't know where all my time goes...)
I think tea masters have really strong deltoids - cos making the perfect cup of green tea involves so much pouring of hot water everywhere.So since we were in the original Tsujiri store in Gion, Kyoto, we decided to try their special tea set (980 yen, about SGD $15.50). It's 980yen for both the Tencha and Gyokuro, which are high grade green tea.
Tencha is non-fermented green tea, grown in a shaded garden (oishita-en) and is made by steaming, then drying without rolling new tea buds. I really liked this tea - it's the non-ground/powdered version of the tea powder they use in tea ceremonies. Gyokuro - also non-fermented, and grown in a shaded garden, these are grown for >20 days. They are then steamed, dried and rolled. The aroma is described as 'lofty' and has a mellow taste. I personally didn't like the weird strong leafy taste of the Gyokuro. Makes me feel like I'm drinking grass or something. This is a super heavy stone kettle which has hot water. Making the perfect cup of green tea involves pouring lots of hot water here, there and everywhere. I think you need alot of arm muscles, patience and time to do this. It was quite fun the first 2-3 times, but got very sian halfway and we were very tired of pouring hot water here there everywhere, and trying not to scald ourselves.

The first step involves pouring water into all the cups to warm them up. Then allowing the water to cool down to about 50 degrees centigrade, and then putting the tea leaves in. After allowing it to steep (there's an hourglass to help time), we then pour the freshly made tea out into the warmed cup. It was quite fun at first, but eventually, the novelty wore off...The detailed instructions of how to make tea - which we eventually didn't follow cos it was too tiring and took too long.After steeping the tea leaves x1, we had to throw the used tea leaves into the metal container.The tea set at Tsujiri comes with a choices of traditional hand made Japanese dessert, or with mochi. The traditional dessert changes according to the different seasons. Some of these hand made Japanese sweets can cost 1000 yen (about SGD$15).I got the mochi dessert, which is a small bowl of mochi and kaiten jelly (like agar agar) in green tea broth, with a scoop of azuki beans (red bean paste).

The 2nd storey entrance to Tsujiri in Gion, Kyoto.

Tsujiri (Tokyo)
1-8-2 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03-5537-2217
Opening Hours: 11.00am-11.00pm
Website: http://www.sunnypages.jp/travel_guide/tokyo_restaurants/japanese_sweets_cafes/Tsujiri/486# (In Japanese)
The nearest station is Shimbashi, or Shiodome.

Tsujiri (Gion, Kyoto)
573-3 Gion-machi Minami-gawa, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto-shi, KyotoKyoto, Japan京都市東山区祇園町南側573-3
Tel : 075-561-2257
Hours: 10:00～22:00
It's quite well hidden on the second storey of Shijo dori in Gion, and it's on the opposite side of the street to Starbucks (but not that near Starbucks).

Tokyo/Kyoto - Tsujiri 茶寮 都路里 - Cha Udon and Cha Soba

I've eaten lots of cha soba (green tea buckwheat noodles), but never tried cha udon. I was pretty sad that we didn't manage to try cha udon at Uji cos it's one of their more famous foods, cos we were all so stuffed from eating at Tsuen (tea house with 850 year history in Uji, which I will blog about later when hopefully, but unlikely, I am free-er).

I had the cha udon (980yen, about SGD$15.50) from Tsujiri, which comes with leek, spring onions, thinly sliced carrots and a pork broth. I didn't like how the porky taste in the broth masked most of the green tea taste from the cha udon. I'd probably would have ordered the cold cha soba but it was such a chilly day so we felt like having something nice and warm. I prefer the firmer texture of the cha soba to the softer, chewier cha udon, but I ordered udon cos it's quite rare to find it in Singapore.

The cha soba from Tsuen definitely has a stronger green tea taste than Tsujiri, but if you don't have time to to go Uji (cos it's quite out of the way, south of Kyoto), Tsujiri's cha soba and cha udon is not bad. Though I would say their desserts outshine their noodles.

A bowl of cha udon or soba by itself is 901 yen (about sgd $13) and if you get it with dessert, it's 1251 yen (about $18sgd).

Tsujiri (Tokyo)

1-8-2 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Tel: 03-5537-2217

Opening Hours: 11.00am-11.00pm

Website: http://www.giontsujiri.co.jp (In Japanese)

The nearest station is Shimbashi, or Shiodome.

Tsujiri (Gion, Kyoto)

573-3 Gion-machi Minami-gawa, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto
Kyoto, Japan
京都市東山区祇園町南側573-3

Tel : 075-561-2257

Hours: 10:00～22:00

It's quite well hidden on the second storey of Shijo dori in Gion, and it's on the opposite side of the street to Starbucks (but not that near Starbucks).