Kevin & Leeann - Food & Travel: Tokyo & Hong Kong

Heading back to the hotel after visiting Hachiko, we made yet another dessert stop at Musashino Sabo (must be the 4th one that day!) in the Shiodome City Center building. Green tea galore is all I can say!

Dec 30: Almost New Years!
Having been unable to find Tsukiji Sushiko 4 days prior, we were determined to make a trip to one of the many branches dotted around Tokyo - and at a more normal hour. Having located one near to the JR Shimbashi railway station only 10 minutes away, we took a trip there for lunch just as they were opening for the day (the branches typically open much later relative to the main Tsukiji branch).

Having gotten lost (again), we found it; tucked away in a side street and with only 2 patrons inside when we stepped in... we were thinking that this might not have been such a good idea.. However, we were quickly put into a good mood once we saw the fresh fish piled up behind the counter. Deciding on an ala carte order instead of the omakase, we ended up having a good 10 pieces each at almost half what we paid at Daiwa Sushi - with the quality at Tsukiji Sushiko only just lacking that of Daiwa Sushi.. nonetheless the fish was superb.

Raw abalone (awabi) and fatty tuna (ootoro)

The awabi again on the left with Kevin's favourite ikura (salmon roe). Just look at those plump eggs ready to be eaten!

In the afternoon, we hit the Imperial Palace - home to the royal family and unfortunately not open to the public except for 2 days of the year. The palace occupies a huge space right smack in the middle of Tokyo and it too us a good 30 minutes to walk down just the eastern side of:

After a short break at the hotel, we headed out for another Japanese delicacy - Taraba Kani, or Japanese king crab, a crab which tastes particularly sweet and flavourful during the winter months. The restaurant was Tarabaya which was right between Lumine EST and Lumine 2 in Shinjuku, a restaurant known for serving the Taraba crab in every way possible..

Leeann suggested that we take the risk of going ala carte in a 100% Japanese only menu and it paid off.. With crab shabu-shabu (hot pot), grilled crab, crab sashimi (raw crab), crab miso soup and crab roe as our main dishes, this was yet another outstanding meal. The crab tasted like it had just been pulled out of the water and served to us and there was just so much meat! Taraba crabs put Alaskan king crabs to shame (in a relative sense).

Taraba crab sashimi:

Check out that lovely crab meat ready to be "shabu-shabu-ed"

After a quick dip in the pool:

Grilled Taraba crab - amazingly sweet:

On the walk from the hotel, a shot of the old Japanese trains outside Shimbashi station:

Dec 31: New Years Eve + THE Dinner
After our 5 days in Japan so far, New Years Eve was finally at our doorstep and although it meant that we were closing on our departure from Japan, I had been awaiting the upcoming dinner all month, so things were looking good for the day..

Not really knowing what was open for lunch on NYE, we went for another ramen meal, again in Shinjuku as we rushed to pick up gifts on our last full day in Tokyo. This time, we both opted for the cha-shu (pork) ramen, which was superb:

One of the highlights of our trip to Tokyo was our visit to the Tapas Molecular Bar at the Mandarin Oriental in Tokyo. Following on from the so-called molecular gastronomy pioneered by El Bulli's Ferran Adria in Spain and The Fat Duck's Heston Blumenthal in the UK, the Tapas Molecular Bar is run by chef Jeff Ramsey - who previously trained under Jose Ramon Andres (a disciple of Ferran Adria himself) at miniBar in Washingon DC and is said to have been next in line to train at El Bulli.

Arguments that Jeff Ramsey has copied Ferran Adria's recipes have been discussed in various forums and as we have yet to visit El Bulli to make a comment on that, we went into our meal with an open mind. With 25-30 courses over the space of 2.5 hours, we were eagerly anticipating what was to come as chef Noto (we think that was his name) [the chef who prepared our dishes in the front as chef Ramsey worked in the back] was busy working with his assistant to put our first courses together...

The menu:

First course: Yakult beer
Very cool! For those who don't know, Yakult is a Japanese 'live bacteria' drink which is meant to help with digestion.. Served in a shot glass, this was an interesting first course and the sweetness in the Yakult helped to bring out the hops in the beer - yummy!

Crispy Beets and crispy risotto:

Liquid candy floss - almost melts in your mouth!

Hot frozen souffle - hot on top and ice cold at the bottom. The combination of hot and cold wasn't too much for the mouth..

Ikura (salmon roe) with passion fruit shot. Downed in one, the saltiness of the salmon roe combined with the sweetness of the passion fruit was a nice refresher:

The parmesan linguine. One of the highlights of the meal... Noodles made from a parmesan consomme and solidified with agar jelly. The red bits on it are tomato essense, green being basil and served with sweet baby clams on a bed of olive oil... absolutely brilliant..

Sea urchin & green tea. Super-fresh uni (sea-urchin) with some whipped green tea foam and apple/pear(??) chunks... truly interesting combination of flavours:

The 'textured gazpacho', a tomato comsomme with watermelon and liquid nitrogen frozen olive oil. A perfect palate cleanser:

Grilled langoustine with chantrelle mushrooms in an almost foam:

Another highlight of the meal - sizzling beef. The beef is cooked to medium-rare and then placed in a special canister of nitrous oxide which essentially acts as a meat tenderiser and pumps gas into the fat of the beef.. The sensation from eating this was definitely something new..

The carrot caviar, prepared by pumping carrot juice from a syringe into a pool of calcium chloride (yes, it is becomingly like a chemistry experiment) which helps to encase liquid carrot in a thin membrane.. We will try to post the video which we took shortly...

Unagi pineapple miso.. A combination of grilled eel (unagi), lightly grilled pineapple and avocado paste, which when eaten together is supposed to taste like miso! Unbelievable? Well, it isn't quite there, but its close!

Cheese stick in an apple crisp... An apple wrapper encases Manchego cheese - a popular Spanish sheep cheese - The richness of the cheese was sensational...

Foie gras cappuccino... I cannot begin to describe how perfect this is. A foie gras consomme is topped with a sweet corn foam... the chef informs us to drink it just like we would a normal cappuccino.. Just perfect.

The invisible Mojito. A bartender comes forward and says that she is making us an invisible Mojito... as the 6 of us sits there mouth wide open and mouthing "what the...." we would not have been surprised at this point if it was an invisible Mojito. Chef Noto asks us to drink from the straw and take a big slurp, and amazingly enough - a Mojito mix is IN THE STRAW!... tastes just like the real thing!

The deconstructed curry bun... We could not help but to laugh throughout this tasted just like a curry puff even though the left side was basically a milk-based foam bun with potatoes, carrots and diced beef on the right.

Chef Noto (on the right) and his assistant at work:

One of Kevin's favourites of the day.. Lightly grilled flounder with aged yoghurt and olive oil. The sourness of the yoghurt mixed with the sweetness of the fish and the fragrant olive oil was just such a beautiful combination...

Miso soup. We have no words to describe this as it was just spectacular... Chef Noto tells us to just pour the contents into your mouth. A blob of miso (the yolk-ish looking thing) matched with tofu caviar and scallion oil puree - the combination... oishi desu!

Lime disc. An ice cold frozen lime disc served as an end to our tapas and a palate cleanser for the transition to dessert...

Blue Hawaii... this picture was taken in a rush as the popular drink was ultra frozen by liquid nitrogen. We were almost in tears as everyone took big gulps of this and was coughing out smoke and crunching down on the frozen ice chips...

Bacon and eggs. A bacon topped cookie with a coconut cream egg white and mango egg-yolk. Sounds kind of strange, but this was just as fun and delicious as the previous dishes..

Petit fours: Saffron Chocolate Tart, NY Cheesecake, Rasperry & Black Pepper, Vanilla Candy and a Cotton Candy Cappuccino.... the cotton candy cappuccino stood out as the best for us... with the cotton candy warmth giving it a soothing cappuccino sensation...

I cannot even begin to describe this final dish... Initially presented as a simple fruit platter (see below), we were asked take a bite of the strawberry which was sweet - then a bite out of the lemon which was painfully sour...

We were then presented with a "miracle berry", a plant native to West Africa. Almost tasteless, we were told to just keep the seed in our mouth for a minute. The miracle berry (its real name) contains a protein called Miraculin which helps to block out the sour taste buds on ones palate. After a minute, we were told to spit it out and taken a bite out of the lemon... to our amazement, the lemon was sweeter than the orange! The oos and aahs around the table pretty much voiced the amazement..

A picture with Chef's Noto and Ramsey after the meal...

A view at the lobby of the Mandarin..

The ground floor lobby of the Nihonbashi Mitsui building which houses the Mandarin Oriental

As midnight loomed closer, we joined the crowds at Meiji-jingu to catch a glimpse of the 108 bells struck as we headed towards the New Years...

Given the 1million + people at Meiji-jingu towards midnight, we decided on a countdown at the lobby of the hotel:

More fruit desserts from Takano:

Jan 1: Its 2007!
The Conrad in the morning before lunch:

With a 6pm flight that day, we couldn't really spend time wandering or exploring, so instead we went with a late wakeup and lunch at the hotel at another restaurant that we had wanted to try.. the Gordon Ramsey restaurant at the Conrad. The Tokyo establishment of the 3-michelin star restaurant in London is tucked in the corner alongside its brasserie Cerise by Gordon Ramsey. Although the kitchen is not manned by the man himself; A former up-and-coming star of Claridges in London (another one of Gordon Ramsey's restaurants) Andy Cook does a good job representing Gordon Ramsey's dishes..

A view of the serving kitchen: