Japan (Dec 2007) - Part 2

Part 2: Douraku, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Jamon Iberico, Kyohayashiya

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Dec 21: Mimiu, Douraku

We didn’t make any plans for lunch, but stumbled upon Mimiu (美々卯), which happens to be a decent restaurant with a number of branches throughout Japan.

Leeann's fresh oyster soba:

Kevin's unagi rice:

Originally, Aki-san had planned on taking us to an Izakaya to have some of the more adventurous Japanese food out there, but unfortunately, the backstreets of Shinjuku were far to complicated for us to find it. Good thing was that we ended up going to have a crab meal at Douraku (かに道楽):

Our menu consisted of nothing but Zuwai (ズワイ) crab:

Kevin’s Nigori sake – a milky looking sake which is the result of the sake being unfiltered. Very sweet and interesting:

Some crab:

Crab sashimi:

Crab chawanmushi:

Crab shabu-shabu:

Crab nabe:

Crab tempura:

Crab sushi:

Dec 22: L'Atelier

Saturday's lunch at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon (one of seven restaurants Robuchon restaurants in Tokyo) was one that we had looked forward to for a while to see whether it lived up to its hype.

With 2 set lunch choices: a smaller 'Dejeuner' menu and a 4-course 'Club' menu, the latter looked a lot more interesting and with a lot more choices;

An amuse bouche of paprika cream with (??) tasted a bit like pizza spread when we were younger and wasn't that great to be honest...

Then came the actual food…

The Starters

Kevin’s The 'special' starter of lobster jelly with uni and spinach (?) cream:

Leeann’s Le Crabe – was crab on a spicy semolina salad with a citrus dressing:

2^nd Course

La Langoustine; a superb cappuccino style mushroom soup with sauteed langoustine :

Main Course

Leeann's L'Ainame - a pan fried white fish cooked to perfection topped with greens with vinaigrette and two scallop-looking potato cores:

Kevin's Le Foie Gras de Canard - foie gras parmesan risotto - cooked to perfection:

The wait staff were flawless in their movements and the ambiance we thought was quite a bit better than that of L'Atelier in Hong Kong.

A refreshing pre-dessert cleanser came in form of a citrus/basil(?) sorbet with raspberries and blackberries:

Dessert was also excellent:

Le Caramel: Caramel mousse with a caramelised pear with chocolate ice cream:

Les Fruits Rouge: Fresh fruits ‘soup’ with a raspberry gelee and a caramelized tube of ice mascarpone:While some have said that the dinner menu is a little expensive (at about US$130), the lunch menu was decently priced at about US$70.

Finally, after all the food photos, here is some interesting non-foodie photos we took after lunch;

A recent article in the IHT put the average spending on Japanese pet dogs to be in the region of US$400 per month - to give you an idea of how ridiculous it is, here is the front door of Dogdays, a store in Midtown:

The surrounding area of Midtown where they had an exhibition titled "Water" by Taku Satoh(佐藤 卓) backed by the Issey Miyake foundation was interesting:

Leeann’s new favourite café – Koots Green Tea Café:

Leeann hanging out with all the manequins in Aoyama - somewhere near to Omotesando:

Heading back to the Tokyo station area, the recently opened Yaesu (八重洲) underground shopping contained about 30 different eateries, of which Minori (みのり) grabbed our interest:

Kevin's tempura curry udon (comes complete with a bib):

Leeann's asari (clam) udon:

Dec 23: Jamon Iberico 1, Kyohayashiya

Freshness burger recently opened up in Hong Kong and created quite a flurry of followers. We went to check out if it was really that good:

And it was! Again, our greed meant that no pictures of the burger came out of this visit, but their freshness cheeseburger was pretty damn good!

One of the best things about Japan is that you can find the best foods the world can offer. Over the past year I have been looking for somewhere which sells Jamon Iberico (cured Black Iberian pork meat) in Singapore all year to no avail. The highest quality Iberico ham comes from pigs which only eat acorns cured for up to 24 or even 36 months and are considered to be the best of cured meats. To see so many (especially the Jamon Iberico Bellota – the highest grade of Iberico) at once has gotten us quite excited:

The above can be bought as a whole leg (around US$3000 each):

They had a Christmas ‘sampler’ set going on at the “World Meat Bar”. For US$15, one could sample 3 types of ham:

1. ハモン デ ウェルバ ベジヨータ (Spain)
   
2. クラテッロ ディ ジベッロ (Italy)
   
3. ロミートベジヨータ (Spain)

While we weren’t sure of the exact origins of each the most cured one is the first one, which was a 24 month cured Jamon Iberico, the 2^nd was some sort of Parma ham and the last one was a different part of the Iberian pig to the first. To top it off, a glass of semi-decent Spanish red wine to go with this was only US$3. If Iberico ham were given a score of 100 out of 100, our opinion is that Parma ham stands at about 60.

All the meat that the World Meat Bar imports is through Sierra Mayor – one of the largest Iberico ham ‘makers’ in Huelva, Spain (the origins of the Iberian pig).

A little later that day, we got hungry again and stopped for some more ramen:

Followed by some dessert at a famous dessert café originally from Kyoto – Kyohayashiya (京はやしや), a 250 year old establishment famous for its green tea parfaits and other desserts:

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