Cucina Harita - Tokyo, Japan
Having had an awesome eating trip so far in Tokyo, I happily obliged when a friend made reservations and invited us here.
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| menu - they don't give you the prices here, until the bill is served up |
Sunday, 12 July 2015
Saturday, 27 June 2015
Sushi Masuda - Tokyo, Japan
This six-seater sushi restaurant was awarded one michelin * at the back of 2014, after only 12 months of opening. Only having received training from the best, Jiro-san, Masuda san went on to open this basement sushi joint which also has a very serious atmosphere. We arrive at 12.45pm with 3 others having already started, and we get seated before the chef asks us if there's anything we don't eat....
Sunday, 14 June 2015
Yoroniku - Yakiniku, Tokyo, Japan
I had heard through the grapevine Yoroniku was one of the better yakiniku places. With a mighty 4.2/5 rating on tabelog, this was definitely a popular destination for locals too. We made our booking a week or so in advance, and they were definitely full on a Friday evening.
We were served by a friendly waitress who spoke perfect English - they grill your meat here for you so you don't overcook anything!
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| menu |
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Aikawa 愛川 - Old school unaju in Tokyo, Japan
I read about this place from Tokyo's Timeout magazine. And after walking off our lunch we decided to check out the place before dinner, a slight trek from the metro.
Whilst we wait for our food we have some edamame and senbei i.e. fried eel bones to snack on. Whilst we've had plenty of edamame, senbei is really a for us. Quite addictively crunchy but it gets quite salty after a while, which makes it perfect with beer.
senbei (fried eel bone)
the glossy box
After a 15 minute wait our glossy box arrives, with a eel liver soup to go with the unaju. The unagi is grilled longer here - katayaki style - so the meat is firmer, and crispier, not very sweet which I enjoyed. The fillets are very large and meaty, and this was only their medium! What if we ordered the largest? The rice beneath is plump and very delicious too.
Medium large eel
Aikawa does serve up an eel quite different from that you would normally have, which is steamed and then grilled making the meat rather soft. The unagi here is not meltingly soft, and has a slight chew and crispiness on the more grilled bits, which I quite enjoyed.
Overall, if you're looking for eel prepared in a different manner, this is a good place to check out ;-).
Food: ♥♥♥ 1/2
Service: ♥♥♥
Price: ¥4,200 for the unaju box, katayaki style (extra grilling, to make the fillets more firm)
うに虎喰 - Tsukiji Itadori Unitora Kurau, Tokyo, Japan
Our first breakfast in Tokyo was na sea urchin specialty store to satisfy our sea urchin cravings... we went to this place by the Tsukiji market and avoided the queues at the popular sushi joints as we were going to get top sushi later.
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| catch of the day |
Monday, 1 June 2015
Tapas Molecular Bar, Tokyo - Fun, interactive molecular gastronomy cuisine
The few months leading up to my Tokyo trip was almost torturous. The moment I booked my tickets I started to research where we would spend our main meal times knowing reservations would be tricky. I know molecular gastronomy isn't everyone's thing but N and I happen to be fans and generally open-minded on food, and so we decided to do a non-Japanese meal at the 1 Michelin starred Tapas Molecular Bar. I'm not too sure how they coined the name as it's not so much tapas than a degustation menu, with no choice but their current seasonal tasting menu. You can of course let them know in advance if you have allergies but generally there's no room for choice.
Compared to the sushi restaurants around town, TMB wasn't too hard to secure bookings at, you simply have to do it early as they only take 8 seatings per night. I made the reservations for the night we landed, so this was our first meal in Tokyo (if you don't count the matcha swiss roll from cha no wa or the ice cream macaron sandwich from Pierre Herme we had 2 hours before dinner ;-).
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| Tool box - essential part of everyone's meal tonight |
Monday, 18 May 2015
Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin - Fine, Modern Thai food in Central Bangkok
Located inside the Kempinski Siam hotel (next to Siam Paragon mall) this restaurant is easy to reach and food and atmosphere amazing. I know they were previously on Asia's 50 best restaurants although for some reason it is no longer on the 2015 guide. That aside, a friend who visited both this and Nahm highly recommend this over Nahm and I took their advice.
Soul Food Mahanakorn, Bangkok - Many expats, but definitely an excellent place for modern Thai eating
Apologies for such a long hiatus! Blogging definitely requires a lot of effort and I admire those who hold a 10+ hour job and can still make time to post their foodie excursions.
I'm currently on a long holiday break and hence have found some time to post my travels of this year. I definitely regret not posting anything whilst away in London, Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Singapore and Philippines in 2014 as I've maintained this blog as a way to remind myself what I've eaten in the past and share with the public pictures of my meals and thoughts for reference. Going forward I'm going to do my best to post blogs on my meals during my travels, and for photos of my meals in HK you may visit gastronomerr.tumblr.com!
On to the good stuff, earlier in May my first stop was Bangkok. I was there mainly for spa and relaxation however did manage to book two restaurants I had read about and wanted to try - desperately! I picked one casual and one fine dining place to see what Bangkok had to offer. Both turned out great, and below is my experience at Soul Food Mahanakorn, which I had read to serve excellent Thai food with small twists to the traditional ingredients/methods.
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