tokyo food file

Dosa dinner @ Nirvanam in Kamiyacho

Does Nirvanam serve the very best Indian food in Tokyo? Well it's definitely up there, especially if you like those aromatic South Indian flavours as much as I do. The full story was in my Japan Times column yesterday, along with some excellent photos by the JT cameraman (thanks, Miura-san!). Here are a few of my rather grainier images from a light dinner there last week.

Starting with the Set Dosa, a tray with two thick fluffy rice-flour "hotcakes" with great dips to go with them.

 

Think of the parippu vada as crisper, slightly larger versions of falafels, except they're made with yellow split peas rather than chickpeas. And they come with a delicate minty-yogurt sauce (rather than tahini). A bit dry on their own, but just right with a Kingfisher beer or two.

 

The Roast Fish is one of our favourites. As described, the chunks of whitemeat fish are coated in a spicy marinade, then cooked and served with a sauce well spiced with plenty of small, fiery red chilies and other aromatics, along with fresh green kari leaf and a good sprinkling of cashew nuts.

 

The main event for us that evening was an excellent mutton curry in the Andhra Pradesh style...

…which went perfectly with the string hoppers.

 

The desserts are (apart from the "mango delight") just as authentic — this one below is the payasam. Mind you, the chai is so teeth-achingly sugared up you really don't need anything else sweet. 

  

 

The Nirvanam home page is here... Curiously though, although it has maps to both its branches, I couldn't see a phone number anywhere. It is: (03) 3433-1217.

It's definitely a good idea to phone ahead. And even if they say they're fully booked, they usually have some tables open at the beginning of the evening (say, until 8 pm).

code kurkku: Kyoto-Italian in Yoyogi Village

Arriving at code kurkku in the evening, through the cluster of converted freight containers that constitute Yoyogi Village, is pretty memorable, with that living wall of vegetation glowing through the massive picture window.

It's very easy on the eye in the daytime too...

The lobby leads past the gleaming open kitchen, with the chefs in their well-worn white baseball caps...

The dining room has a nice simple spacious feel, the height of the ceiling moderated by the random clusters of lights hanging overhead.

As I wrote in my Japan Times column last week, we had the upper of the two set lunch menus (¥5,000), which started with this excellent "cigar" of anago wrapped in filo pastry and deep-fried till crisp. This was draped over a fragrant asari-jiru, a clear broth derived from clams, containing plenty of mitsuba herb and a soft, freshly poached egg prepared in onsen tamago style. That's sansho scattered around the rim of the bowl, lending its distinctive aromatic presence without dominating the flavors in the mouth.

The antipasto was buri yellowtail, the slices lightly seared in tataki style, just enough to whiten their exterior but still sashimi-rare inside. These were paired with thin slices of apple and a small mound of mustard leaf salad topped with a white foam (also with a faint apple perfume), and served on a delectable sauce of grated raw apple mixed with daikon oroshi (from tangy karami-daikon), further spiced up with red peppercorns.

Spaghettini tossed with spring nanohana greens and plump, pink ama-ebi shrimps so lightly cooked they were almost raw, it was scattered with bright yellow bottarga and just a hint of tōgarashi chili. Bursting with understated flavor, this more than anything else on the menu gives meaning to the term Kyoto-Italian cuisine.

The main course: fricassee of Iwate free-range jidori, rolled and pan-fried, then finally seared in the oven over sumi charcoal to give it a lovely golden skin. Carefully arranged on the plate with a colorful selection of vegetables — potato, button mushrooms, yellow squash, Brussels sprout leaves and scarlet kyō-ninjin carrots — it came with a swoosh of pureed broccoli and a creamy vegetable-based sauce that was remarkably rich and satisfying for something containing no butter or dairy.

Dessert (hers): matcha tiramisu, with hojicha ice cream.

Dessert (his): panna cotta packed with espresso, sozzled with a dark, boozy caramel sauce and topped with a simple milk gelato.

The verdict: excellent. and a beautiful example of the evolving genre that has come to be called Kyoto-Italian. Just as we had expected, given the involvement (as executive chef) of Yasuhiro Sasajima of Il Ghiottone fame. Not quite up there on the same level as at his main Kyoto restaurant, but certainly as fine and inventive (and beautiful) as when we ate at Il Ghiottone Cucineria, Sasajima's more casual second restaurant.

OK, the view from the dining room is not as spectacular — Cucineria sits on the bank of the Kamogawa river in Kyoto. But screen out the looming Docomo high-rise and that exotic garden is still quite something for Tokyo.

In fact, illuminated at night, it's quite atmospheric.

I wrote up the original kurkku kitchen restaurant when it first opened. I haven't been back for a couple of years now, but I still hear great reports, especially of the café.

The web site for Yoyogi VIllage/code kurkku is here...

anglepoise, wine glasses and matcha tiramisu

 

 

And that can only mean one thing...

That's right, it's a teaser for my column in tomorrow's Japan Times.

the "meringue snowball" and the daytime stray butterfly — two more top desserts from chef Namae

If the Stray Butterfly was my most memorable dessert of 2011, two more we enjoyed earlier at L'Effervescence were close behind.

From the lunch menu, this was called the "Lighter than air Mont Blanc". Though we began referring to it later just as the meringue snowball...

I love that form, somehow reminiscent of a swan with its neck curled under its wing, and I love the monochrome white-against-white look...

And I very much enjoyed the action of breaking open that meringue casing to reveal the filling: a scoop of caramel ice cream with crisp flakes of almond, all on a base of praline cream. Simple but remarkable.

And this was the lunchtime version of the "Papillon qui cherche" (as it was explained to us, the "Stray butterfly" is apparently searching for its garden)...

Just look at the translucent delicacy of the "butterfly" — here perched on a scoop of home-made ice cream — and that sliver of apple covering the colorful "garden" at the back:

This is what was underneath: the base was a tranche of cooked apple, aromatic with cardamom; scattered on top of that, cubes of crisp apple and soft jelly of Jack Rose (a calvados-brandy-grenadine cocktail), and in the middle a liquid caramel enclosed in a soft membrane. The flowers are begonias.

Both the above came as part of the two ¥4,800 lunch menus, which really are outstanding value. Bravo!

stray butterfly, crescent moon and stars

One of the sweetest memories of 2011. This was the penultimate course of the "Un souhait et la lumière" dinner menu at L'Effervescence, in Nishi-Azabu, as reviewed in my last Japan Times column.

It's also a teaser for my piece in the paper tomorrow...