So where's new and good and hot and buzzy in Tokyo right now?
You could wade through the backpages of this blog… Or you could peruse my Japan Times columns for the past year or so…
Or you could go right over to Eater and feast your eyes on the latest Tokyo Heatmap. It's just a click away, right here…
And if you missed previous instalments, there're all still hot and buzzy. And good.
I introduced the previous one (September of 2013) here…
When Chef Shuzo Kishida moved his vaunted (and triple-starred since Michelin's very first Tokyo guide) restaurant over to Shinagawa, that left a Quintessence-sized empty space in his old neighborhood, Shirokanedai.
But nature, as we all know, abhors a vacuum. It is Kishida's young (still just 28) sous-chef, Keiichi Terada, who has taken over the old premises, together with owner-sommelier Ohashi-san. Of course they had to give it a new name — so why not Tirpse?
Yes, it's less than obvious: for some reason they like to have their "esprit" backwards. And in English it does come out sounding more like "turps". But there's absolutely nothing dodgy about the cuisine.
Terada is a fantastic chef, as you should be able to tell from this lunch we had at Tirpse the other day.
It started with a little appetizer: onion crisp filled with an onion cream…
Then the hors d'oeuvre: cannoli stuffed with a delectable cream of mushrooms and nanohana greens. At the mushroom end, some dried nanohana flowers; at the other, fresh flowers. Winter turning to spring.
So good it deserves a close-up. You can see it has a beautiful glaze, made with ricotta and panko.
The fish course: anko (monkfish/lotte poêlée) served on a bed of steamed hakusai (aka Chinese cabbage), dusted with tiny morsels of chorizo, which was also used as the base for the sauce.
Wicked. Here it is again:
Time for some wine (just the one glass, I had work to do afterwards). A nice choice, Clos Marie, Pic Saint Loup (Granache/Syrah/Mourvèdre), from Languedoc:
Our meat course featured Yonezawa pork, accompanied by a chickpea purée, half a semi-dried tomato of great intensity, a bed of spinach and shiitake, and pickled shallots.
First dessert: strawberries with a champagne mousse, with ratafia and some booze-infused sponge at the very bottom.
The colourful garnishes on top included wood sorrel leaves.
Second dessert: lightly seared banana, chocolate choux filled with vanilla ice cream, sweet potato puree and walnuts...
Completed with rich, molten chocolate sauce.
And to go with our coffee, a couple of mignardises…
On the right, kinkan (kumquat); on the left, a lovely sharp apple.
A very satisfying meal, in a sophisticated setting that feels far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Tirpse opened last year in late September (the 24th) (actually the 18th). In just over two months they'd been given Michelin star. That's the fastest any restaurant (anywhere in the world) has ever been anointed by the Red Book. Do they deserve it? I'd say so.
Congratulations Chef Terada and team!
(and here's a nice little video of a collaboration party they held after that, together with Chef Atsumi Sota of the super-hot little Table Vivant in Paris)
It's not always just about the food. Flavour is everything. Ingredient quality goes without saying. But it's also all to do with presentation – and the vessels that are used to serve each dish.
Such as this exquisite owan bowl from Kyoto. The design reflects the season, with motifs of uguisu (warblers) amid late-winter ume buds. Because it is made of urushi (lacquerware), it holds in the heat superbly.
Inside it held a dashi broth, delicate and profound, bathing a substantial kani-shinjo – basically a ball of crab meat. it was fragrant with yuzu peel, contrasting vividly with the brilliant green of a tiny baby kabu turnip.
It was an outstanding dish: beautiful; delectable of course; and also warming and energising.
But what made it even more special was this bowl.
My short piece on the Nishi-Azabu branch of Gogyo ran in the Japan Times today. Here are a few more images to add to the few paragraphs that the JT rations me to these days…
It's not just the ramen that sets Gogyo apart. Very few ramenya offer this kind of izkaya menu and ambiance. It's spacious and pretty comfortable. And it has a pretty good selection of sake and shochu, including the very potable, potent Samurai-no-mon ("Samurai Gate") imo (sweet potato) shochu from Kagoshima...
It has a menu of simple snacks, such as tebasaki (chicken wings); yaki-gyoza potstickers; dashimaki-tamago omelette; that modern izakaya standard, potato salad; and Goma-Q, cucumbers with a sesame dressing. There's usually a seasonal side menu of nibbles too, such as these cream cheese cubes marinated in shoyu, which you wrap in toasted nori…
But at the end of the day – and I mean this literally, as Gogyo stays open till the wee hours – it is the noodles that you're there for. Especially the kogashi "burned" ramen. Of the two choices, miso or shoyu, I find the flavor of the miso works a lot better...
But the shoyu version is quite acceptable. Though you may not want to lap up quite so much of the oily broth as I did here...
And apologies, even if Gogyo had better light inside, the kogashi ramen is not really photogenic.
As I've written in previous posts, Setsubun observances these days are much less about driving out evil than gobbling down (supposedly fortunate) ehomaki.
No surprise then that some of Tokyo's high-end sushiya are getting in on the act.
I happened to be in Ginza this afternoon and was feeling peckish as I wandered past the front door of Kyubey. They had just the thing for me: their ehomaki are a whole different league from the mass-market versions sold in the conbini stores.
Not cheap, at ¥3,159 for a pair of plump sushi rolls (or really two halves of the same long maki). But I was confident it would be premium quality, and so it turned out to be.
The thing is, though, you have to face the right auspicious direction as you eat them. So I repaired to one of the nearby buildings to get my bearings...
The Komatsu Building is better known for its occupants, Dover Street Market, Comme des Garçons and Rose Bakery. Rather less famous is the fact that it has an open rooftop with its own Shinto shrine, some nice turf and an ume tree that is just now bursting into blossom. The local Ginza honey bees were enjoying it just as much as me.
Another bonus point; they have placed a couple of thick tree trunks for use as benches. So I unwrapped my gourmet ehomaki, pointed myself in the lucky direction (East-Northeast this year – kind of towards the back of the Uniqlo Building) and gobbled my maki without any further ado. In silence (another essential requirement).
It was definitely superior – stuffed with prawns, anago eel, tamagoyaki omelette and more – and even came with gari ginger on the side.
Auspiciously good.
Food writer and restaurant reviewer for the Japan Times contact: foodfile (at) me (dot) com
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