tokyo food file

Akagi Café — staying cool atop Kagurazaka's hill

In the cool of a summer evening, there cannot be many better places to be in Tokyo than watching the moon over the precincts of Akagi Shrine at the apex of the Kagurazaka hill.

Kengo Kuma was the man behind the sleek architecture of the new shrine (it opened to the public in September of last year). He was also responsible for the apartment complex that looms over the compound — the best part of which (for non-residents at any rate) is Akagi Café on the ground floor.

The design is very spare. But that's because you're intended to be looking out of the picture windows — or sitting at one of the outside tables — as you nibble and sip on your snacks, pasta lunch (caveat: I've never eaten a meal there, only nibbles), cake and afternoon tea, or a post-prandial cava...

Just about every vestige of the old shrine building has disappeared for ever — except for this old sign, which is propped up by the counter inside Akagi Cafe.

Here's what Akagi Shrine looks like in the daylight — from Kuma's own web site...

A bit more on the new shrine here... 

More about the history of Akagi Shrine here...

And here's the café's own web site...

Pays Basque cuisine, rustic but refined – the rest of the story

A few more images of — and reasons for making time for a meal at — Abasque, as featured in my column in the Japan Times on Friday,

As mentioned, we don't have too many restaurants focusing on Basque food from the French side of the Pyrenees — in fact the only other place I'm aware of is the admirable (if overly pork-fixated) Lauburu. 

But the real reason why Abasque works so well for us is that it hits exactly the right balance between easy-going and poised, stylish and simple, cozy and casual, and — most important of all — cooking that's hearty and satisfying but delivered with finesse.

Having been there for both lunch and dinner, as well as for the extensive Sunday "brunch" (it's basically a dinner menu but in the middle of the day), I can't find much to fault about this place. Here's a pot-luck array of photos to further whet your appetite...

 

You get a formal place setting but there are no tablecloths or other fancy fripperies. And yes those are gougeres you see at the back, a nice little nibble at the start of dinner. And they go just right with a glass of the house bubbly, Eudald, a lovely crisp cava of biodynamic provenance.

 

 

Chef Wada has to share his tiny kitchen with his sous-chef — plus a large and very handsome haunch of delectable jambon du Kintoa (from Pierre Oteiza, the very best)...

 

It's ham to rival some of the best Iberico...

 

Also from the starters menu: Wada's take on merguez sausage. Plump and tender, this is not mutton, it's lamb for sure. Served with soft-cooked red bell pepper and sprinkled with piquant piment d'Espelette, the premium red pepper produced in the Basque country — which Wada says is the most important  seasoning in his kitchen...

 

This was the fantastic mixed starter plate we had at dinner a while back. Bite-size new potatoes topped with finely ground beef; very tender chicken gizzard confits; and — these were the highlights — miniature "burgers" of pork painstakingly separated from pig trotters, formed into impossibly rich, soft patties just barely crisped on the outside.

 

Terrine de queue de beouf au foie gras: the chunky texture of the ox tail meat contrasting beautifully with the silky-smooth goose liver surrounding it, served with a green salad garnished with slivers of that excellent Kintoa ham.

 

A delicious, refreshing vichyssoise, smooth but not too creamy...

 

Roast pork a la Basque, with beautifully glazed roast carrots, a sprinkle of parsley — with black pepper as the seasoning...

 

Wada loves his oven. Here's his roast duck, served with slices of golden polenta — it's sauteed first with olive oil and then in butter, but it's the latter that gives it its rich flavour — and a young asparagus spear... 

 

And then there is his poulet grand-mere.... Cooked down in rich gravy with rosemary, it comes with moist little new potatoes and a blob of country mustard. Order extra of the home-baked wholewheat bread rolls to mop up all the juices. It doesn't look very photogenic, but it tasted fantastic. This is country food at its best: simple but memorable...

 

What to drink? Well, this riserva from Navarro (left) went very well with Wada's meaty cuisine. But so too did this excellent Madiran (right) which we drank by the glass for Sunday lunch and which had probably benefitted from having been opened the previous evening...

 

 

To polish off the wine, a little cheese. Roquefort is the best known French Basque cheese, but Ossau Iraty is my favourite. Here served with slices of raisin bread (Wada bakes all his bread himself), some membrillo (quince) jelly, and a dab of black cherry preserve (Abasque sells small pots of it, which is just as well as once you taste it you are likely to crave more)...

 

Wada also takes pride in his desserts, whether it be his gateau Basque...

 

...the flan au chocolat... or the parfait glacée.

  

 

A couple of truffles to go with coffee (dinner only)...

 

And for once we could not be tempted by the blackboard list of pudding wines.

 

What's great about Abasque is that you can get to try Wada's cuisine most affordably — not just at lunch (from around ¥1,500 if you want a main dish) but even in the evening.

The "menu prix fixe" (at just ¥4,935) is intended to be shared between two people. Add in a couple of glasses of wine and the table charge are you can be out of there for well under the price of a ¥10K note. Not that you'll necessarily want to, especially if you've got a healthy appetite. But even with a bottle of nice wine and a few extra supplements, if can still work out to well under ¥10,000 a head.

And for food of this quality in such an unpretentious, non-demanding setting: that's great value.

 

UPDATE (Sept. 2013): Unfortunately, the above post must now be read in the past tense.

Chef Wada left Abasque in the spring of this year and now has his own restaurant. It's named St. Jean Pied de Port, after the Basque town where he trained and which has inspired his culinary direction. 

 Unfortunately, it is a sad little space, with none of the poise and atmosphere of Abasque. And while his cooking skills have not diminished at all, the lack of customers does mean he does not offer such an exciting menu. 

Las Meninas: adios, we'll miss you

It was party time tonight in the back streets of Koenji, but the tears were flowing with the vino. After a decade as the funnest friendliest Spanish bar in town, on Saturday the legendary Las Meninas closed its doors for the very last time.

Owner-chef Johnny Miller and his wife Taeko are packing it in, taking down the shingle and heading off down to Osaka (NB they'd announced the move a long time ago, and it was nothing to do with recent seismic events). 

To call it the end of an era might be overstating the case. But for the locals who congregated there — and there were plenty — it's going to leave a gaping gap in their well-soused social lives. 

Despite working out of a ridiculously cramped kitchen, Johnny always turned out a great range of hearty and reliably good Spanish staples. It was virtually impossible to spend too much there  — even the Roda I was not a whole lot more than you'd find at retail prices. Not that I ever drank it there: Johnny always had a few bottles of good oloroso in the fridge and the house vino was basic tempranillo but quaffable anyway.

Want to know what you missed? I gave it a wee write-up a few years back in the JT here (scroll down the page). And here are a few more photos, some taken last Friday night others in previous years...