tokyo food file

Jean-Georges Tokyo: first impressions

My review of the new (March 2014) Jean-Georges Tokyo is up now in the JT. Here is the original text before it somehow got a bit lost in editorial transition… 

 

French-born, New-York-based superchef Jean-Georges Vongerichten has some two dozen restaurants to his formidable name, spread over six countries on three continents. Now he’s added Japan to that impressive list.

J-G Tokyo opened in March in the compact premises formerly occupied by Le Chocolat d’H on Keiyaki-dori, Roppongi Hills. It’s as sleek as you’d expect for the location, with plush designer-casual tables upstairs and counter seats on the ground floor.

 Madara cod and shimeji mushrooms, bathed in a warm consommé of clear tomato and lemongrass

 

The man in charge of the open kitchen is Fumio Yonezawa. He spent several years at the New York main restaurant and executes the Jean-Georges signature dishes and their light Asian accents with considerable aplomb. 

The classic amuse-bouche appetizer is the Egg Toast: a whole golden yolk, still warm and runny, served between thin slices of crisped bread, generously topped with truffle shavings.

 The Jean-Georges famous Egg Toast

 

The other trademark J-G starter is Egg Caviar. For the summer, though, this is replaced by a lighter, zestier dish: Lemon Gelée topped with a generous scoop of caviar. Refreshingly decadent.

 Lemon Gelée and Caviar with Crème Fraiche

 

These are the opening gambits in the impressive five-course ¥13,000 dinner menu. For this ‘hood and this level of cooking, that’s good value. (There are also menus at ¥18,000 and ¥24,000; and a la carte)

Warm shrimp and Sea Urchin, Green Chili

 

Especially as it culminates with a sizeable slab of teppan-fried Hida beef and a suitably rich, satisfying chocolate dessert.

 

Wine is called for, plus a snifter of Armagnac to round things off.

 

Jean-Georges Tokyo, Roppongi Hills Keyaki-dori, 6-12-4 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo; 03-5412-7115; www.jean-georges.com/; open daily 11 a.m.-2 p.m. (LO) & 5:30-10 p.m.(LO); nearest station Roppongi; no smoking; lunch from ¥4,800, dinner from ¥13,000; major cards; Japanese/English menu; English spoken

chinmi – interesting tidbits, excellent sake

 

On the plate, from left to right…

• Yama-uni tofu – tofu aged in miso so it evokes the look and texture (if not the taste) of uni urchin

• cream cheese aged in sake kasu (lees)

• egg yolk pickled in miso

Just a few of the interesting selection of chinmi tidbits on the menu at Kamozou in Kagurazaka.

 

In the glass, it's Kokuryu daiginjo; and in the kiki-choko that's Izumofuji Akimo hiya-oroshi.

 

 

There's plenty more like that on the menu…

 

…and in the fridge.

 

There are plenty more fine snacks and side dishes as well… 

 

Kagiroi – a few more images from the teppan grill

 

From the front, Kagiroi – as introduced in my Japan Times column this week – seems quietly genteel: not your usual izakaya. And certainly not typical of the kind of places you find in Ogawamachi.

It looks the same way upstairs. In fact this stately three-story house, built back in the early days of Showa, used to be the residence of a sake merchant.

 

 

If you enter from the back – which is where the actual sake shop used to be housed – it looks rather more down to earth.

 

That's the area that is now the open kitchen – with the teppan grill.. 

 

And that's where the cooking action takes place. Here are a few more images of what's on offer – and what's good – there. Starting with an order of pork, served straight off the steel griddle…

 

It's from a breed called Seseragi pork, raised in the uplands of Gunma Pref. close to Mt. Akagi. They're fed on a diet high in barley, and given only mountain spring water to drink, which certainly gives the meat great flavour. The slices are marinated in miso before being crisped up nicely on the teppan, then served with a mound of shichimi-togarashi (seven spice).

This came as part of a lunch teishoku (set meal), with a green salad, potato salad miso soup, rice and pickles on the side. Great value for ¥900.

 

At dinnertime, the menu is a lot wider — and there's plenty of good sake to drink too. Such as Toroman, a hiya-oroshi from Aizu, in the uplands of Fukushima.

 

 

Because the teppan dishes can take a while, it's a good idea to order a few appetizers. The vegetable sticks with miso dips may look prettier, but the potesara (that's Japanese for "potato salad") is really tasty too. The spud is mixed with a mayo-miso blend: excellent with the cucumber slices.

 

Another side dish that is served promptly is the egg; halves of boiled egg slathered with a sweetish yellow miso and then browned over the charcoal grill.

 

The foil-cooked potatoes are even better: they're cooked with butter and then seasoned with a heaping dollop of sake-kasu mixed with miso. Quite an umami hit.

 

More pork is called for. This is the imo-buta, from porkers raised in Asahi, Chiba, that have been fed on sweet potatoes. Juicy and rich and piping hot straight from the teppan, it goes beautifully with the Hiroki tokubetsu-junmai.

 

And yet another great pairing: Meikyoshisui m12, a junmai daiginjō of some refinement from Nagano Prefecture...

 

 

… with the dengaku-style eggplant/aubergine. The miso was dark and a bit sweet, in true dengaku style, and the poppy seeds scattered on the top gave a nice contrasting texture to the softness of the aubergine.

 

What else was good? Plenty, though I don't have many more photos. Here's one final image: the mixed kinoko being given the teppan treatment. The perfect kind of warming fare for cold late-autumn evenings.

 

Here's a map link to Kagiroi…

And the restaurant web site… As you can see, it's part of the Yumemania group, who are responsible for some really good little places around town.

Including Tamayura, as featured here at the beginning of the year.

Eel season at Unagi Akimoto

Summer is coming. And that means unagi season is nigh upon us. I can't think of many unagiya I prefer to the excellent 105-year-old Akimoto in Kojimachi.

Yes, there are several places where the kabayaki or shirayaki may have that extra depth of flavour that you only get from broiling over charcoal. But they use quality ingedients, and display a few surprising hints of creativity. And you can't argue with four generations of experience. 

Plus it's just a very cool little restaurant, inside and out. Here are a few photos taken on a recent photo shoot. Starting with…

Kabayaki: at Akimoto the unaju is served with the rice and eel in separate levels of the box.

 

Usaku: a su-no-mono (vinegar-dressed dish) "salad" of yellow chrysanthemum petals, pink myoga ginger and baby cucumbers sliced impossibly thin, anointed with a refreshing rice-vinegar-based dressing, topped with a few slices of broiled eel. 

 

Umaki: basically dashimaki tamago (omelette) wrapped around strips of unagi. Sweet, but not impossibly so, and the umezu-steeped ginger stem makes a welcome counterpoint.

 

Kimosui; a classic eel-liver suimono clear soup, featuring a small shaving of yuzu peel; eringi mushrooms; elaborate balls of dried fu; and, unusually, slivers of blanched zucchini to add a delicate contrast of color and texture — much in the way that togan might be used in winter.

 

I wrote up Akimoto five years ago in my JT column here…

Narutomi: the sake and snacks to go with your soba and tempura

Certainly you can drop into Te-uchi Soba Narutomi for a quick meal of the excellent ju-wari (100 percent buckwheat) noodles. And pair it with the delicate tempura too.

But there's a great selection of sake and side dishes too, which may tempt you to linger a bit longer. Starting with the yakimiso...

Narutomi-san blends two kinds of miso ― a light-colored koji miso and a richer rice miso ― with grains of buckwheat, giving it extra crunch, texture and nutty flavour. He spreads this mix over a dark ceramic saucer that is slightly concave, then grills it until it's lightly browned and starting to crisp around the rim. Impossible to stop nibbling on.

 

And so is the uni tsukudani. It's really good with beer. It goes even better with sake.

It's made by lightly salting and drying the urchin until the texture is nice and firm, perfect as a sake snack. Or beer. 

 

The anago nikogori (eel in its own aspic gel) is definitely worth trying: light and delicate but with plenty of umami savour.

 

On a cold evening, the yu-dofu ankake is just the ticket. The scoops of tofu are first heated up in dashi, then thickened with kuzu starch and served with a generous blob of grated ginger.

 

The kamo-nuki is another cold-weather favourite. Think of it as kamo-nanban soba, without the soba ― and with the addition of those oblong slices of golden-yellow awa-fu gluten dumpling. There's some nice yuzu perfume coming up out of that steaming bowl.

 

Dashi-maki tamago is another traditional sobaya standard. Here it comes in a substantial portion big enought to share between two (or more). Narutomi-san says it doesn't fluff up enough if he makes it with any less than four eggs.

It's also curiously under-seasoned. But it does come with shoyu on the side, which you drizzle onto that mound of grated daikon.

 

One small thing that gives Narutomi an edge is the tableware, which is mostly pottery, though also some glass or lacquer.

The beer is served in ceramic tumblers. And you get to choose what choko you want to drink your sake out of. A nice touch.

 

I will put up another post shortly with more about Narutomi-san and his soba. For the moment, here is some more (in Japanese) about that excellent and highly unusual uni tsukudani... 

 

And because the address, phone number and website are currently missing from the Japan Times online version of my column, here are the details:

Narutomi

8-18-6 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

(03) 5565-0055

www.narutomi-soba.net/

 Open: Mon-Fri 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (LO) & 6-8:45 p.m. (LO); Sat 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.;      closed Sun, holidays & 3rd Sat.