Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Local India

Appropriately named, this restaurant is downstairs from Arriva Otra in Ebisu, and as such it fell under the "must try all restaurants in the 'hood" rule.

Alas, not a super-interesting review: it's a competent but not extraordinary Indian restuarant. It's medium-priced, maybe Y1800 for the Thali. I'll go again, but I won't go out of my way (which is the point: it's not out of my way!).

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

You mean that Kurosawa?

Neighborhood: Nishi-azabu
Style: Soba
Kanji Name: くろさわ
Website: none

So the head of Polygon, Shuzo, definitely gets ideas into his head. Tday I ran into him about scheduling a meeting and then said, "Hey, you headed out for lunch?" On the way out of the building he said, "Let's go this way today. I haven't explored over near Azabu-juban."

We ended up walking about 35 minutes looking for something along the cool, neighborhoody lines. We really weren't doing too well at it, with the result that we got almost all the way to Roppongi before Shuzo said, "Hey, I think there's a noodle place up ahead," thus heralding our arrival at Kurosawa.

Kurosawa has primarily soba noodles, the thinner buckwheat noodles (which are actually my preference over Ramen or Udon). I got Kamo (duck) Soba. Like almost all soba dishes, the noodles come on a separate bamboo tray, and you dip them in the sauce before slurping them into your mouth (in Japan, slurping is a compliment to the chef). The Kamo Soba has a few slices of deliciously fatty duck floating in the sauce.

When you're done, you take the pitcher of soba-yu (the leftover juice from making soba) and mix it with the leftover sauce in order to drink it down like soup.

All in all, Kurosawa was a pretty competent execution of soba. The only thing I'd say against it is that it's not cheap as noodle places go; Y1350 for soba only.

By the way, the full name of this restaurant is "XX dining kurosawa", where "XX" is two Kanji I can't read yet.

Dining Kurosawa Tokyo-to Minato-ku Nishi-azabu 3-2-15
03 5775 9638

Arriva Otra

Neighborhood: Ebisu
Style: Tex-Mex
Kanji Name: オトラ
Website: none

So, on the theory that you have to try all the restaurants in your own neighborhood, I checked out the "Tex Mex Dining Bar" called Otra tonight. It's right next to the America-bashi bridge at Ebisu.

Like so many restaurants in Japan, it's good... but not great. The best thing was a wide selection of Mexican beers (Negra Modelo, Bohemia, and my fave, Tecate) as well as some truly hot food (which is almost unheard of here). The prices weren't high, but even for Tokyo the serving portions were small, so it added up.

Still, probably it's the best "mekushiko no ryori" restaurant I've been to here. I just won't stop looking for the pinnacle :-)

Otra American Bridge Bldg. 3F 1-23-8 Ebisuminami