Portugal in Tokyo

Name: Manuel Marunouchi
Neighborhood: Marunouchi
Style: Portuguese
Website: http://www.manuelm.com/marunouchi/

The last night all of my SIGGRAPH Asia friends & Co-workers were in town, Kanako organized a get-together of friends at this basement restaurant. It's a small personally-run place in the basement of one of the giant buildings in Marunouchi, and Portuguese food turns out to be a similar take on Iberia to its Spanish neighbor -- lots of small plates, with highly varying spices.

The standout dish of the evening was the beef stew, which we ended up ordering three times (we were a big group of about 12 by the time everyone made it), but there was lots to love here -- pork dishes, vegetable sides, and of course an excellent wine list.

We would have been remiss if we didn't finish with a glass of port, so I had the Tawny -- pleasure I haven't had in Tokyo for quite awhile. This place isn't expensive for what it is, but that's still to say you're not going to get out for less than 5000yen per person unless you totally abstain from the alcohol. And with a winelist like this, that would be wrong.