When my friend Thierry was in town last weekend, we stopped into Belgo, a nice Belgian beer bar in Shibuya, and met Larry and Keiko, who we chatted with for some time. Among other things, they recommended we meet for dinner later that week at a favorite restaurant of theirs between Shibuya and Harajuku. Keiko's work intervened and although they couldn't join us, Thierry and I took up their recommendation.
Located almost exactly halfway between Harajuku and Shibuya, Setsugekka is a small-plates restaurant, which in traditional set-menu form is called kaiseki / 懐石. Setsugekka does have chef's choice set menus / omakase / お任せ which are traditional for kaiseki, but we chose to order individually. We did, however, heavily favor some of the seasonal choices on the daily menu in omakase style.
Initially, I was a bit worried since Setsugekka has a relentlessly modernist interior. Not the Japanese-influenced modernist, straight out I-could-be-in-Denmark modernist, which is emphasized by the cool 1950s jazz playing. It's also quite cleverly laid out for private dining; it wasn't a particularly busy night, but in fact we saw zero other diners other than a few coming and going. The room is just arranged such that you don't see anyone else.
When it got to the food though, Setsugekka held up the Japanese end quite well. They rearranged our orders nicely into a more traditional form, meaning that we started with a seasonal vegatable dish and then moved to the Sashimi course of a delicious tataki. A couple of the standouts were the tempura course, which had besides the more traditional options a Japanese-specifc leafy spring vegetable done as tempura. Like truly good tempura in Japan (and unlike all tempura I had ever tried in the US), this was barely greasy at all; when you're done eating, you look at the paper that came under the food and there's only a tiny discolored area from oil.
Kaiseki can be very hard on the wallet, but by the standards of that sort of Japanese restaurant Setsgekka's not bad; dinner, including a couple drinks per person (they have a reasonable selection of sake / nihonshu / 日本酒) was around Y7000. I still prefer Kan overall -- but it's good to have another option for that sort of meal.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
(report from Singapore) Indian Tapas
Name: Ghangothree Vegetarian Restaurant "House of Chaats and Shakes"
Style: Indian Street Hawker Food
Address: 5 Hindoo Road, Singapore (honest, that's how the street name is spelled)
Website: www.tasteourfood.com (sweet domain name, huh?)
Chaat seems to be basically be the Indian word for tapas, and the thing to do at Ghaangothree is to ignore all the Indian food you've ever heard of (yes, Naan and Curry are available and not bad, but that's not the point). Instead, key off of the restaurant's subtitle as the "House of Chaats & Shakes" and order lots of small plates (Chaats) and a generous amount of the various delicious drinks. The standout -- everyone should start with it -- is the house special Lime drink. Lime juice is a staple in Singapore for dealing with the hot climate, and Ghaangothree takes it up a notch by blending various spices and thickeners into it to make an amazingly cooling drink for the heat (which, in Singapore, is a constant -- it's 30C / 85F almost year-round). We also sampled one of their smoothies and their Mint Lassi at various points during the meal, which were all awesome (my friends starting joking about my "liquid diet").
But the heart of the meal is to, at your own leisurely pace, order various Chaats. Happily, like True Blue, I spent most of the meal eating foods I had never heard of before; unhappily, that means I don't remember the names of most of them. Pani Puri is the one I do remember unaided: Pani means 'water', and 'puri' (or 'poori' is it's usually spelled in Indian restaurants in America) is a puffy, deep-fried bread. For Pani Puri, the puri is tiny -- only 3-4cm across -- and has a whole in the top. You take a spoon and fill the puri first with a watery tamarind-flavored sauce, and finally with a little bit of spicy red sauce. It leaks a little, but don't worry, that's part of the point -- once it's filled, you pop the whole thing in your mouth and eat it in one bite! The liquid all sloshes around in your mouth, making a delectable taste mix. My friend Himanshu described the result as "an Indian Popper".
Another particularly good Chaat I think was called Samosa Chaat. Instead of the dumpling-like Samosa I know, this Chaat was a small, deep-friend pastry base with various ingredients heaped on top, almost like an Indian nacho in structure. Those went fast! We tried a lot of other Chaats (we had the advantage of a rolling 10-person group to keep various food flowing across the table), but the other category of food to try at Ghaangothree is Indian Chinese.
Over the years the Singaporeans have developed a few interesting mixes of Chinese and Indian foods, and the Ghaangothree it's represented as "Indian Chinese Side Dishes". These are curries, and since the restuarant is all vegetarian, your choices are to pick Manchurian, Chilli, or Sichuan; and "dry" or "gravy". The "dry" curries are pastelike and need a spoon or fork to spread them on your Naan; the gravy ones are more similar to North Indian curries. Either one is good but I recommend the Dry; it's yet another chance to try something different and uniquely Singaporean.
Last but not least, Ghaangothree is pretty easy on the wallet. Even a totally orgiastic bout of eating will only set you back S$20 or so. Take a walk back through Little India to work it off -- we went on a Sunday and so the area was packed with Indian workers on their day off.
Style: Indian Street Hawker Food
Address: 5 Hindoo Road, Singapore (honest, that's how the street name is spelled)
Website: www.tasteourfood.com (sweet domain name, huh?)
Chaat seems to be basically be the Indian word for tapas, and the thing to do at Ghaangothree is to ignore all the Indian food you've ever heard of (yes, Naan and Curry are available and not bad, but that's not the point). Instead, key off of the restaurant's subtitle as the "House of Chaats & Shakes" and order lots of small plates (Chaats) and a generous amount of the various delicious drinks. The standout -- everyone should start with it -- is the house special Lime drink. Lime juice is a staple in Singapore for dealing with the hot climate, and Ghaangothree takes it up a notch by blending various spices and thickeners into it to make an amazingly cooling drink for the heat (which, in Singapore, is a constant -- it's 30C / 85F almost year-round). We also sampled one of their smoothies and their Mint Lassi at various points during the meal, which were all awesome (my friends starting joking about my "liquid diet").
But the heart of the meal is to, at your own leisurely pace, order various Chaats. Happily, like True Blue, I spent most of the meal eating foods I had never heard of before; unhappily, that means I don't remember the names of most of them. Pani Puri is the one I do remember unaided: Pani means 'water', and 'puri' (or 'poori' is it's usually spelled in Indian restaurants in America) is a puffy, deep-fried bread. For Pani Puri, the puri is tiny -- only 3-4cm across -- and has a whole in the top. You take a spoon and fill the puri first with a watery tamarind-flavored sauce, and finally with a little bit of spicy red sauce. It leaks a little, but don't worry, that's part of the point -- once it's filled, you pop the whole thing in your mouth and eat it in one bite! The liquid all sloshes around in your mouth, making a delectable taste mix. My friend Himanshu described the result as "an Indian Popper".
Another particularly good Chaat I think was called Samosa Chaat. Instead of the dumpling-like Samosa I know, this Chaat was a small, deep-friend pastry base with various ingredients heaped on top, almost like an Indian nacho in structure. Those went fast! We tried a lot of other Chaats (we had the advantage of a rolling 10-person group to keep various food flowing across the table), but the other category of food to try at Ghaangothree is Indian Chinese.
Over the years the Singaporeans have developed a few interesting mixes of Chinese and Indian foods, and the Ghaangothree it's represented as "Indian Chinese Side Dishes". These are curries, and since the restuarant is all vegetarian, your choices are to pick Manchurian, Chilli, or Sichuan; and "dry" or "gravy". The "dry" curries are pastelike and need a spoon or fork to spread them on your Naan; the gravy ones are more similar to North Indian curries. Either one is good but I recommend the Dry; it's yet another chance to try something different and uniquely Singaporean.
Last but not least, Ghaangothree is pretty easy on the wallet. Even a totally orgiastic bout of eating will only set you back S$20 or so. Take a walk back through Little India to work it off -- we went on a Sunday and so the area was packed with Indian workers on their day off.
(report from Singapore) What rhymes with Peranakan?
So, I was in Singapore for the last five days and as always when in Singapore, it's about the food. The next couple posts are some fantastic places I ate in the land of multi-ethnic food. Besides these places, if you go to Singapore, be sure to try Jumbo Seafood for Chili Crab or Pepper Crab, and of course any hawker place for Chicken Rice!
Leo
----------------------------------
Name: True Blue
Address: 117 East Coast Road Singapore
Style: Peranakan
Website: None, but you can Google quite a few reviews with "True Blue Singapore"
Peranakan is the word in Singapore for the culture also known as Straits Chinese. In a sentiment that seems sensible to Americans (but unusual in Asia), Peranakans happily relate that theirs is a culture resulting from the blending and intermarriage of migrant Chinese with the Malays found on both sides of the Straits of Malacca, and now settled in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Peranakan culture has a lot of the decorative motifs of Chinese culture, but incorporates Malay manners of dress, and, significantly, cooking!
On Saturday night in Singapore we went to a great Peranakan restaurant called True Blue. It's located in a beautiful traditional building (117 East Coast Rd. for any Singaporeans reading!) that includes a display of lots of Peranakan antiques and arts. The proprietress clearly kept the house in order as we assembled our array of dishes. Happily, twice on this trip to Singapore, I went to dinner and did not know the names of hardly anything I ate! At True Blue, we shared around about 8 dishes; the only dish I had ever heard of before was the delicious version of Beef Rendang, which was good but not the highlight of the meal.
The standout was probably the chicken-nut dish (like most of the food, I've forgotten the real name). It's made with a black Malay nut, resulting in a very dark brown appearance not unlike a Mole sauce. The taste is as deep a taste as a Mexican Mole but with more earthiness, and since this is infused in a slow-cooked piece of chicken-on-the-bone, the dish comes with a tiny spoon that you use to essentially scrape the chicken meat off of the bone.
However, every dish we got at True Blue was absolutely delectable. We actually chose to try wine with our dinner, but truth to tell the food is probably better served by Singaporean juice drinks or beer. Prices were reasonable though this is no hawker restaurant! The only downside I can list for True Blue is that if you don't have someone who knows Peranakan cooking with you, it may be hard to order -- even though you can read the menu, you just won't know what any of the dishes are! Just ask the staff, who are very friendly.
Our friend David Hook's birthday happened to be the day we went, so we asked the staff and from somewhere they consed up a birthday cake for the confused honoree.
The picture also gives you some idea what the interior of True Blue is like.
Leo
----------------------------------
Name: True Blue
Address: 117 East Coast Road Singapore
Style: Peranakan
Website: None, but you can Google quite a few reviews with "True Blue Singapore"
Peranakan is the word in Singapore for the culture also known as Straits Chinese. In a sentiment that seems sensible to Americans (but unusual in Asia), Peranakans happily relate that theirs is a culture resulting from the blending and intermarriage of migrant Chinese with the Malays found on both sides of the Straits of Malacca, and now settled in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Peranakan culture has a lot of the decorative motifs of Chinese culture, but incorporates Malay manners of dress, and, significantly, cooking!
On Saturday night in Singapore we went to a great Peranakan restaurant called True Blue. It's located in a beautiful traditional building (117 East Coast Rd. for any Singaporeans reading!) that includes a display of lots of Peranakan antiques and arts. The proprietress clearly kept the house in order as we assembled our array of dishes. Happily, twice on this trip to Singapore, I went to dinner and did not know the names of hardly anything I ate! At True Blue, we shared around about 8 dishes; the only dish I had ever heard of before was the delicious version of Beef Rendang, which was good but not the highlight of the meal.
The standout was probably the chicken-nut dish (like most of the food, I've forgotten the real name). It's made with a black Malay nut, resulting in a very dark brown appearance not unlike a Mole sauce. The taste is as deep a taste as a Mexican Mole but with more earthiness, and since this is infused in a slow-cooked piece of chicken-on-the-bone, the dish comes with a tiny spoon that you use to essentially scrape the chicken meat off of the bone.
However, every dish we got at True Blue was absolutely delectable. We actually chose to try wine with our dinner, but truth to tell the food is probably better served by Singaporean juice drinks or beer. Prices were reasonable though this is no hawker restaurant! The only downside I can list for True Blue is that if you don't have someone who knows Peranakan cooking with you, it may be hard to order -- even though you can read the menu, you just won't know what any of the dishes are! Just ask the staff, who are very friendly.
Our friend David Hook's birthday happened to be the day we went, so we asked the staff and from somewhere they consed up a birthday cake for the confused honoree.
The picture also gives you some idea what the interior of True Blue is like.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Yum! Yakiniku!
Name: Maritan / まりたん
Neighborhood: Shimokitazawa / 下北沢
Style: Yakiniku
Website: None, but there's a Yahoo Gourmet page
At the recommendation of Polygon's head of Human Resources, Kikuchi-san, we trekked north from Shimokitazawa on Friday night to this allegedly superior yakiniku restaurant.
Yakiniku is the style of Japanese eating with a charcoal pit in the center of the table. The raw meat is brought thinly sliced on separate plates -- usually they'll try to bring as many slices as you have people at your table, roughly -- and diners grill the meat themselves, followed with dipping in ponzu, shoyu, or lemon sauces.
Yakiniku is always pretty good, we actually have a yummy place right next to work with very reasonably priced lunch yakiniku set (Y1000). But Kikuchi-san attested that Maritan was special in that regard, and so we found ourselves trekking north from Shimokitazawa station.
Unlike the extremely nigayakana (lively) south side of Shimakitazawa, the north side is actually very quiet, and it took a little backtracking to find Maritan, especially because we were distracted by the barkers for the restaurant upstairs (Maritan is on B1). They were very friendly and tried their best to convince us to abandon our reservation and accompany them inside their street-level new restaurant. With diligence we pried Damien away and went down to Maritan.
The ambience of the restuarant is, frankly, nothing special; it had the expected four-person tables, that we squeezed 5 around. Drink ordering was a challenge for the non-Katakana readers, but we realized they had a selection of 3-4 French wines, one of which Damien knew the Chateau for. This led to our first disappointment: high-class yakiniku or no, they refrigerate their red wines, like most restaurants in Japan. It took plenty of persuasion to convince Damien not to try and instruct the proprietress in the error of her way (refrigerated red wine is what the Japanese customers will expect).
As we went through trying to order our meat, the proprietress wasn't looking any too happy at having a table full of gaijin in her restaurant. While I can read the names in the menu (most names are written in katakana), that doesn't help much unless you know what the words actually mean (anybody: what is horumon?), so we were asking lots of questions in Japanese, then struggling with food-word-vocabulary to understand the answers. At one point she asked, "Have you ever eaten Yakiniku before?"
We got through ordering various courses of meat and went on to the daily-special appetizer (always order the daily special in a Japanese restaurant): Yukke / ユッケ. Yukke is a lot like Steak Tartare, it's raw beef minced with various spices. However, the big difference is that Yukke is better! It was absolutely delicious. We all uttered appropriate exclamations of happiness, mostly in Japanese, which warmed up the proprietress' attitude a bit.
They started bringing our plates of meat, and the proprietress had decided that as soulless barbarians we would ruin the meat if she let us cook it ourselves. Since that absolutely would not do, she took over and started cooking the meat for us, which she continued to do for pretty much the entire meal.
We got into the main part of the meal: sliced pieces of various parts of a cow. Omigod. It. Was. Good. We actually didn't realize there could be this much variation among yakiniku places, but everything we tried was good: rohsu / ロース, which is basically short for roast beef; horumon / ホルモン, which we think is intestine although we're not sure; karupi / カルピ, etc. We exercised all of our complimentary vocabulary expressing our delight.
The highlight of the mail by universal acclamation was the hattsu / ハッつ, beef heart. It was delicious, tender, and totally came apart in your mouth. We were also pretty grateful for the lady's cooking assistance, since the heart only wanted to be cooked for a very short time; left to our own devices, we would indeed have overcooked it.
By the end of the mail, the now-friendly proprietress introduced herself as the restaurant's namesake: her name is Maritan, and she's been there since the place opened 15 years ago. They're clearly learned how to run a superior yakiniku operation in that time and we'll be back! Big thanks to Kikuchi-san!
After we left Damien went back to causing trouble with the cute barkers upstairs, but that's a story for another post ;-).
Note: The only warning I would have about Maritan is that it's really not practical to go unless you either have some Japanese speakers in your party, or know at least know the various dishes you're likely to encounter at a yakiniku restaurant by heart. You're not in Roppongi anymore.
Neighborhood: Shimokitazawa / 下北沢
Style: Yakiniku
Website: None, but there's a Yahoo Gourmet page
At the recommendation of Polygon's head of Human Resources, Kikuchi-san, we trekked north from Shimokitazawa on Friday night to this allegedly superior yakiniku restaurant.
Yakiniku is the style of Japanese eating with a charcoal pit in the center of the table. The raw meat is brought thinly sliced on separate plates -- usually they'll try to bring as many slices as you have people at your table, roughly -- and diners grill the meat themselves, followed with dipping in ponzu, shoyu, or lemon sauces.
Yakiniku is always pretty good, we actually have a yummy place right next to work with very reasonably priced lunch yakiniku set (Y1000). But Kikuchi-san attested that Maritan was special in that regard, and so we found ourselves trekking north from Shimokitazawa station.
Unlike the extremely nigayakana (lively) south side of Shimakitazawa, the north side is actually very quiet, and it took a little backtracking to find Maritan, especially because we were distracted by the barkers for the restaurant upstairs (Maritan is on B1). They were very friendly and tried their best to convince us to abandon our reservation and accompany them inside their street-level new restaurant. With diligence we pried Damien away and went down to Maritan.
The ambience of the restuarant is, frankly, nothing special; it had the expected four-person tables, that we squeezed 5 around. Drink ordering was a challenge for the non-Katakana readers, but we realized they had a selection of 3-4 French wines, one of which Damien knew the Chateau for. This led to our first disappointment: high-class yakiniku or no, they refrigerate their red wines, like most restaurants in Japan. It took plenty of persuasion to convince Damien not to try and instruct the proprietress in the error of her way (refrigerated red wine is what the Japanese customers will expect).
As we went through trying to order our meat, the proprietress wasn't looking any too happy at having a table full of gaijin in her restaurant. While I can read the names in the menu (most names are written in katakana), that doesn't help much unless you know what the words actually mean (anybody: what is horumon?), so we were asking lots of questions in Japanese, then struggling with food-word-vocabulary to understand the answers. At one point she asked, "Have you ever eaten Yakiniku before?"
We got through ordering various courses of meat and went on to the daily-special appetizer (always order the daily special in a Japanese restaurant): Yukke / ユッケ. Yukke is a lot like Steak Tartare, it's raw beef minced with various spices. However, the big difference is that Yukke is better! It was absolutely delicious. We all uttered appropriate exclamations of happiness, mostly in Japanese, which warmed up the proprietress' attitude a bit.
They started bringing our plates of meat, and the proprietress had decided that as soulless barbarians we would ruin the meat if she let us cook it ourselves. Since that absolutely would not do, she took over and started cooking the meat for us, which she continued to do for pretty much the entire meal.
We got into the main part of the meal: sliced pieces of various parts of a cow. Omigod. It. Was. Good. We actually didn't realize there could be this much variation among yakiniku places, but everything we tried was good: rohsu / ロース, which is basically short for roast beef; horumon / ホルモン, which we think is intestine although we're not sure; karupi / カルピ, etc. We exercised all of our complimentary vocabulary expressing our delight.
The highlight of the mail by universal acclamation was the hattsu / ハッつ, beef heart. It was delicious, tender, and totally came apart in your mouth. We were also pretty grateful for the lady's cooking assistance, since the heart only wanted to be cooked for a very short time; left to our own devices, we would indeed have overcooked it.
By the end of the mail, the now-friendly proprietress introduced herself as the restaurant's namesake: her name is Maritan, and she's been there since the place opened 15 years ago. They're clearly learned how to run a superior yakiniku operation in that time and we'll be back! Big thanks to Kikuchi-san!
After we left Damien went back to causing trouble with the cute barkers upstairs, but that's a story for another post ;-).
Note: The only warning I would have about Maritan is that it's really not practical to go unless you either have some Japanese speakers in your party, or know at least know the various dishes you're likely to encounter at a yakiniku restaurant by heart. You're not in Roppongi anymore.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Oliveto's of Japan
Name: Ristorante la Bisboccia
Neighborhood: Hiro-o/Ebisu 広尾／恵比寿
Style: Italian
Phone: 03-3449-1470
Website: http://www.labisboccia.com/
This is a very overdue review of a very deserving restaurant!
Last November I was leaving work on a rainy Thursday and happened to mention to Yoichi that it was my birthday. He immediately rounded me and Matt up and got us a table at La Bisboccia, which is actually just around the corner from Polygon's offices. It's just south of the Tengenjibashi 天元寺橋 intersection near Hiro-o.
It's decorated in the very conventional bistro style adopted by a lot of Japanese restaurants serving European food. However, unlike the typical overcooked pasta places found around Tokyo, La Bisboccia is a superb grill-oriented Italian restaurant. The specialties are various grilled meats -- between the three of us we tried the steak and the lamb and both were delicious, grilled darkly on the outside but still medium-rare to rare on the inside.
Even the pasta side dishes were excellent, it being almost the only time in Japan that I've actually had al dente pasta (I find restaurant pasta here typically overcooked). If that's not good enough, there was a great wine list as well, which typically for Japan focused on European wines.
Of course, this being Tokyo, that excellence didn't come cheap. We had a good quantity of wine and I believe the bill was around 12,000yen per person, and accordingly, Wiktionary translates "la bisboccia" as "the spree". Nevertheless, for a great meal on a special occasion La Bisboccia is definitely on the list!
Neighborhood: Hiro-o/Ebisu 広尾／恵比寿
Style: Italian
Phone: 03-3449-1470
Website: http://www.labisboccia.com/
This is a very overdue review of a very deserving restaurant!
Last November I was leaving work on a rainy Thursday and happened to mention to Yoichi that it was my birthday. He immediately rounded me and Matt up and got us a table at La Bisboccia, which is actually just around the corner from Polygon's offices. It's just south of the Tengenjibashi 天元寺橋 intersection near Hiro-o.
It's decorated in the very conventional bistro style adopted by a lot of Japanese restaurants serving European food. However, unlike the typical overcooked pasta places found around Tokyo, La Bisboccia is a superb grill-oriented Italian restaurant. The specialties are various grilled meats -- between the three of us we tried the steak and the lamb and both were delicious, grilled darkly on the outside but still medium-rare to rare on the inside.
Even the pasta side dishes were excellent, it being almost the only time in Japan that I've actually had al dente pasta (I find restaurant pasta here typically overcooked). If that's not good enough, there was a great wine list as well, which typically for Japan focused on European wines.
Of course, this being Tokyo, that excellence didn't come cheap. We had a good quantity of wine and I believe the bill was around 12,000yen per person, and accordingly, Wiktionary translates "la bisboccia" as "the spree". Nevertheless, for a great meal on a special occasion La Bisboccia is definitely on the list!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Delightful Japan-made IPA
Name: Baird Beer
Style: Beer
Neighborhood: n/a
Website: www.bairdbeer.com
OK, so this isn't exactly a restarant review, but I ended up sampling some Baird Beer due to a wonderful specialty liquor store in my neighborhood. This stuff is awesome!
As you can see at their homepage, Baird Beer is a western-style microbrewery and associated brew pub in Shizuoka. However, they also have retail distribution and best of all, will ship anywhere in Japan. Unfortunately for you California readers, they can't ship overseas (though admittedley, you have other beers to console yourselves with!).
Style: Beer
Neighborhood: n/a
Website: www.bairdbeer.com
OK, so this isn't exactly a restarant review, but I ended up sampling some Baird Beer due to a wonderful specialty liquor store in my neighborhood. This stuff is awesome!
As you can see at their homepage, Baird Beer is a western-style microbrewery and associated brew pub in Shizuoka. However, they also have retail distribution and best of all, will ship anywhere in Japan. Unfortunately for you California readers, they can't ship overseas (though admittedley, you have other beers to console yourselves with!).
Friday, November 30, 2007
Mexican Party Place
Name: Zona Rosa
Neighborhood: Ebisu
Style: Mexican
Website: http://www.mic21.co.jp/
We had a party for all the foreign staff at work last Wednesday to celebrate the arrival of our two newest members, Ilija and Aasa. After trying unsuccessfully to arrange a trip to Ushi-tora,
we got a recommendation for this Mexican-style izakaya in Ebisu. It's very close to the East exit from Ebisu station.
While I can't say that their Mexican food will have any North American restaurants worried, Zona Rosa is a pretty good choice for an evening of fun. We got the nomihoudai / のみほうだい / 飲み放題 / all-you-can-drink along with a pre-set course for 4000円, which pretty much kept the drinks and food coming for a good two hours. Unlike a lot of places, there's actually a good selection of cocktails among the nomihoudai list so peoplel were trying all sort of Campari and Cassis options.
Neighborhood: Ebisu
Style: Mexican
Website: http://www.mic21.co.jp/
We had a party for all the foreign staff at work last Wednesday to celebrate the arrival of our two newest members, Ilija and Aasa. After trying unsuccessfully to arrange a trip to Ushi-tora,
we got a recommendation for this Mexican-style izakaya in Ebisu. It's very close to the East exit from Ebisu station.
While I can't say that their Mexican food will have any North American restaurants worried, Zona Rosa is a pretty good choice for an evening of fun. We got the nomihoudai / のみほうだい / 飲み放題 / all-you-can-drink along with a pre-set course for 4000円, which pretty much kept the drinks and food coming for a good two hours. Unlike a lot of places, there's actually a good selection of cocktails among the nomihoudai list so peoplel were trying all sort of Campari and Cassis options.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)