Lugdunum Bouchon Lyonnais

Posted on December 31, 2011 by goodfoodhunt

Good food is best shared with good friends. And so for our bounenkai/Christmas lunch party early this December, Maj and I decided we try out this 2011 Michelin one star newbie – Lugdunum Bouchon Lyonnais.

Facade is real pretty.

The inside is a bit cramped and we were ushered immediately to our seats after our coats were taken hence we weren’t able to take a photo of the place.

Maj and I decided to go for the 5-course Canuts menu although we each chose a different course.

House-made tarama & toast served with seasonal salad for Maj.

Duck foie gras panacotta with green Puy lentils for me. I don’t eat liver and there are times foie gras isn’t that good but Lyonnais did good with this one. This one I think is my favorite for that meal. The bacon was served whole, for aesthetics purposes.

It has to be eaten this way.

Next up is our soup for the day – Pumpkin soup with blue cheese. My second favorite. So creamy I just love it. The pumpkin soup we had in our wedding by K by Cunanan was REALLY good but the one by Lyonnais is still much better. That’s probably how it is to be a Michelin starred resto.

They serve the dishes mostly in a gray clay slab but all their china bear the resto’s name.

My main dish is scallops and lobster. The scallops were great. But the whole dish smelled fishy, the kind that can almost make someone with a very sensitive stomach gag. Beyond the smell though, the dish tasted good especially the scallops. But I’d say this is the least of what I liked in our Lyonnais meal.

Whipped fresh cheese with chives, garlic & parsley.

Dessert time! After having had forgotten to take a photo of Maj’s main course, I made certain I took a photo of her dessert with the Lyonnais logo powdered into her clay slab. Traditionnal pink praline tart & snow egg style

Mine was Eskimo Iced pumpkin, hot chocolate and hazelnuts. You’re supposed to dip your ice drop into the hot chocolate. I know I’ve already had the pumpkin soup so having pumpkin again for dessert is kind of redundant. But I sure don’t mind since it was really good. And boy, it was really wholly made of pumpkin.

Food was really good I think. The only thing though is that you have to consume your five-course meal in less than two hours as they have sort of a time limit for their lunch meals. Yes, even on a weekend.

Still though, the place is worth a try and pretty affordable at that.
Do check the place out! 🙂

Lugdunum Bouchon Lyonnais
1st Floor, Ebiya Building, 4-3-7 Kagurazaka,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0825

Ginza Tenkuni

Posted on November 30, 2011 by goodfoodhunt

This place I’d probably always remember as a “happy news” place. 🙂 And of course IT IS a good food place!

A tempura restaurant, what is probably unique with Ginza Tenkuni is that they have their own (great) tempura recipes that you’d hardly find in any other restaurants.

This kakiage was my first favorite in the restaurant. A tempura of mixed shrimp and scallops flavored with Japanese soy sauce.

The other day though, we tried the Yuki set, which we considered almost a feast.

First came in the sushi with the chawanmushi.

Didn’t realize how much I missed sashimi. It’s been almost two months! The chawanmushi, supposedly an appetizer, I set aside for later. Yes, I’m the type who sets aside their favorites for later. Delaying gratification, yes.

The salad, dressed in a Japanese sauce that was a mixture of sweet, salty and sour was just so light and perfectly blended you’d want to have another serving. This one goes to the favorites column.

The main Yuki meal.

Their miso is not your usual kind of miso. It leans on the soy sauce taste and is a bit bitter-salty. Taste and smell is strong too. The meal also has a cold pork side dish, in sesame and onion.

They had the usual shrimp/fish/vegetable tempura.

But they won me with these two unique tempuras – scallop wrapped in seaweed and shiitake mushroom stuffed with shrimps.

Don’t mind the grease though. Ginza Tenkuni fry their tempura in sesame oil. Sossy.

The chawanmushi served as my dessert. Chawanmushi (茶碗蒸し) is actually an egg custard usually served as appetizer. Served hot, the custard (which is of course not sweet at all) is stuffed with mushroom, shrimp, chicken, ginna (ginkgo seeds which hubby absolutely loves especially as yakitori) and peppered with some herbs.

I giggled when I saw the saucer they used for the chawanmushi. A definite place for the cup and the convex of the spoon. A place for everything and everything on its place.

Located at Minato Mirai, Landmark Tower, Ground floor, left side if coming from Minato Mirai line.

All photos were taken from my iPhone cam.

Shake Duo

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Marjorie

Hubs requested that we drop by Book Express for his book shopping fix on our way home from office. It was a good thing this duo was doing a performance in the open space in front of JR Sakuragicho Station. They were pretty good! Hence I had a good time as I waited for hubs. I noticed though that most of us who were watching were women.

(sorry for the shaky cover on the first minute. I dropped my PET bottle and had to retrieve it haha 🙂 )

They were giving away flyers for their upcoming concerts; their first album is selling at ¥2500 yen.

In fairness the vocalist’s voice was good and blending with the backup was good as well. Beatbox man was pretty good too! No wonder many were hanging around to watch them instead of the usual handful of watchers for other singers on other days.

Hope to hear more from you guys.

Mikoshi in Gumyoji

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Marjorie

Hubs and I doesn’t really keep ourselves updated with the community billboard hence it came as a surprise to us when we went out the house and met some Mikoshi-costumed people and heard the boom of drums a few minutes after.

Right around the end of August, just when the peak of summer has just passed and temperatures have started to drop a bit, Mikoshi (神輿) parades are held all over Japan. The Mikoshi is actually a sacred palanquin where the spirits or diety of that particular festival are ceremoniously enshrined. Mind you, the mikoshis really are elaborately designed.

The Mikoshi is carried around by the people taking part in the parade.

The sacred palanquins are preceded by the drums, announcing its passage.

I once participated in a Mikoshi parade back in 2007 and interestingly enough, it was also here in Gumyoji. I can’t say though that I’d do it again. We didn’t wear tabi (足袋 or たび or the traditional Japanese socks) though like what this year’s participants did.

And it seems more elaborate this year because the priest paraded with the group.

Yeah there’s a high probability that I just didn’t notice the priest parading with us back then, laden as we are with the Mikoshi (yes, it is heavy!). But I do believe this year’s Mikoshi is more festive, more passionate, more feverish than it was years before. I could think of one reason why it is so but whether I’m right or wrong, it makes me happy that this kind of tradition that has been around for centuries is still going as strong as ever.

Bunko and Obon

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Marjorie

We were pretty much holed up inside our home the whole day. Hubs was pretty busy cutting up his books, scanning it and uploading in his Dropbox application so he can retrieve it in either his iPhone or iPad with the ibunko app. By scanning books, we can save up some room in the house (if a person buys an average of 10 books a week, you can pretty much imagine how his house looks like) and he can read them whenever or wherever he likes. Of course his favorite books won’t be dissected.

So since he’ll be cutting books, you can imagine how big his cutter was. Honestly though, I didn’t imagine the cutter to be as big as this! I was pretty confused with the size of the box when I was signing the delivery form.

And I was pretty impressed with the scanner Hubs ordered from Amazon. It can scan a back to back paper in just a second, without having to flip the paper to scan the other side like the one we had in the office.

Fruit of Hubs’ labor today. From iBunko App

Bunko by the way is a small sized paperback that’s pretty popular here in Japan.

Having had stayed inside the house the whole day, we were surprised that outside our the house, a festival was ongoing in the open field just a few steps from our apartment. Thankful that we had to go out for dinner, otherwise we would have missed this traditional Japanese event.

Obon Odori (お盆盆踊り) is one of the summer festivals in Japan. Obon is the Buddhist tradition of honoring the dead and it involves Odori or dancing. Most of the participants (basically our neighbors) were wearing their summer kimonos.

It’s a good time for neighbors to bond as well.

We dropped by the Obon Odori when we were on our way out. Later, laden with heavy purchases from the grocery, we were able to catch the last part of the Odori for a (very) short video.

Happy weekend everyone!

Sugamo Konaya (Landmark Tower)

Posted on August 20, 2011 by goodfoodhunt

I thought I had mapped out already all the restaurants in Landmark Tower. But when hubs suggested we eat at the curry udon shop for dinner after office, I totally had no idea as to its location. Situated just right the corner, just before Soup Stock Tokyo, this restaurant’s facade really looks quite unassuming.

But I was mighty impressed with it’s interior.

Traditionally, udon is dipped in soy sauce or 醤油 (shōyu). However, this shop offers a different kind of alternative.

I’m not big on curry; if I can avoid eating it, I’m happy. But for Konaya’s curry sauce, I wouldn’t mind having it with udon several times a week.

Oh, see that shrimp above? They have several set menus that offer this angel shrimp (yep, that’s how it was called). Now, I really love shrimps but this one is just sooooo good.

Surprisingly, it comes really affordable at only 1050yen for some set meals, including the ones we ordered.

Do try it out! 😉

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A chocolatey journey, with Yui!

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