Lugdunum Bouchon Lyonnais

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.

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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.

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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.

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It has to be eaten this way.

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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.

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

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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.

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Whipped fresh cheese with chives, garlic & parsley.

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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

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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.

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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! šŸ™‚

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

Michelin 3 starred Esaki

Tucked on an unassuming sidestreet in Aoyama, Esaki’s basement location makes the restaurantĀ a hard-yet-good-find. And with Esaki being on its second year on the Michelin 3 stars list, it sure is one good, if not great, find!

The chef and his apprentice.Ā  Oh how I envy the apprentice! I wonder what it takes to be one.

We had our reservation for lunch. Esaki has only one 6-course menu for lunch and it was at 5250yen – which I think makes Esaki the most affordable among the Michelin Tokyo 3 stars list, at least for lunch (dinner menu is around ~20k or more). Their ume shu is certainly not cheap though, at 1000yen a glass. In other restaurants, normal price of ume shu is at 200~500yen.

the brown-sugar one (darker) that Hubby ordered tasted better albeit it was stronger

As a support to the nationwide, if not worldwide, campaign toĀ help Tohoku recoverĀ  fast, Esaki used ingredients taken from the quake-hit regions.

First off, Sazae and Asparagus inĀ sazae liver sauce. Sazae, a turban shellfish (that looked more like a snail) harvested in Chiba,Ā tasted mushroom-like and a bit tough forĀ a shellfish. The asparagus, which was from Hokkaido, was so tender yet crisp. The sazae liver sauceĀ has a really curious alternating taste – bitter, salty, sweet. It was so delectable though that you’d find yourself spooning the sauce when you’ve already eaten the meat and veggies.Ā 

Mushroom and veggies. The mushroom came from Fukushima. I love the yam sauce with the mushroom.Ā It was slimy yes, with just a very slight hint of saltiness. The one in the apex of the triangle has a sesame and peanut sauce. It actually remindsĀ me of the peanut sauce in the Filipino Kare-kare. The beans on the other hand means to off-set the taste of the two, I think, with it being almost bland – no flavor whatsoever.

Sashimi. Thin, almost translucent slices of hirame. Very fresh, very nice.

Now this one’s my favoriteĀ among the entrĆ©e. Salmon with black rice. This kind of salmon matures during autumn. So when this kind is harvested at this season when they’re still adolescents, it makes for a creamier meatĀ that’s almost boneless (I certainly didn’t see nor felt any bone on the one served me). The salmon was fried perfectly, no fishy taste and smell at all in that I even ate the skin when normally I always keep the skin at the side of my plate, uneaten. The black rice was curiously crunchy and sticky. Fatsia sprout (taranome) tempura was also added in. The whole lot is sprinkled with salt that was extracted from the bottom of a hot spring. Very very nice.

True to the Japanese custom, rice was served last. We had Takikomi Gohan (boiled, flavored rice) with Miso soup. The boiled rice was seasoned and cooked with the cabbage from Miura Peninsula. Even though meatless, the rice was so flavorful in itself. The miso soup served was one of the most unique miso soup I had ever tasted. The button mushroom was made more slimy and flavorful by the natto added to the soup. Yep it has got that distinctly natto taste – similar to soybean yet more stronger.

The rice and miso were great combi with the houji-cha or roasted wheat tea.

Now, for dessert! We were served a bowl with a lid that would make you think that whatever is inside is something hot. Hence I had some difficulty connecting it with the fact that it was now time for dessert.

When we opened it, we got this. Suggestive of a tomato sauce.

But once we took a spoonful of the rich redness – ahhhh, it was heaven. It-was-just-so-goodĀ that each sipĀ was almost orgasmic. So goood. Ahhh, so good. Yep, it’s so good you just can’t stop exclaiming so with every spoonful. As Hubby said, it was the best dessert he has ever had in his entire life so far (glad to have had made the breakthrough on his birthday šŸ˜€ ). Puree of Amaou Strawberry from Fukuoka with a teeny weeny scoop of sherbet.

My dessert went great with the herb tea.

Ahhhh…good food!!!!

By the way, Esaki’s toilet is so pretty and clean I can stay in it and while the day away. šŸ™‚

An interesting fact: With 14 restaurants having Michelin 3-stars rate, Tokyo still tops Paris this year, making Tokyo still the center of the gastronomical world. Very interesting. And exciting, especially if you’re living in the area.

Address: Hills aoyama B1, 3-39-9 Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Telephone: 03.3408.5056
Home Page: http://www.aoyamaesaki.net (In Japanese)