Saturday 30 May 2009

Aburiya-Fu Do




While Daniel was staying here I found this restaurant on www.bento.com. The review suggests that they use a superior choice of beef in their yakiniku. So we got into the car and headed for the 'unknown'.

They dropped Nathan and I while the boys went to look for parking. I got nervous - what if they didnt like the place?

It was fantastic. A small well used restaurant, heavy with wood and charcoal. Downstairs is the bar in the picture but the customers sit on the floor and not bar stools. We were seated upstairs in a wood panelled room. And our host didnt speak a word of English and we too little Japanese.

First the appetizer arrived. It was a wonderful cabbage salad with a strong fried garlic and soy dressing in the silver bowl. The first food competition to arrive. We had yakiniku which brought us a braisier to cook the meat on. A most delicious nabe: Daniel wanted a soup and this came with some offal. Our host suggested he put it in and we didnt have to eat it and we all agreed. It was delicious. The combination of the offal, collagen, and simple ingredients of cabbage, chilli threads and whatever was to die for. Just dipping this rich soup into rice was all we needed to eat.

Our rice, which was meant to end the meal but we requested early for Nathan was a red rice full of grains and health. A kimchi and yakitori to complete the meal.



Wednesday 27 May 2009

Macarons

I have to list the macarons I tasted.

While Daniel was here, we did a hunt for Pierre Herme macaron. In the rush, we had googled the wrong place, drove round the posh parts of Tokyo and bought some. They did not taste like the beautiful ones Stephen gave me a few years before. The taste still remembered on my tongue. And Daniel did not enjoy the outing.

It was the first macaron I tasted in a long while. Stephen had returned from his trip to Japan with a present for me. A pack of Macarons from Pierre Herme and it was simply the best thing. The meringue itself had almond meal in them with a complex flavourings, and paired with a matching flavour in the cream in between. It seemed to be most about the complexity of delicate flavours carried with the meringue that made the little sweet a drop in heaven.

Since, we moved to Japan, macaron was becoming a big thing. I almost screamed when McDonalds cafe sold them a few years later! It carries a large profit margin, every patisserie that could, sold them. And all of them lacked the complex flavouring of the first ones I tasted. Sadly, though, I had forgotten the name of the macaron Stephen got for me, and I didn't find it again.

Nathan tried it once and we ended up getting one from Joel Rubichon with every visit to the playground in Ebisu.

We have tried

Joel Rubichon (so so)
Piere Mason
Lauduree (not again)



http://www.omnomnomad.com/2015/12/26/3-patisseries-you-must-try-in-tokyo/