About food in Japan

Lunch at Ginza - French, Le 6eme sens

Meal cost at Ginza is considered expensive. I found an exception here. The cafe lunch shows high cost performance.

The Michelin star restaurant Le 6eme sens by an experienced French chef Dominique Corby offers a reasonable alternative for lunch time at Ginza. The restaurant is located in the west part of Ginza, on a gourmet street called コリドー街(korido gai) along with Yamanote line railway and Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway(首都高速). The cafe-bar space with large glass window can be easily found from the street.

Weekend lunch price starts from Yen1500 for starter, main dish and dessert.

It costs only Yen2000, even with a glass of wine. The menu changes day by day maybe and provides no selection list for each plate. But still it is quite reasonable considering the quality of food come from the Michelin awarded kitchen.

Here the menu I had,

Starter - salty cake with vegetable, Main - chicken breast, Dessert - caramel nuts cake with vanilla ice cream along with a cup of coffee.

 

 

La cabane - cheese bar

The place is one of my most favorites, even though it is not so much related to Japan food

The bar is located in quite area of Kagurazaka, 10minutes away from Iidabashi station.

As long as I know, it is only "cheese bar" in Tokyo, apart from another unit with same name by same owner in Ebisu. Yes you can find over 30 kinds of fresh, traditional cheese mainly (or all?) from Europe with selections of glass or bottle wine that must be fantastic "mariage" with cheese.

We always order several selections of cheese on a big plate. Each small piece of fine quality cheese will be served by a piece for a person, with leaf vegetable, pieces of French baguette and/or dried fruits. The bar staff knows what is the best match with the cheese served and is happy to give you suggestions to taste the specialties in the best way. Enjoy "travel around the world or in the Europe" by having local traditional cheese from several regions. Not so many Japanese people could appreciate such very unique local food like blue or fermented cheese. For those who know the goodness of it, it is the place they must visit.

Samples of cheese plates:

   

 

The bar is in dark and it is always not easy to take a nice picture of fantastic cheese on plates...

They looks like "takuan" Japanese pickles uhhn... they smell too coinsidently.

Only one problem of the bar is to be closed at early evening , 23h00. We have to finish dinner quickly before going to the bar or we taste the cheese plate as a starter.

Bar name: La Cabane

Address: Morita Mansion 1st floor, 26 Fukuro-machi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

Macrobi cafe

Japanese have great parties with tons of traditional food plates, box during new year holiday. Days after the joyful moment, ladies start thinking a change and loosing their weight as soon as possible...

Macrobiotic cafe might be a choice to help such ladies being back to a good shape.

"Macrobi cafe" in Shinjuku offers small portions of food, called "Suhi cake", made by genmai (brown rice 玄米) but look like a piece of cake. Plenty of choices such as mix of vegetables, pork cutlet, traditional Japanese ingredients are given for topping on genmai cake. Wether it is lunch time or tea time, the small piece in colors with sweet taste will give you delight of eating and of filling stomach. 

Restaurant name: Macrobi cafe

Address: 3rd floor In the Room Shinjuku, 3-1-26 Shinjuku-ku, Shinjuku, Tokyo

*It is announced that the interior shopping complex "In the Room"(the cafe location) will be close at the end of February 2010. I am not sure how the cafe will go or not. At least I am sure that similar type of cafe will appear in somewhere Tokyo again soon.