Monday 29 December 2008

The Wedding

Haha, I now feel like my eyes' all puffy, with tears just on the brim...blame it on Nicholas Sparks' "The Wedding", haha.

It's the holidays, and what with all the parties being over and done with (there's only the big New Year party left), I've nothing to do but read, watch movies/dramas and sleep as late as I want as my friends whom I always hang around with are on homeleaves right now.

My day started at 2pm (the previous day ended at 5 am this morning though..haha), ate my sausage lunch whilst watching "Goong". I finally forced myself to take a bath so I could go out, catch the beautiful sunset (believe me, sunsets on a clear spring/autumn/winter here in Japan is truly breathtaking!), take my coats to the dry cleaners, take a stroll, look for sparklers/party poppers for our New Year party, and enjoy a cup of coffee after withdrawing some money from the ATM.

Wanting to have some privacy and to limit chancing upon somebody I know in Starbucks Kannai and to try out a new coffee flavor, I chose to stay at BadAss Coffee Shop. It turned out a good decision as the Hawaiian songs and later some Jack Johnson songs was relaxing and sooo sets the mood...to emote..hehe. The Kona cafe au lait laced with banana was somewhat weird; but it was sweet and it somehow fitted in with the mood.

Though I know, ideal guys could only be found on a Nicholas Sparks novel, still, I can't help but be melodramatic and be a hopeless romantic as I read the book. I started reading the book since the other night, but I just could not read it straight, as I find my eyes welling with tears every now and then. haha. There was this one part of the book where Wilson was recounting when he first realized he was falling in love with his girlfriend (who was to become his wife). Having read the last sentence of that chapter - "I knew what it meant to finally fall in love" - I have to stop reading and look up so as to keep the page from getting wet with a fallen tear. I had to look up to keep those darn tears at bay.

Having had finished my coffee (Can't afford to be sentimental in the coffee shop haha!), I left the coffee house and hopped my way home.

Maybe, my ideal man is still out there and that he just doesn't exist within the pages of a novel. Extra wait, Extraordinary, as a reading in Didache once said...

Wednesday 17 December 2008

brains, innards or....fish balls???

Limapuluh was easy to find surprisingly; it was situated inside a commercial square called La Place which somehow reminded us of Greenbelt. It was raining last Sunday hence it was just as good that we've reserved for a table at the dining room and not at the terrace. I like the ambiance at the bar area though (^^) but we were there for lunch so we've no choice but be in the dining area. As we weren't able to book for a table at a Michelin-starred resto, Kitty and I decided not to dress up. Hence we looked like maids (and our guy friends, like driver/boy helper hahaha) next to Zoey and Maj who were dressed fit to dine at L'auberge.

Having been frustrated with the Michelin-starred resto, we ordered the most expensive lunch set they had - which was still waaay cheaper (1/3?) than L'auberge or Quintessence or even Merveille. Among us, only Kitty and Zoey can read Japanese and hence we all didn't bother to look at the appetizers and entrees since it's a lunch set and the choices we have can only be either fish or meat for the main dish. Besides, the menu we found on the website were pretty safe (I don't eat liver/heart and the like) so order the set, we did.

As it turned out, you can't have a choice of your fish or meat. I mean, there's only a limited number of beef dishes and if they ran out of it already (as what happened to our guy friends' orders), you have no choice but to take the deer entree. Us girls chose fish but it was somewhat frustrating to learn that we could not have the certain dish we want; they can only give us 3 of this certain fish entree and the other one will have to make do with the other fish entree. Having no choice, we just said okay.

Water was readily served in a bottle on our table - it's free so there's no great-tasting water this time, like what we had in Vinoteca and Cicada. The Champagne we had was also just left to sit on our table - not cradled on a bowl like in Vinoteca and Cicada. We also miss the olive oil & wine dip in Vinoteca and the different olive oil choices in Cicada (you can choose among Californian, Spanish, Italian, Greek and French olive oils!).

My spirit was getting gloomier by the minute as it was really becoming evident that the restaurant we chose was not really that special. I mean the place was good actually and the bar was impressive but then the choice we had wasn't as special as location for our December fine dining.

My spirits somewhat rose though when they served our appetizers in front of us. The presentation was nicely done that I thought that it was living up to it's "French restaurant" claim.





Ate the vegetables first. Nice. Took a forkful of the thingy on the middle our plates whilst asking each other "what's this?". The crunchy part was nice. And then I saw an intestine-like shape on my food and said "is this brain?". But we rationalized that it's unlikely to be brain since it's too big a serving and hence should be more expensive. I was still poking my food and just ate the crunchy parts and all the while saying "masarap naman dba??" until Maj commented that it seems I was not really convincing them of the taste but that I was saying it as like a mantra..to help me get through eating it; which I still didn't finish by the way. When finally the main dish was served, we asked the waiter what was the appetizer. Said it was "Shirako" and gestured to say that it was part of a fish's entrails; making me relieved I didn't eat the entire thing. I had two glasses of champagne, had my main dish, had a strong coffee with uber chocolatey chocolate cake and yet the taste still lingered. Even when we were already having karaoke 3 hours later, the taste still lingered.

Later that evening, Kitty sent us this link for us to learn what Shirako is.
http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/25585/

Blech!
Who would have thought that a "rare treat" such as sperm er, cod milt would be served us that lunch??! We asked for something memorable for our dine out and we sure did get it hahahaha..

Thursday 11 December 2008

December fine dining reservation hullabaloo

It's my turn to arrange our fine-dining experience for this month and it being December, we all agreed we can have it on a more special restaurant albeit, a bit more expensive one. Having had Italian, Mediterranean and Mexican in the last three months, we thought of going French this time. And, as we've been having strings of parties since the beginning of December, we had no other option but to have this month's "dinner" to lunch. Hence, I took the temerity to look up Michelin starred French restos around Tokyo as lunch set menus are usually a lot cheaper than dinner.

In no way was I prepared though with the reservations hullabaloo...

I asked Kitty, Maj and Zoey to choose between L' Auberge, Mervielle, and Nouvelle Ere.
L' Auberge (
http://www.hiramatsu.co.jp/eng/restaurants/aubergedelill-tokyo/) has been our first choice as its main branch in Alsace, France has been rated 3-stars for 41 consecutive years! It opened its first "branch" in Japan last May and has been rated since as Michelin 1 star resto in Japan. We found ourselves racking our wardrobes, thinking about suitable outfits (even thinking of shopping for clothes!) fit to enter the resto's double doors at the top of a large staircase. haha. I even looked up in the internet how to correctly pronounce the lunch set that we were planning to have; though I was having some trepidations that what if, wine/champagne is not yet included on the set?? I just assured myself though that we can always order a Moet et Chandon Champagne. Safe huh? hehe.

Merveille (
http://www.eatpia.com/merveille/index.html) was our second close choice as it's more homey than L'Auberge and cheaper by maybe 1k yen..=P And as Zoey put it, we can eat at our element here.

Nouvelle Ere (
http://www.augoutdujour-group.com/no/index.html) was awarded by Tokyo Michelin Guide 2008 one star as well but somehow it took the back stage in our selection process.

When finally I've confirmed the number of attendees in this month's dinner (we decided to invite our guy friends on this usually-girls-night-out event since it's a special month anyways), I called up L'Auberge, with the intent of asking as well the proper dress code in their resto. Hence, I was not prepared when I was told that they were fully booked already, both Sunday and Saturday for the whole month of December, both lunch and dinner.

Called up Merveille. Fully booked as well although they have a vacant table this Sunday - which is not our option since we couldn't have a late night out on a Sunday. Nouvelle Ere, same reply. Called up Au Gout du Jour (
http://www.augoutdujour-group.com/au/index.html) as well, but again, the same "sorry, fully booked reply".

Undaunted, I looked up more French restos and fell in love with Quintessence (
http://www.quintessence.jp/english/concept.html), a 3-star Tokyo Michelin guide awardee.

I gave my friends other alternatives as well so I also suggested Joel Robuchon (
http://www.robuchon.jp/ebisu/robuchon.html) and Bistrot D'artemis (http://www.bento.com/rev/2655.html).

Of course, Quintessence won with Bistrot D'artemis in second.

For reservations, you can only call Quintessence at 9:30~11am and 3:30~5pm. I couldn't even get through!!!! Their hotline was really hot..always busy...=( I tried calling minutes before and after the designated time but I got a recorded answer that they only receive calls for reservation at so and so hours..

Already saddened, I called up Bistro D'artemis but got the same sad reply. Even expensive Joel Robuchon was fully booked as well!

Huff! Either people in this part of the world are French crazy or it's cause we are in recession that people only go fine dining for lunch or there just are hundreds of "ladies-who-dine" or it's just that time of the year when people would like to get together and spend more than usual..huhu..

This evening, I called up the revolving restaurant in Hotel New Otani (
http://www.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/restaurant/sky/) and for the umpteenth time, got the "sorry we're fully booked" reply. I looked up My Humble House (http://www.mhht.jp/) which were among our choices last October (Cicada won that time) but they're only open for Dinner, no lunch. I read in Metropolis that this is fast becoming as a favorite together with Cicada in Hiroo (our favorite so far!!!^_^) and Legato in Shibuya. Hence I looked up and called Legato (http://www.legato-tokyo.jp/en/shibuya/home/welcome). But they dont serve lunch on saturday and sunday.

Phew!!! I've looked up a number of restos and came to like a couple or two of them, only to be disappointed..sniff..

We finally settled on Limapuluh (
http://www.englishok.jp/shops/limapuluh/) where finally there's some available space for us. Zoey said this is Indonesian for 50. An article in Metropolis (http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/592/bars.asp) told us there's lots of "eye candys" here. Haha. Hope we'll get that bargain and enjoy real good food and service as well.

One good thing to note though. We need not shop for new wardrobe. haha.

And oh yeah!! I just remembered. Originally, we actually planned to have this month's night out as a Cirque du Soleil (
http://www.zed.co.jp/home_en.php?skip=1) experience. However, when I inquired for ticket availability a couple of weeks ago, I was informed that weekend performances for December and January are already fully booked.

Tough, huh! =P