“It’s not how much you do that counts, it’s what you get done.”- Jake Adelstein, Tokyo Vice
We walked to the club lounge early the next day for breakfast, and to handle the logistics for our dinner at L'Effervescence that evening. Breakfast at the lounge was mostly consistent each day, a fresh omelet, some toast, fruit, and a cappuccino which the staff was aware I wanted each morning and had it ready moments after we arrived. Following breakfast, I met with Mariko, the club concierge, to figure out how we would get to the restaurant. I had forgotten that RC provides complimentary transportation to areas adjacent to the hotel. I'm not sure the exact distance (I think it's about 5 km) but fortunately L'Effervescence was within that window, and so, Mariko arranged for the car service downstairs in the evening. I assumed that it would be one of their BMWs or Mercedes vehicles that would take us there. It was not.
Following breakfast, we took the metro to Tokyo Station (I think it was Tokyo station) and boarded the Shinkansen to Utsunomiya, and then switched to a local train to the Tobu Nikko Line. Overall, the trip took about two and a half hours door to door. Our initial plan for Nikko was to see 1. stroll around Lake Chuzenji, 2. aee Kegon Falls, and, 3. make our way through the temples, followed by a nice snack of dango, and calmy make it back to hotel. The plan obviously failed spectacularly. Upon arrival, we did not realize that it would take approximately an hour by bus to get to the lake and waterfall area, and an hour back. Our dinner reservation at L’Effervescence was at 7. Thus if it takes one hour to get to the falls, one hour to get back to the main Nikko area, 2.5 hours to get back to our hotel, and it was 12pm when we arrived at Nikko, we would never make it. Thus, we abandoned our ambitious plan to stroll down the lake and see the falls, which I had really wanted to do. The best laid plans of mice and men… yadda yadda yadda, everything went to hell.
Instead, we made our way through Rinnoji, Toshogu Shrine, and the accompanying area and forest. Toshogu shrine is still under renovation, and will remain so until the end of 2018 or early 2019, but you can still go inside and climb the top. It’s also interesting to see the renovation process, which is very intricate and time intensive. Basically, they have to remove all the pieces of wood that has been devoured by termites, and replace each segment.
As we traversed through each shrine and temple, we made sure to get a shuin for our shuin-cho. A shui-cho is a blank book you can buy at any temple or shrine in Japan (each temple/shrine has unique book), and for a small fee, you can have the temple’s/shrine’s priest write in ink calligraphy the temple’s name, name of the deity and date of visit, and then issue the unique temple/shrine stamp. The style of shuin is different in every temple. It’s a great way to remember your visit and we have made sure to do it in every temple/shrine we have visited. Our Shuin-cho that we got at Koyasan on our last visit is almost full!
Following our visit to the UNESCO temples, we made our way back to the town center for one goal. To devour dango. Dango is one of those quintessential Japanese foods that you really can only get there. I have scoured NYC for some good dango, but there doesn’t seem to be any available. The packaged abomination at Japanese grocery stores are an insult to the confectionery. My one rule with dango, is that the older the woman proprietor, the better the dango. We decided to go to Nikko Miyamae Dango for our dango fix. This establishment focuses on a soy sauce based dango which was delicious. In typical fashion, your dango is accompanied by some matcha tea. Most importantly we were served by a septuagenarian woman, so, based on my rule, it was wonderful.
Following our snack, we made our way back to the train station, and back the Ritz Carlton. Surprisingly, we made it back by five p.m., and seeing as I had some time, I decided to check out the sauna and gym. The gym and pool area are impressive for a city hotel, with spectacular views and a well equipped gym. However, one pet peeve was the fact that to use the steam room, Japanese baths, and sauna, you have to pay 30 USD. This to me seems like an unnecessary nickle and dimeing for such a hotel. I coughed up the 30 bucks, and I did enjoy the sauna, Japanese baths and steam room. I was also impressed with the shower products in the steam room area, which differ significantly from those in the gym showers. The quality was much better, and there was every hair care product under the sun including Shiseido products. I guess that’s where my 30 bucks went.
Following my schvitz, I met up with my wife who was enjoying some cocktails in the club lounge, and we made our way down to the the car. Remember how I said I assumed the car service would be a BMW or Mercedes from the RC fleet? Well Mariko hooked us up. We instead took the RC’s Rolls-Royce Phantom. Priced at about $400,000, I never imagined being in the back seat of one, but here we were going approximately 3 miles in an inordinately luxurious vehicle. We arrived at L’Effervescence, and I’m convinced the nearby neighbors thought we were celebrities or something, because they gawked. Or maybe it was the car. Yeah it was probably the car. My wife and I have debated what we liked more L’Effervescence or Ryugin. I preferred Ryugin, my wife loved L’Effervescence. Regardless, bother were incredible meals, and I will acknowledge L’Effervescence had some outstanding and unique dishes.
There were two gems in this meal, First was “Darker”, a dish composed of bonito, lotus root, burdock, shiso seedpod, and natto made fresh by monks from a temple. Natto is a love/hate thing, but I can assure you that this natto would be loved by all. This was a pure umami bomb. The second best dish was the “Autumn Foothills Hike”, with the chrysanthemum ice cream being the stand out component. It was both refreshing, with a flowery and almost citrus-like note. We elected to get the 5 course wine pairing plus a glass of champagne, wherein you are given 5 glasses for the 12 courses. We enjoyed each of the pairings, but my favorite was the Azienda Agricola Valentini Trebbiano d'Abruzzo. The meal ended with “world peace” and consisted of a traditional matcha green tea ceremony. The tea was paired with a peanut drink that was basically liquid peanut butter. Both were excellent. Overall the restaurants’ Japanese dishes using French techniques is well worth the price and is deserving of it’s two stars. The service was excellent and the sommelier and staff were very knowledgeable and friendly. My only critique is that the restaurant was very warm (which I have found typical of all Japanese restaurants and airlines, JAL I’m looking at you). This was definitely a great start to our culinary adventure in Japan, but sushi was still on the horizon.