Tokyo Part 2 Day 3
On this Friday we planned to devote ourselves to food. We started the day by going to Tsukiji for some breakfast. I used to love Tsukiji back when the outer and inner market were in the same place, as you could avoid the crowds and see the action by venturing in to the working area. Now, the actual work is done elsewhere so the outer market is the attraction in and of itself. In the end, it has a ton of restaurants and trinket shops. Everything definitely had a tourist premium.
We had a breakfast of delicious grilled oysters and tuna collar.
Then we indulged in some crab legs from a different vendor.
From there, we headed to Ginza for some shopping and then the main event: a 2 Michelin Star lunch at Zurriolla.
Service was phenomenal from the start and I highly recommend a counter seat. Only warning is make sure to just get the tap water, something I wish we did instead of the fancier (read pricy) spring water.
Our feast.
We each enjoyed wines as per the sommeliers recommendations. It was nice that we were given options without having to worry about prices, as by the glass they seemed to be all the same.
I’ll interrupt letting the pictures to call out how amazing the cocoa tea that came with the dessert was. I doubt we will ever have something as delicious and unique anytime soon.
Our lunch was simply sensational, the food, service, and value were all top notch. We paid about $250 for two people with a few drinks. Highly recommend!
From our indulgent lunch, we headed to Kippabashi Kitchen Street to browse the stores. It was definitely a mix of shops meant for tourists and shops meant for actual restauranteurs. We enjoyed looking at the flatware and ended up purchasing a set to take home.
From there, we headed back to Roppongi for a pre-dinner drink at Hiro’s which is my favorite bar in the world. It is an oasis nestled on the second floor of a building and feels like a smoky back room where business deals should be completed over a whiskey and cigar. My fiance loved her cocktail while I sampled Japanese single malts.
After Hiro’s we headed over to Yokota for a tempura dinner. Yokota was in the Michilen guide in the mid 2010’s but is no longer and has a new owner. The original proprietors son has the nearby Ten Yokota which is currently in the guide. We enjoyed our meal, probably because we didn’t know better, and I definitely would only go here as a last resort if you strike out at other similarly priced but better tempura places.
Delicious eel soup to start.
Shrimp heads before the shrimp itself.
Delicious bite.
I will skip about 5 courses in the pictures but there was a bit of a communication barrier. The chef did say all the names in Japanese which was nice. Our favorite vegetable was what I believe was Japanese eggplant. Delicious!
At this point, I did have a major faux pas as the chef said “finished” after the last piece. I interpreted this as the meal was over and asked for the check. Turns out we still had a rice course and desert to come. Oops!
Solid sorbet.
And tea to conclude.
I am sure if we planned further in advance we could have gotten a better reservation. But considering we decided on tempura about 48 hours before the meal, I was happy we were able to get a nice coursed one. The Hyatt Regency concierges were great, I think I had them reach out to 10 different places first to try and get us a table.
To be continued!