Monthly Archive: October 2006 [42]
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October 31, 2006
Asterix (アステリックス)
We had the 4725yen dinner course. The Bread is very good!
鴨のフォワグラと蕪のキャラメリゼ パルサミコソース。
スープ・ド・ポワッソン ルイユ添え。
Foie gras saute with turnip Caramélisée in Balsamico sauce. This is quite good.
Fish soup with Rouille(a paste made from olive oil and breadcrumbs and hot chile peppers apparently), grated cheese and croutons. Too many slices of croutons! They absorbed most of the soup and were simply too stomach-filling. The little amount of soup left to drink was too salty.
仔羊のロースの炭火焼き。
クスクスと仔羊のナヴァラン アリサ添え。
Charcoal-grilled lamb chop. The meat is soft, great charcoal smell.
Couscous and lamb. My friend's choice is a good one. The ratatouille is sweet and very nice with the couscous. A big plate too. The two guys sitting next to us both ordered this dish so probably quite popular?
バナナのラム酒風味フランベとバニラアイス 温かいチョコレートソース。
フランボワーズのキャラメル クレープ包み。
Banana Flambées with rum, vanilla ice-cream and hot chocolate sauce. This is nice. Love the cookie around it, which goes perfectly well with the banana and the rum sauce.
Framboise caramel crepe. The custard cream inside the crepe is too sweet already, plus the caramel and raspberry sauce....I could only eat one.
A lot of customers were foreigners, and there was English menu available, though not as complete as the Japanese one.
Menu: 1, 2, 3.
Asterix
Comments(3) [ french food | 麻布・六本木・赤坂 ]
October 30, 2006
WungThong Thai Restaurant (ワントーン)
エビとレモングラス炒め、１０５０円。もち米、３５０円。
This place used to be "Thai Classic" but before I had a chance to try it, the owner changed and turned into another restaurant, also Thai. Went around 8pm and wanted fish, but all the fish were already sold out. I had the stir-fried prawn with lemon grass, which was very nice, refreshing lemongrass smell, lots of other ingredients including mushroom, cashew nuts, carrot, onion, bell pepper and two kinds of chilli. I requested for more spicy taste and it came out really hot, not tongue-numbingly hot though, until I tried to eat the chilli. ^^;; Glutinous rice was a bit hard and dry, should have ordered normal rice.
October 29, 2006
梅園
粟ぜんざい。
Awa-zenzai - traditional Japanese sweet made from millet and red bean paste, served hot. The millet is made into very sticky paste, so nice!!!!!
梅園 (Umezono)
UPDATES!
A new branch on the 7th floor of Takashimaya Nihonbashi. I think the awa-zenzai tastes better in the original shop in Asakusa.
Comments(5) [ japanese sweets | 浅草 ]
夢境庵
鴨せいろ、１６００円。
Duck "seiro". The soup was a bit salty and oily, not bad though cos it had strong duck flavour and very hot. Duck meat was a bit hard. The soba looked like it wasn't cooked upon order. This place closes at 7:30pm and I went at around 6:30pm...maybe I went too late?
Last visit here. I went late last time too, but I ordered soup soba which was hard to tell if the soba was premade or not.
夢境庵
October 28, 2006
Ristorante IL NIDO (イル・ニード＠下北沢)
Vegetables in marinade and sardine with olives on top. Quite a solid plate for a palate teaser. The foccacia is a little dry but alright.
青りんごで包んだ フォアグラのテリーヌ。
コルドネッティ 魚介のジェノヴェーゼソース。
Antipasto: Terrine of foie gras wrapped in green apple. Apple is sweet and foie gras is salty, my favourite combination! Though the foie gras is slightly soaked, probably because of the apple? A piece of smoked duck on the side which is quite dry.
Primo: Cordonetti with seafood genovese. The pasta has the chewy and elastic texture of Japanese yakisoba! ^^;;; Genovese is not the usual basil paste, but chopped fresh basil mixed with olive oil. Despite the unexpected taste and look, I like this dish!
山形牛のソテー。
口直し：ローズマリー、タイム、アニスのシャーベット。
Secondo: Yamagata beef saute. The sauce is just Balsamico and olive oil I think. The vegetables are great. The beef is fatless and not too soft, need a lot of chewing but it is not bad. My friend's fish is nicer.
Sorbet of rosemary, thyme and anise. Very refreshing.
ババとキャラメルセミフレッド。
Baba with caramel Semi Freddo. It is very good! Not too sweet, the sponge is soaked with rum, the ice-cream is smooth. My friend's simple Panna Cotta is absolutely delicious too. I am very impressed by the desserts here, as I always think desserts are boring in Italian restaurants. ^^;; Comes with espresso and little sweets, which are both nice. Lunch course is 3500yen. Glass wine is 900yen. Service charge is 600yen per table. Overall it was quite a satisfactory lunch, slightly salty was the general impression. In fact we both felt quite thirsty afterwards, but the level of saltiness was acceptable for me. This restaurant has only 4 tables and a capacity of 12 people at the most - a very small place even for Tokyo. About 10 minutes walk from the nearest Shimokitazawa station if you don't get lost, which we did. ^^;; There is no cheaper lunch course than the one we ordered, probably part of the reason why we were the only customers during the entire lunch time even though it was a Saturday and the area near the station was crowded with people.
IL NIDO
October 27, 2006
蟻月
レバ刺し。さつま揚げ。
Raw liver. Deep-fried fish cake.
卵焼き。
Egg roll with mentaiko. Soft and fluffy, very delicious!
白のもつ鍋(みそ)。赤のもつ鍋(しょうゆ)。
White "motsu" hotpot. Red "motsu" hotpot. White is miso, red is soy sauce, "motsu" is cow intestine. All very good! I like the white more. We added noodles to the soup which was heaven. Though I stank of garlic apparently but you simply don't notice it yourself. ^^;; Everyone was saying this place is super popular and very difficult to book, which I am lucky not to have to do it myself. ^^;; Old entry here.
蟻月
Comments(9) [ my favourites | japanese food | 渋谷・恵比寿・代官山 ]
October 26, 2006
Pâtisserie Atelier de Rêve Boutique Mont-Blanc (ブティックモンブラン)
丹波栗のモンブラン、６５０円。
"Tanba" chestnut mont blanc. I can't resist anything labelled "limited sale"...^^;; The chestnut is much richer than the one I had last time. Though instead of a very nice tart, the bottom part of this one is a slightly soggy biscuit.
紫芋のモンブラン。フランボワーズのモンブラン。
Taro Mont Blanc. Framboise Mont Blanc.
The taro cream is good, with cream and chocolate sponge cake underneath. The framboise one is a bit sweet, with sponge cake, cream and raspberry mousse underneath.
Comments(4) [ cakes and sweets | 池袋 ]
FromHandToMouth＠早稲田
本日のクレープ： ツナピザ＆ローストポーク。
Today's crepe lunch: Tuna pizza crepe and roasted pork crepe. Omelette with ketchup, persimmon and ham, and salad on the side, comes with coffee, 750yen. The crepe is made from rye and soba flour hence the natural brown colour. The texture is sticky and soft, served hot, very good! Also got a corn bread to take away, which has cous-cous mixed in the dough apparently, also good. I was sight-seeing(^^;;) around Waseda university with friends and I did check beforehand where to eat lunch but most of the recommended places were ramen or curry, and we weren't in the mood for ramen or curry, so I grabbed a fashionably-dressed student, which was plenty around(^^;;), and asked her for nice places to have lunch and she recommended us this place. Good choice! The university area is very nice and pretty, too bad it was raining and kinda cold that day that we couldn't walk around more.
FromHandToMouth
Comments(2) [ other areas in tokyo ]
October 25, 2006
梅丘 寿司の美登利 (SHIBUYA MARK CITY)
Steamed egg, and salad with crab miso.
超特選にぎり、２１００円。 中とろ２カン、うに、たい、赤貝、松葉がに、大甘海老、イクラ、穴子、ねぎとろ巻き、玉子。
あぶりづくし、８１９円。
The 2100yen set has two toro, uni, bream, ark shell, crab, shrimp, salmon roe, anago, spring onion and tuna roll, and sweet egg. Very fresh and big size(while the rice is small)! We shared the flame-cooked sushi set, and I had the toro, very good!
秋刀魚、１５７円。関サバ、３５０円。白子焼き、８５０円。
The seasonal stuff, two san-ma(saury?) and one seki-saba(mackerel). Both are good! The mackerel is so cheap yet very fatty. Grilled shirako is the seafood version of foie gras, creamy!
This place is always very crowded and you have to queue forever. I went once before, like 4 or 5 years ago. It was very delicious but the long wait put me off from going back again. This time we went at 9pm on a weekday and we were seated very quickly! Though we had to order everything quickly cos the last order was 10pm.
梅丘 寿司の美登利
Comments(8) [ my favourites | japanese food | 渋谷・恵比寿・代官山 ]
October 24, 2006
DOLCE-ROMANI (ドルチェ ロマーニ)
ウニとアスパラのクリームソース。ランチは９８０円。
Spaghetti with sea urchin and asparagus in cream sauce. The pasta and the sauce didn't taste like they were cooked together, but the sauce was creamy and quite tasty and had spinach and tomato in it. The reason why I took 200 pictures at a cheap lunch like this is that, it was my 4th attempt to go to this place for lunch! First time it was closed, thought maybe they no longer do lunch, then another day I passed by and it was opened for lunch but I was in a hurry and couldn't go in. I went back the 3rd time and it was closed again! So when I actually ate there, it felt like a precious experience....^^;;
DOLCE-ROMANI
Comments(3) [ 池袋 ]
October 23, 2006
Cafe 登美亭
ミルククレープケーキとコーヒーのセット、９００円。
I am sucker for cafes with wooden interior and have to venture in even though I know a cup of coffee will usually cost as much as lunch. ^^;; Milk crepe cake and coffee, 900yen.
Comments(4) [ 大山・板橋 ]
れすとらんABC
カツカレー、６８０円。
Pork cutlet curry, so cheap! The curry is a bit salty but yoshoku curry is like that anyway. Surprisingly there were a few groups of female customers amongst the guys.
れすとらんABC
Comments(3) [ 池袋 ]
October 22, 2006
Tanta Roba (タンタローバ)
１８００円のランチ。前菜の盛り合わせ、リコッタチーズを詰めた自家製トルテッリフレッシュトマトソース、ドルチェ盛り合わせ。
1800yen holiday lunch course. The appetizer is such a big plate! Ricotta cheese tortelli in fresh tomato sauce. Amaretto ice-cream and panna cotta. Food is good, portion generous, nice homely atmosphere, a great place!
Tanta Roba
October 21, 2006
紀庵
天せいろの合い盛り（うどんとそば）、１４２５円。
Half udon half soba, with tempura. Usually tempura soba or udon is quite expensive but this place is cheap, yet the quaity is high. Both the soba and udon have very strong texture, a lot of chewing needed but I love that. The tempura is nice too. I waited for about 20 minutes, but it is written on the menu that everything is made fresh upon order so it will take a while. You can choose strong or light tsuyu(the soy sauce you dip the soba and udon into), and I chose the strong one and it turned out a bit too strong for me, the light one would have been better. I like this place though!
紀庵
October 20, 2006
petit d'or (プティドール)
モンブラン。タルト・フリュイ。タルト・ポワール。ガレットと抹茶クッキー。
Mont Blanc, Tarte aux Fruits, Tarte Poire, galette and matcha cookie. The Mont Blanc is the best! Multi-layers from top to bottom: marron cream, whipped cream, marron paste, sponge cake strong with alcohol, and chocolate coated sucré. It is very small but so rich with marron flavour - I love it! The fruit tart and the pear tart are not bad too, though the tart is the soft type, not the crispy type I like. The pear one is very sweet. The cookies however are no good, mainly because they are not properly sealed and are not crispy, even though I think they are probably not that old.
petit d'or
Comments(5) [ cakes and sweets | 大塚・茗荷谷・後楽園 ]
BUDDHA (ブッダ)
マトンカレー、８００円。
Mutton curry, comes with salad and chai. The naan is thin, crispy in the middle, and quite dry in texture...not quite my favourite kind of naan. The curry is a bit mild too.
BUDDHA
Comments(2) [ 池袋 ]
October 19, 2006
Brasserie Gus (ブラッセリー・グー)
フォアグラのテリーヌ。ウズラのバターライス詰め。
Foie gras terrine. A thin slice but very rich foie gras taste. The salad, especially the asparagus is so good.
Roasted quail stuffed with butter rice. My friends said the rice tasted like piraf in yoshoku place. ^^;; The quail is tender, the vegetables are plenty and very tasty, the sauce is not too heavy.
ヌガー・グラッセ。
Nougat Glace. Lots of nuts and dried fruits, nice too.
Full course dinner(not including coffee) is only 2980yen, so cheap! Such a feminine restaurant - the staffs and the customers are 100% female. The food is mild and healthy tasting and lots of veggy, yet the portion is not too small. Though the wine-based cocktail I ordered was mainly just plain soda, and the glass wine was not a generous amount....better to order a bottle of wine instead. I have come here for lunch before (see old entry here) and I had the 2100yen lunch and it was wonderful. Very popular place so must book in advance.
Brasserie Gus
Comments(13) [ french food | 飯田橋・神楽坂 ]
October 18, 2006
豆腐 room Dy's
夜のひとりごはんセット。
A cafe specialised in tofu. Dinner set for 1 person, forgot exactly how much but I think it was less than 2000yen. The two appetizers were both tofu, the one on the left was more smooth, the waitress said something about the powder thing on top but I couldn't catch her words, it tasted like grounded nutshells...pretty tasteless. ^^;; The tofu on the right had a rough texture, with sweet and slightly hot miso on top. A big pot of soy bean tea(Okara-cha), tasted like Barley tea(Mugi-cha).
サラダ。大豆とコンビーフのごちそう 豆腐サンド。
A big plate of salad with tofu, pine nuts, sesame seeds, yuba(dried tofu skin), dried little shrimps and other spices. The heavy amount of spices used actually made it very tiring to eat the whole plate...
Soy beans and corned beef and tofu sandwich. The soy beans were mixed with the corned beef. The bread used was "English bread" apparently. The sandwich was quite good, the tofu was grilled and the bread was toasted. Though the corned beef was too heavily peppered, and if you don't eat it quickly(e.g. busy taking pics...^^;;;) the bread will become watery because of the tofu. Some crackers and pickles on the side, which was unnecessary I thought....the pickles were strong with spice too.
できたてのお豆腐、黒蜜ときなこ付き。
Dessert was also tofu...by that time I was actually quite tired of it...^^;; Freshly steamed tofu, which was not sweetened. Black honey and soy bean flour on the side to add yourself...in fact I added all of them and it was still not sweet enough. ^^;; Gosh I was so full from all that tofu and my tongue a bit numb from too much spice. Though I think the tofu itself isn't among the better ones I have eaten, and the seasoning relies too heavily on spice and nothing else. A full course is definitely too much. Just ordering the sandwich will be great though if you crave a healthy meal.
豆腐 room Dy's
October 17, 2006
La Campana (ラ・カンパーナ)
ワンプレートランチ、１５００円。ガスパチョ。
Holiday lunch at a Spanish restaurant. Gazpacho - Spanish chilled soup made from tomato, cucumber, onion and bell pepper. Very nice and refreshing.
豚ロースのスバイス焼モルーノ風とチーズ、トマトのボカディージョ。
タパス２種盛合わせ：穴子のフリッターとスパニッシュオムレツ。
Bocadillo(Spanish sandwich) with grilled spicy pork, cheese and tomato. Also fried anago and spanish omelette and salad. Good quality food...and in large quantity! The baguette is fresh, the salad is delicious, and the anago is just fried and very hot. I did want a little bit more salt for the anago and the omelette, but I was happy enough.
The lemon and chocolate cake is pretty normal though. Lunch menu here and here.
La Campana
October 16, 2006
ブタ肉専門定食店 BOOMIN
トンデキセット、９５０円。
Pork steak set. Comes in a hot plate, the sauce is butter and caper, very good! I was the first customer and after me, two people ordered the same set and it got sold out already! The steak is nice but the pork I had last time was more juicy and fatty. The shop looks so cute, you wouldn't imagine the menu is all pork and the cooks and customers are all guys. ^^;;
BOOMIN
Comments(4) [ 池袋 ]
October 15, 2006
啜処 灰汁美
つけ麺。皿ワンタン。
Tsuke-men and wonton. The soup - made from dried salmon, pork and chicken etc. - is sour and sweet and chilli-powder kind of spicy...don't really like it. Charshu is a bit hard and dry, the wonton is pork, quite heavy with salt and heavy. Need to drink a lot of water to eat all these. Stuffed up to my throat by the end.
灰汁美
Comments(3) [ 池袋 ]
伊勢ろく
秋野菜ピリ辛そぼろ親子丼、９４５円。
Autumn vegetables and spicy minced chicken and egg rice bowl. It is a chain restaurant specialised in chicken. This branch inside a mall is not very good. So weird that you use those plastic spoons for take-away even if you eat inside the restaurant.
伊勢ろく
Comments(5) [ 池袋 ]
October 14, 2006
よし房凛
蕎麦味噌の春巻き。越前おろし蕎麦。
Soba spring roll with miso and shiso, very good! Echizen soba: radish, spring onion and dried bonito. It is not bad but I think there is too much radish...at the end I could just taste the radish. Shouldn't have mixed them all even though the lady staff told me to.
Last visit here and here.
よし房凛
Thai Restaurant Mekong (メコン)
Lunch buffet, 1000yen. I was just thinking the soup tasted really salty and weird, then later realised it was actually very diluted red curry with only a few pieces of chicken and a lot of radish. And I put this in my mouth and was devastated that it didn't belong to the fried vegetables...dunno where I was looking. All the food I took were pretty bad too.
Comments(8) [ 池袋 ]
October 13, 2006
MANAKAMANA (マナカマナ)
豚あばら肉煮込みカレー（コルマソース）、ナン付きで１２８０円。マンゴヤンラッシ、４８０円。
Back to this nice local curry place. Last visit here. Pork sparerib curry(Korma sauce). Mild and creamy, very nice! The naan is soft and hot from the oven as usual, very massive but so good that you can finish it in no time and want more. Mango Lassi cocktail - very sweet and quite strong in alcohol.
MANAKAMANA
Comments(6) [ good cheap eats | 大山・板橋 ]
キッチンABC
薬膳大蒜焼肉盛り合わせ。カニクリームコロッケ・海老フライ付、９３０円。
Garlic yakiniku, crab cream croquette and fried prawn. The menu says the sauce for the yakiniku is prepared with sesame seed, garlic, ginger, spring onion and other spices. It is quite good, in a junk tasting sort of way. Comes with rice - which I find very very yummy I dunno why and end up eating too much of it - and soup. Though for a male-oriented restaurant, the portion is not as big as I expected.
キッチンABC
October 12, 2006
屯ちん
とんこつラーメン＋みそ＋得入り。
Tonkotsu ramen with miso and assorted toppings. The soup is thick but very good - surprisingly it is not the usual unbearably salty pork bone soup in other ramen places, but actually drinkable. The chashu(pork) is one of the best I have had in Ikebukuro. Only that the ramen is also one of the softest and most overcooked...^^;; Later I checked out other people's reviews and it seems like the noodle is always that soft, and I wasn't just unlucky. This place is very popular so always a looooong queue. Though when I went, I got a seat immediately, and after I sat down, a queue suddenly formed outside the shop. ^^;;;;
屯ちん
Comments(2) [ good cheap eats | 池袋 ]
Trattoria La Croce (ラ・クローチェ)
カプリチョーザ（いろいろのってる前菜サラダ）。
Salad with smoked salmon, omelette, salami, mozzarella and pate. Quite savoury.
４種のチーズソース ペンネ。バナナケーキ。ランチは１２６０円。
Penne with 4 different kinds of cheese. It looks plain but the cheese sauce is very rich. The penne is unfortunately overcooked...banana cake is so-so. Instead of plain water they serve you (despite diluted) iced peach tea.
La Croce
October 11, 2006
池袋 鮨幸
にぎりランチ、１２６０円。
The simmered tuna appetizer and the clam miso soup tasted better than the sushi which were not very fresh....
鮨幸
Comments(6) [ 池袋 ]
October 10, 2006
Pesce (ペッシュ)
プッタネスカ（オリーブ、ケッパー、アンチョビのトマトソース）、１０５０円。レモンチーズタルト、＋２１０円。
Puttanesca(olive, caper, anchovy in tomato sauce). Lemon cheese tart. The tomato sauce tastes very canned tomatoes(^^;;) but hearty and comforting and in big portion - like eating at home. The tart is just so-so though. So many kids and seniors even on a weekday's lunch time, probably living nearby?
Pesce
October 09, 2006
Turkish Restaurant & Bar ANTEP (アンテップ)
Moussaka - minced lamb, aubergine, tomato, onion, green pepper and egg. Came with salad, mushroom soup, and butter rice, 880yen. Chai, +100yen. Somehow the menu says minced beef, but the distinct smell of the meat I was served had got to be lamb. The Moussaka was only lukewarm when served - it came really quickly - otherwise it was not bad. The mushroom soup was way too salty though.
More photos: 1, 2.
ANTEP
Comments(5) [ 池袋 ]
October 08, 2006
Pâtisserie Atelier de Rêve Boutique Mont-Blanc (ブティックモンブラン)
New open cake shop in Ikebukuro yeah! Marron mont blanc, 450yen. With coffee, +230yen. It is marron cream, on top of fresh cream, on top of marron, on top of a tart with pastry crumbs around. Not a big fan of meringue so glad that there isn't any. The taste of the marron doesn't stand out but overall quite good. The tart is slightly sticky, I like!
More photos: 1, 2.
Atelier de Rêve
Pâtisserie Atelier de Rêve Boutique Mont-Blanc
Comments(7) [ cakes and sweets | 池袋 ]
島ぬ風
沖縄そば定食、８９０円。
Okinawa soba lunch set. The soba is chewy, the soup is light-tasting, and the simmered belly pork is soft. I like the sticky texture of the shima-tofu. Only the brown rice is a bit soggy. There is a bottle of chilli on the table which is soaked in awamori, and I accidentally put too much of it into the noodles...my god it is so HOT!! ^^;; The restaurant is in a department store and seems to be a chain, but it serves lunch until 5pm which is quite handy.
島ぬ風
Comments(4) [ 池袋 ]
October 07, 2006
うさぎや
どらやき、１８０円。うさぎまんじゅう、１６０円。
Quite a famous shop for dorayaki in Tokyo. I really like it and have had it quite a few times but never blogged it properly here. This time I got the very cute rabbit manju as well, which has smooth red bean paste inside. Dorayaki is better. ^^;;
うさぎや
UPDATES! (03/2008)
桜餅。鶯餅。草餅。
Sakura mochi. Uguisu mochi. Kusa-mochi.
おはぎ。 Ohagi.
彼岸団子。
Higan Dango.
Comments(6) [ japanese sweets | 本郷・根津・湯島・上野 ]
Bar Del Sole (高輪バール・デル・ソーレ＠品川)
マグロのカルパッチョ、いわしのエスカベーシュ、ベーコンとブロッコリーとインゲン豆のトマトソーススパゲッティ、豚ロースのグリル、ザバイオーネアイスとカフェマキアート、１０００円。
Appetizer: tuna carpaccio and sardine escabeche. Pasta: bacon, broccoli and kidney beans in tomato sauce. Main: grilled pork. Cafe Macchiato and Zabaione ice-cream. Comes with salad and some really cold and hard bread. You need to choose 2 appetizers from 5, a pasta from 2, fish or meat for the main, rice or bread, even ice-cream and drinks have a long menu. I would have been overjoyed to have so many choices if the food had been good, but the quality was not worth all the fuss....Lunch was 1000yen, certainly cheap for a "full course" I guess. ^^;;;
Bar Del Sole
Comments(2) [ other areas in tokyo ]
October 06, 2006
Ariapita FOOD DELIGHT (closed)
エビとゴーヤのカレー味卵ごはん、８００円。
Fried prawn, gourd and egg with curry. It is very good!! Every ingredient tastes fresh and the egg is soft and fluffy. The restaurant is on the 4th floor of an old and dodgy-looking building, located at the back of the huge Ikebukuro Tokyo Hands store. I have passed by that area so many times but never noticed this place - amazing cos my eyes only search for eating places when I walk! ^^;; Look how scary and unwelcoming the entrance is: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Who would imagine the interior to be so nice and clean!
Ariapita
Comments(4) [ 池袋 ]
October 05, 2006
La Saetta（ラ・サエッタ）
自家製サルシャチャ 有機野菜のペンネ トマトソース、１０００円。
Penne with Salsiccia and organic vegetables in tomato sauce. Very good! Salsiccia is Italian sausage I think. The waitor said it is the pork meat before it is made into sausages. The vegetables are very fresh, just cooked so very crunchy. The tomato sauce is sweet. Portion is just right. Definitely going back to try their brown rice lunch sets. The location is so hidden in the confusing little streets that it took me a long time to find though~
La Saetta
October 04, 2006
Maison Kayser (メゾンカイザー)
スープランチ： サーモン、ほたて、小海老のクリームスープ、パン、サラダとコーヒー付きで、１２００円。
One of my favourite bakeries opening a new cafe branch in Ikebukuro made me so happy for weeks. Their cafe inside Nihonbashi Coredo does very nice lunch, see old entry here. But to my disappointment, Ikebukuro branch only has salad lunch, sandwich lunch and soup lunch in their menu. I picked the soup lunch, which was prawn, scallop and salmon cream soup, with a basket of bread, ratatouille salad and coffee included, 1200yen. The soup was okay, just like those American thick heavy salty type of cream soup, e.g. Chowder's...but Chowder's is much cheaper. What really shocked me was the bread...it was a bit soggy!! What happened?! Newly trained staff put too much water in it??? It didn't taste right either, pain aux noix(walnut bread) is one of my favourites and I have eaten it many times, but this one included in the basket didn't taste good at all. I also ordered the caramel ice-cream which was 200yen extra - rather watery and thin. Gosh all that costed me 1400yen....(-o-;;;;;;;)
Cafe: 1, 2
Bakery take-out nextdoor: 1
Maison Kayser
Comments(8) [ bakeries | 池袋 ]
October 03, 2006
Tavernetta L'agresto (タベルネッタ アグレスト)
Peperoncino with fish, aubergine, dried tomato and caper. Very good!! The spaghetti had absorbed the flavours of the ingredients. Nice second floor view of the street too. A satisfying lunch~
白身魚とナスとドライトマトとケッパーのペペロンチーノ、１２００円。
L'agresto
October 02, 2006
AIMABLE (エマーブル)
サーモンのサラダ。塩漬け豚のポトフ。ランチは１５７５円。
Salmon salad is normal, salt pork pot-au-feu is a bit too bland-tasting, the soup is probably just the water used to boil the ingredients, not much taste. 1575 yen and dessert is not included.
AIMABLE
Comments(2) [ french food | 大塚・茗荷谷・後楽園 ]
October 01, 2006
Patisserie Mariage (パティスリー マリアージュ)
Mont Blanc. Marron crepe.
Chocolate mousse cake. Camenbert cheese cake.
I liked the cheese cake, which was soft souffle with melted cheese in the middle. The rest were pretty normal though. I had problem finishing the chocolate mousse one cos it was too sweet and not chocolatey enough. The cake shop is located on a beautiful tree-lined avenue, and when I went on another sunny day on the weekends, the ceiling-to-floor windows were all opened up and people were sitting outside. I loved the interior and couldn't help snapping lots of pictures but I was told off by the staff....later I realised that no-photo signs were all over the shop...^^;;;; So the second time I bought take-away instead, but they didn't pack the cakes properly and they ended up a bit of a mess(the photos show the unsquashed sides). There was a sign next to the cashier telling customers not to carry cakes with bicycles....err....
Patisserie Mariage
Comments(7) [ cakes and sweets | 大塚・茗荷谷・後楽園 ]
Copain (コパン)
茄子入りのアッラビアータ、１０５０円。パンナコッタ、＋２１０円。
Arrabbiata with aubergine. Hmm normal homecooked pasta, not spicy at all and the spaghetti overcooked. Lunch dessert Panna Cotta, so-so too. Lunch set ought to be 200 yen cheaper...
Copain
