A newly opened French restaurant near Yoyogi Park. From the 6000yen dinner course.
Amuse: warm tart with Iberico ham and cèpe mushroom. The warm homemade bread is tiny but refillable. So good that I had about 5 of them….
The uni(sea urchin) cocktail is recommended in a few blog reviews and I was really happy that it happened to be included in the dinner course(If you order it from the a la carte menu, it is 2500yen – but in that case the size will be bigger). It is so pretty and with an exquisite taste to match. Would have been perfect if it weren’t for the unnecessary scrambled egg in the middle layer which is a bit too sweet and dominating. The lobster sauce, Kyoto carrot mousse, consomme jelly, 3 different layers made from uni, caviar and hojisho(Japanese Perilla) on top, are still amazing and overall an appetizer to die for. Side view here.
Medai(Japanese butter-fish) in shellfish sauce. A bit salty but very good.
Roasted duck breast in fig sauce, and duck confit with salad. Not impressive but still tasty. The meat is soft and tender. Comes with foie gras on a spoon.
There were four of us and we had 4 different desserts to share around.
Yuzu Blanc Manger. Warn apple tart with herb ice-cream(good!).
Warm chocolat terrine sandwiched with banana(good!). Strawberry parfait.
Herb tea and Petit fours(a bit oily).
Overall the food is of high quality. We were pleasantly surprised that the 6000yen includes service charge and tax. Unfortunately the staff who served us was a bit pushy, like he must have come to urge us to order more drinks for 5-6 times, even before we finished the ones we were having. My friends don’t have high tolerance for alcohol and we all have already ordered 1-2 drinks(non-alcohol cocktails included) each, yet he would say stuff like “You guys really don’t drink that much” and made us feel really bad. But then they gave us a lot of special service like, one of my friends who arrived at the restaurant very early, was served a free rose champagne while she was waiting. Instead of a second appetizer included in the 6000yen course, we were served a fish main dish instead. The same pushy staff kept giving us bread before we had to ask for it. So I guess if you open bottles of wine then you won’t be bugged so much and will have no problems with the service. ^^;;
Le Bonheur
Add: 1-14-20 Tomigaya, Shibuya-ku
Tel: 03-3467-6161
The foie gras on spoon looks gigantic on photos. 😀
Unless the scramble eggs are running (or very ‘stuffy’), it’s hard to fathom how they fit in that delicate cocktail glass.
I too feel annoyed by the constant pestering of waiters on wine, as if they secretly think “yeah right” when we told them from the very beginning that we’re weak drinker. It made you feel bad, cheap and improper…. Especially we have to drive home later here in LA…I’m tipsy already half glass.
The scramble egg is not a bad componet in the uni cocktail, just that there is too much of it lo.
What? You are not supposed to drink at all if you are driving! ^^;;; I understand full well that restaurants earn most from drinks and I wish I could drink more too, but if you can’t take it, what can you do?! I realise two glasses is my limit…if I drink more than that I just feel sick afterwards. But two glasses is considered too little in restaurants…especially when drinking is such a big thing in Japanese social culture. I mean in Hong Kong, alcohol is not considered a must at dinner, while in Japan it is rare to have dinner with friends and not at least order a beer. You are treated with cold eyes if you don’t order wine in French/Italian restaurants – even though you order mineral water which costs almost as much as a glass of wine anyway.