The happy couple. Big Bird and I are discussing wedding venues as our Thursday-romantic-lunch series continues, and La Rochelle bills its chapel as Tokyo’s Most Romantic. Not many restaurants have chapels at all, of course, so it’s awfully convenient. Also convenient is being expected, and they were nice enough to thank us for our coming. […]
French
Aile Blanche, Azabu Juban (エルブランシュ)
Juban, damn your branded hide. The last time I was this disappointed in a well-hyped restaurant was at Piatto Suzuki, just around the corner from Aile Blanche. In this case I at least had Tabelog on my side, saying AB is 25th best out of Tokyo’s 1700 French restaurants, but for once even the rating […]
l’Effervescence, Nishi Azabu
Several months ago I noticed this frightening place way up in the back streets northwest of Nizhi Azabu crossing. It just looked too good. But when I started doing my research for the ‘degenerate ladies who brunch instead of work’ series recently, l’Effervescence turned out to hugely-rated and yet strangely reasonable for lunch. Like a […]
Ohara et CIE
Many years ago I visited the confusingly Irish/Japanese-named Ohara (and who knows what the CIA means either?) as one of the very last lunches I ever ate as a Roppongi-based worker. Reading that review gives me more confidence in my much-derided one-visit policy – it was mainly the same when we went for dinner, although […]
Coulis, Shintomi
There are a few places in Tokyo that I believe in enough to go back to, and a very few that I feel compelled to post more than once about. Coulis is one of them. Y1800 for these four courses? Seriously? How do they stay in business? Feeding off the souls of the dead restaurants […]
Cafe Rosemary, (カフェ ローズマリー)
Oh hell, it’s the fourth of July. Well, happy fourth to everyone who’s in a place where they give a damn. Here, it’s a normal day at the office, albeit one on which I could spend almost 75 minutes at lunch. Then again, I did ride to Akiba, buy a disk drive, find this place, […]
- French
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Eleven Madison Park, New York
Whoa, attack of the rainy season. Someone and I didn’t have umbrellas, so when the minimal patter of raindrops in Brooklyn became a thuddingly heavy downpour in Manhattan, we were stuck in the subway exit with a hundred of our closest friends. A strolling umbrella vendor wandered through, but that was for suckers – rain […]
- bistro
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Rouge et Blanc, New York
Being country folks, we get tired easily in the big city. Tonight we slept from about 6 until 9. At that point, I’m proud to say, we rallied and went out until late. Party on Wayne, Garth. Get your Empire State on. We’re New Yorkers now, for a little while, so we hopped in a […]
- bistro
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Bibou, Philadelphia
This Wednesday was supposed to be road-trip day, followed by date-night. Fortunately we had the awkward conversation that let us conclude mutually conclude that the road-trip idea was batshit crazy. Thus evening saw us capping a quiet day by dressing up a notch and navigating the historic streets of Center City PhilaPA to get down […]
- bistro
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Brasserie But, Ningyocho (ビュットブラッスリー)
What what? Brasserie But. Really they want you to say ‘Butte’, like ‘a solitary hill‘ (yes, ideally populated with cabarets and a winery), but when they write ‘but’, my inner 5 year old can’t help but wiggle. Funny exterior, isn’t it? It’s a-way off on the east side of Ningyocho, near that street that’s divided […]