‘Sparkly’ was the order of the day, and that means ‘dining bar’ to me. This place practically jumped off the map, being almost new and also right behind Ebisu’s west exit. The atmosphere was all that, and oddly enough, the food was quite good.
As with most big dining bars, there are quite a few different areas in the place. I liked the ‘lounge’ area better since it was darker and filled with stuffed chairs, but the dining room wasn’t bad either. Nice furniture, interesting chandeliers, not too big….
plus a great view of the, er, jellyfish tank. These little guys are all black and white, and with the blue lights in the tank they’re pretty funny to watch, just swimmin’ around all the time. I wonder why they spend so much time swimming upside down. Perhaps they’re Costa Rican, and are used to gravity pointing the other way on that side of the world? Through the tank you can also see the Fire Chandelier, a major drawing point for the lounge area.
Carpaccio of domestic beef. One comment was that mayonnaise on top is a good sign of a restaurant trying to dress things up to fool customers. Well said; at least this was blue cheese-flavored mayo, and the beef was good.
Very tolerable clams steamed in wine. Actually better than tolerable; we had to get bread to soak up the juice.
Third starter, squid fritters wherein the batter was blackened with squid ink. Kind cute, and very well fried. Very good.
I saw something on the web site that looked like a big swordfish steak, and I was pretty keen to have one. This turned out to be breaded and fried, but was still a really excellent piece of swordfish, and not overcooked as is so easy to do.
Quail for another main, also quite nice.
Good ordering or just good food? I’m still puzzled overall. In any case, this is certainly several cuts above the dreaded gokon dining bar curcuit in both atmosphere and quality – it has the potential to make everyone happy.
Depending on the company, of course.
03-6408-6688