Back To Work

The wife had to go in to work today, but she did sneak out for lunch with me. We attempted to go to Kotetsu, which is supposedly well-known for their soba. It also recently got a Michelin star for its soba kaiseki, which is only served at dinner, but if it's good for dinner it must also be good for lunch, right?

Unfortunately, it took us forever to find the place, and by the time we'd located it with the help of some locals, they'd already closed for lunch. What a waste.

On our way back to the subway station, we ran across another tonkatsu restaurant, and thought we'd give it a try. It was good, but perhaps not quite as good as Maisen.

After lunch, the wife headed back in to work, and I went to Shinjuku to check out a couple used camera stores in the hopes of finding some gear for cheap. In theory, with everyone in Japan always on to the latest and greatest, the slightly old and used can be had at a steal. No such luck (at least for DSLR-related stuff). Everything in Japan costs more, including their used gear.

So it was back to the hotel and work for me as well. Not for long though, as we had a 7:00pm reservation at Rokusantei, the original Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba's flagship restaurant in Ginza. On our wait out, we ran into Mathieu, one of the wife's co-workers who'd just flown in and invited him to join us.

What can I say about Rokusantei... It was a novel, tasty, delightful surprise. Delicious in a distinctly Japanese way. There were nine courses in a wonderful progression of flavors. The highlights for me were the chawanmushi, the ultra-fresh uni (which was still moving!), the salad, and the beef. The uni in particular was a real surprise because I'm not usually a big fan, but this time I found the flavor to be very light and sweet. Oishii!

On our way home, we walked by Dalloyau, a pâtisserie well known for their macarons. Even as stuffed as we were, just the sight of those little morsels of scrumptiousness had me salivating. I would definitely have bought some, were it not for the fact that they were already closed. C'est la vie.