So So Lunch at The Rotunda
For those of you who are not aware the upscale department store Neiman Marcus has a restaurant on the fourth floor. It features excellent views of Union Square and you also get a close up look at the wonderful stained glass ceiling in the building. I had been here before for afternoon tea which was again so so. However, today I went for lunch/brunch, since it was a Sunday. We ordered a Ahi Tuna Poke for a starter and Brioche French Toast, and Seared Scallops for the main.
The Poke was well done it came with a wakame salad and some carrots and dikon on the sides. The tuna tasted fresh and was nice and soft. The seasoning was rather surprising for, I though it was be more of a soy/sesame based flavor, but it was more spicy with what seamed like red pepper and paprika along with some other spices. There was a soy and sesame oil taste to it, but it felt like it was competing too much with the spiciness. It was not a bad dish, on the contrary it was quite tasty, the wakame salad was well done and the carrots and dikon were also good. When you look at the tuna alone it does seem too spicy, but when eaten with the other components of the dish it tastes better.
The seared scallops were so so. The last time I had scallops was in Tokyo at La Rochelle, the Iron Chef French's resturant, so I had a good idea of what good scallops should taste like. The ones that were served however, were not. The scallops themselves seemed to lack the sweetness that the ones in Tokyo had. However, they were cooked very nicely, though the seasoning was a little strong on the pepper. The scallops were served with a sweet potato puree and some kind of green that I don't quite remember. The sweet potato puree was well done, but the greens were too bitter for my pallet.
I was a little disappointed by the whole meal. For the price that we were paying I was expecting more. Its not to say the meal was terrible, but it was far from what I would have expected for the price of the food. It could be that I am biased right now, with all the great food that I had in Japan, but I somehow I think I'm more on the mark here. Rotunda is not as formal as the best places I went to in Tokyo, but the prices were similar. I feel that it is trying to be a fine dining restaurant, but since its in a department store its stuck in a weird position that makes the whole product so so. I give it a 3/5.
The magic of winter in Japan.
Hello and greetings. I have not forgotten about the site. Before I had nothing to write, but this time I had no internet connection to write with. For the last two days I was in the mountains, but I wasn't skiing or snowboarding, or doing any winter sport type activity. I was staying at a onsen. This wasn't my first trip to the onsens, I went to Yamanashi last summer and spent went to a couple of onsens there. This was however the first time I spent at a Ryokan onsen. Which is basically a Japanese style onsen hotel. Ryokans come in all different shapes and sizes, and also architectural design, but I will get back to this later.
We traveled to Kitagawa-onsen, in Tochigi-ken which is the closest town to where we needed to go. This is about two hours outside of Toyko by way of the Tobu line. From Kitagawa-onsen we took a bus and headed up to the onsen, another 90 minutes away. The onsen was nestled in the mountains and on the banks of a river. One of the most amazing parts is that the whole place was snow covered. This was a first for me too, last time I went to an onsen it was the summer and raining. I had hoped to visit a onsen when it was snowing and I'm glad I did. The onsen featured a male and female as well as two private rotenburo's (outdoor baths). The building is more modern in look, nothing like the ones that look like they were from the Edo period. The outdoor baths did have an old style feel to them, with a form that made them look they had always been there, or taking the shape of old wooden bath tub with water coming out of a tree trunk pipe. Since these baths were located outdoors they were freezing cold and there was snow all over the place so we needed to watch our step when walking around. The first time I was in the outdoor baths the sun started to set and it was a pretty amazing sight to see. The snow all around in a hot bath with the sky turning all these shades or orange and red. I forgot about the time just and almost missed dinner because of it. More on my adventure later on. I'll post pictures tomorrow if I can.
A word on the posts.
Last time around Japan it was my first time here, so there was a lot to write about. This time around I had intended on doing the same thing. However, I ran into a little problem this time around, I have already been here. What was new an exciting last time seems old and familiar this time. Thats not to say that Tokyo is a boring place, it just leaves me with a problem where I don't want to write about things I have already seen and done, so I'm left with somewhat of a conundrum of what I can write about. I am still taking pictures, but not as many as before I am still posting them and I will have the pictures for the last 3 days up tonight. I will try and at least post pictures from now on if I have time. Another thing that is limiting my time with the posts is the laptop I'm currently using kind of sucks. So I am thinking of purchasing a newer one in Akiba. My current prospects are a Panasonic R or T series laptop, or a Toshiba Dynabook SS Sx. I'm looking for a laptop with at least 9 hours of battery life and weighs less then 1.3 kilos. If anyone has any other suggestions feel free to post em thanks.
Happy New Years!, and a midnight snack roundup.
Sorry for the delay in posting, the days before and after New Years here have been crazy. I don't quite remember everything I did in the last couple days, but I will try and put it together here so this may be a long post. The day before New years eve we went shopping at Ita Yokado, the one I previously went to last time I was here. I thought, it was busy last time I was here, but that day gave a new definition to being busy. There were so many people and special stands setup inside the building selling food for new years. This wasn't festival food, but more like food you would eat at home for New Years. Afterwards we headed to Ginza to have tea and came back to Sayaka's place to eat dinner.
The next day we spent all afternoon in Akihabara. I had been to Akihabara before, but only for an hour, so this was quite an experience for me. We got off at a station close to Akiba and walked in. Strait away we encountered a street filled with used computers, Mostly laptops. Every store had bins and bins of different types of computers parts. I hadn't see a sight like this for a while, not since I was fixing computers at my old High School. There were so many ultracompact laptops there I was quite surprised. Most of these machines were 7 or 8 years old by my estimation, maybe newer. I didn't spend too much time looking over to components or checking to see if they worked well, but I was quite tempted to by one of the small ones to use at school. Lugging around a 5lb laptop all day long may not seem that bad, but believe me it hurts after a while. As we walked towards Akiba station we saw oden being sold out of a vending machine, something that I was told is unique only to Akiba. I also saw some maid cafes along the way, but mostly electronic stores. What I didnt see were that many anime or manga stores around. I would think there would be easier to spot, but maybe they are off the main streets?
We ended up heading to two of the biggest stores there, the LLAOX store and Yodabashi Camera's new Akiba store. LLAOX seemed okay, I wasn't that thrilled about their prices, it seemed like other electronic stores that I had seen in other parts of Tokyo. However Yodabashi was a different beast all together. This store was ginormously huge. There are 8 floors filled with all manner of electronic goods, appliances, cameras, and other items. Each floor seemed about as large a Frys Electronics, each devoted to its own specific area. There was a lot of stuff there, but it didn't seem like they had some things I was looking for, this could have been because I didn't understand they way they were organizing the layout of the store, or the parts I was looking for are so specialized that they don't carry that stuff. A little of both could be possible though.
That night was New Years Eve, Sayaka had to go somewhere so I went off exploring Tokyo alone. Before they left we headed out to do a traditional thing on New Years, eat soba. I hadn't had soba in Japan so far so it was another nice experience for me. This was some great soba though, very delicious, and the sauce was great. It was probally better then 3/4th of all the soba I have had in the states. Afterwards we went our separate ways for the evening. Since there were many food stand out I took the oppertunity to walk around and look at each one. Most were serving things I like yakisoba, and takoyaki, but others were serving all kinds of interesting dishes that made me want to try them all. Around 22:00 I decided to head to Harajuku to see what is going on there. I got off at ometesando and walked towards Harajuku station. There were food standings liking the street up towards the Meji Shrine. There weren't as many as there were around Monzen-Nakacho, but it quite impressive. It was so packed there, they closed off about 2 city blocks worth of roads just for New Years. It felt like everyone in Tokyo was converging onto the location.
The next day we made a trip to Akasaka and another shrine. This one was situated on a hill and we had to walk up a long flight of stairs to get to the top. They also had many food stands setup and it was quite fun to see the way that three different shrines handled it. The size of this one is about the same size as the one Asaksa, maybe slightly smaller. We performed the traditional prayer of the new year and headed over to Harajuku to do some shopping.
So now that I've finished giving a synopsis of the last three days lets get onto the midnight snacks for those days. The first night I tried lemon water, manju, and a mayo corn bread. I had lemon water before and It is by far one of my favorite drinks to get. The manju was very intresting, but also very bad too, so was the bread. I would have to rate the manju a 0 and the mayo corn bread a 1 neither of these things I would like to try again, at least from this brand. The next night I didn't go to a conbini, but I did eat at the stands. I tried out a sausage stick, which wasn't half bad, and some yakisoba which didn't turn out to be that good it lacked the yakisoba sauce taste that I was expecting to get. I would rate both a 3 and 2 respectively. The third night I tried out some more stand food and more conbini food. I had Takoyaki, grilled ika, and potatos from the stands, as well as a unagi and wasabi onigiri, milk, grape soda, and tonkatsu burger. The gilled Ika was great, although it was kind of cold and chewy. The sauce on it was great though, and I would give it a 3.5, great effort but the chewiness and being cold made it somewhat hard to eat. The takoyaki was so so, not that flavorful, the same goest for the sauce they put on top, and it was sightly burnt too. I give this a 3, not bad, but not good either. I'm going to give the potatos a 3 also they lacked any other taste to them, and thats good in one respect, but for me I was expecting some type of flavor like salty. The onigiri was okay it definitely had a wasabi taste to it, but it was not overpowering. The unagi was bad though, not the soft tender food I usually have, but rather chewy. The sauce for the unagi wasn't that bad though, and is what I think saved it from being a disaster. I would give it a 2.5 okay, but not something I would want to try again. The milk tasted like milk, and the grape soda tasted a little strange to me, both a 3. The tonkatsu buger was actually quite tasty and im giving it a 4.
So thats my brief review of the food I had. I might go back and do a more detailed review, but thats all I feel like writing right now. I'll post pictures later, but they are already uploaded to my album, they are located at http://album.wagyuified.comÂ