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Friday, October 29, 2010

Isetan Market Restaurant AGIO in Shinjuku, Tokyo #HIasia #FB

Last night after checking into our awesome hotel (not), we went for a walk around the Shinjuku area. We decided to use the evening to browse Isetan Department Store.

When we got there, we went up to the 7th floor to check out the restaurants because we were hungry. Most of the stuff looks like overpriced regular food, displayed attractively. We opted for the Italian restaurant, AGIO.

The prices at AGIO were moderate, 1500-3000 yen a dish (around $20-40 at current exchange rates :-/). We had the AGIO pizza and the meat sauce type spaghetti.

The spaghetti tasted too much like beef stew (concentrated beef flavor) with spaghetti noodles. It wasn't impressive at all. In fact I don't recommend it. :P

The AGIO pizza thing was OK. The crust was OK, but not really a pizza crust. Seemed more like a flour tortilla with hamburger helper and cheese on it. The cheese didn't really match the "pizza" flavor.

Anyway, that's my experience at AGIO. I doubt I would eat there again. It is rather surprising considering how obsessed, for so many years, Japan has been about creating this Japanese style of Italian cuisine. While this place isn't a Japanese flavored Italian restaurant, it certainly wasn't an authentic Italian flavored one either.

Hope we have better luck with breakfast. We are cooped up in Starbucks right now because the typhoon changed or Disney Sea plans. Nothing else in Shinjuku is open yet, other than convenience stores, and it's almost 9am!! Don't really want to eat Starbucks for breakfast! :P

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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Iyemon Salon Kyoto 京都のお茶カフェイエモンサロン #HIasia #FB

While we were in Kyoto for one evening, we met up with some friends. We first had dinner at Gogyo (the post prior to this) and then we went to have tea. お茶しょうか。(Ocha shiou ka?) Is a common Japanese question/invitation. It translates to, "shall we have tea?". It is just like it sounds, have tea, coffee and desserts while socializing.

We made it to Iyemon Salon just before last call for kitchen items. There were some unusual items on the menu and I ordered one of them, the matcha soda or green tea soda. It was very interesting. Slightly bitter as it is served, but tastes nice after adding some sweetener. I used a little of the dark molasses looking syrup that came with my panna cota or custard looking thing.

It is a very nice place in the city to have tea. The front of their store has tea and souvenirs available for retail purchases. The rear of the restaurant has a nice Japanese garden. I wish I could've taken a photo of it. I couldn't because there were too many other customers sitting around that area.

Iyemon Salon is a cool place! I hope I can go there again some day. If you're in Kyoto City check it out. Their address and phone number are in the photo of the receipt. If you're in Kyoto for a longer period, I'm sure you'll have tea and dango at other traditional places near temples and such places. Iyemon is a different setting because it's a fancy place in the city. :)

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五行京都 Gogyo Restaurant in Kyoto #HIasia #FB

A few days ago, we met up with some of my friends in Kyoto. My friend, Taka, suggested we have dinner at a "secret spot" in Kyoto city. It's not really secret, but it is very difficult to find even for the locals because they can't remember which block it's on and all the street blocks look almost exactly alike. After circling a few blocks, he finally found the place he was looking for. It's called 五行 or Gogyo. Taka describes it as a sort of ramen place, but izakaya (bar tavern) style because they have a special ramen, but it's a type of restaurant that you can sit around an snack on various other dishes while chit chatting and drinking. A perfect venue for entertaining out of town/country guests like we are.

The specialty ramen is what is called a koge (burnt) taste soup. Hearing or seeing a dish described as "burnt", wouldn't necessarily sound appetizing. I assure you that while this ramen soup does have a burnt taste, it is balanced well and gives this ramen character. Please try it in either the shoyu or miso koge flavors.

Gogyo not only has delicious ramen and other foods, but it provides a nice environment for chatting with your friends. It was great catching up with Taka, Masami and Takeshi. Thanks for taking us there!