Japan trip report in Nov '13

[Bu Pun Su]

It’s been our dream to visit Japan. We’re supposed to be here 2 years ago for our honeymoon, but then a huge tsunami and Fukushima incident forced us to change our plan - too risky to go. And this month finally we had a chance to make our dream become reality. We arrived in the morning, and began our meal with lunch at Shima steakhouse.

Shima

Chef Manabu Oshima gained his experiences by working in Europe, mainly France, Germany and England. The restaurant is in the basement of Nihonbashi MM building and it’s not too far from Takashimaya. Oshima is helped mainly by his 2 sons and his place would fit at most 20 people. The steakhouse menu was quite simple (in fact he has not changed them for more than 10 years), but don’t be fooled by it – he has plenty of off-the-menu items. For us, it’s simple and easy: we come here for the steak. I ordered a sirloin and my wife E had a filet. Prior to that, we tried a home-made onion gratin soup (rich with thick cheese layer on top, the chopped onion was not too much) and salad (fresh with clean dressing, my wife loved it). Then come the steak. My sirloin was tender and flavorful, it’s not really melt-in-your-mouth kind of beef but very well prepared; the fat thankfully was not too rich. E’s filet was a bit saltier than mine, but about equally delicious. Both of us had no problem finishing nearly 200 gr of steak each. The dessert was home made vanilla ice cream, petit four and musk melon. Oshima-san spoke good English and very approachable. It was a quiet lunch, only 4 people including us. At the end, we’re given the copy of the beef certificate we consumed. A good way to kick off our meal in Tokyo

Rokurinsha

Having ramen for dinner at Solamachi was actually unplanned for. Initially, we’re supposed to dine at Toriki but the map we got from our hotel was not that clear: no info which exit to take, and it’s too “broad”. If you don’t have any GPS with you, ideally, you should have 2 maps: one showing the restaurant location with respect to the nearest train station and secondly, the zoom-in map of the restaurant neighborhood so that when you lost, the people there can easily put you back on the right track. In short, we’re late and Toriki staff did not allow us to dine there unless we’re willing to wait for 2 hours or so. It was a freezing night, and since I was not too desperate to eat there, well – let’s forget it. Another lesson learned: give yourself plenty of time for the next restaurants. Tokyo sky tree was not too far from Kinsicho area. It’s almost 9 PM and luckily there’s no queue at Rokurinsha. Only tsukemen was available here and we ordered Ajitaman tsukemen with egg, Tokusei tsukemen full toppings and shared an additional order of chashu. We were surprised by the huge portion of the cold noddles, but I liked these thick noddles chewy texture. They ‘absorbed’ the broth (I wish it had been hotter) depth flavor well. My favorite part was actually the 3/4-boiled egg that remains soft with gelatinous center; the chashu was a bit tough to my likeness. Apparently, neither of us managed to finish the noddles. A nice casual eating, my best tsukemen so far

Gora Kadan

On the third day, we left the hustle and bustle of Tokyo for a day retreat. For this trip, we really wanted to try onsen (hot springs). Late Autumn or Winter should be the best time to stay in the open-air and soak ourselves in the Japanese hot bath. Hakone is probably the closest destination for natural hot bath from Tokyo. We were staying at the famous ryokan named Gora Kadan (GR). I think I shall not talk much about our general experience there, so let’s jump directly to the food part. In many elite ryokan, having dinner is a must – well, without which your ryokan experience would not be complete. I read several reviews praising the food here. The dinner was actually quite solid, but clearly it’s not at the level of Tokyo’s 2 & 3 star restaurants serving kaiseki. The highlight of our meal were: ankimo wrapped in spinach, grilled sawara and roasted wagyu beef yet none of these dishes really wowed us. I would say at most GR’s cuisine is worth 1-star michelin. The breakfast, however, was awesome – a very extensive Japanese style. There were tofu, miso soup, tamago, nori, orange juice, hot ocha etc. For the main, I had grilled Cod with miso sauce while E had Salmon with chef’s special sweet sauce. It was arguably the best breakfast we had of the entire trip. You can see the pictures below,

https://picasaweb.google.com/118237905546308956881/GoraKadanHakoneJapan#

To be continued ...

At the other topic, you should be able to find my Ishikawa’s dinner review

[Bu Pun Su]

Here comes the 2nd "installment" of my review. The main theme will be sushi, but I will begin with tonkatsu

Maisen

In addition to tsukemen, other Japanese casual food that we ate was tonkatsu. We heard that Butagumi was supposed to be the best place for breaded deep fried pork, but then they only open at proper lunch and dinner hours – I was unwilling to give those prime hours for katsu meal unfortunately. The alternative choice was Maisen, located in Shibuya area, which opened in the afternoon. We didn’t go to its honten though. The (branch) restaurant was actually huge by Japanese standard. My wife E loved tonkatsu more than I do, so as expected she would order the kurobota set menu whereas I only chose katsudon; of course both of us picked ‘rosu’, having more fat. Both of our pork was indeed tender, juicy, crispy with a slight hint of oiliness. Maisen served 3 sauces: the usual sauce, Japanese mustard as well as special sauce, which basicaly was tonkatsu sauce with shredded apple. The portion was big, yet we managed to sweep all of the pork cutlet. Since Matsukawa dinner was waiting a few hours later, we didn’t want to finish up the rice. A nice “heavy” snack and in less than an hour, we left the restaurant to explore Omotesando hills area

Iwasa Sushi

On my last visit to Tokyo, I could not make it to come to Tsukiji market, the biggest fish market in the world. I didn’t come for the Tuna auction – it’s too early for me; just see around the area and had a breakfast. Sushi Dai or Daiwa would be the usual suspects, but I didn’t think the food is worth our energy and time, especially when we have reservations at Sushi Mizutani and Shou. That being said, we decided to try Iwasa sushi. I had the uni don and sashimi while my wife ordered the Chef’s omakase in which the sushi was served on bamboo leaf. My sea urchin was decent; it had some ocean aroma. I finished the rest of the rice with sashimi consisting of katsuo, a couple white fish, chu toro etc. Again, having been to top sushi places, it would be unfair to compare their qualities with Iwasa. My wife was quite happy with the omakase. The chef served 3 nigiri at a time, the portion is quite generous and hence a filing breakfast for her. Possibly we should’ve ordered their shell fishes sushi to share since it’s what they’re really famous for. Anyway, it’s not a bad place at all – above average when compared to other sushi restaurants outside Japan generally. Besides us, there was a couple ordering uni don and a young man having one of the sushi sets

Sushi Mizutani and Sushi Shou

As my review will be longer, I somehow think these 2 elite sushi places deserve their own threads

So please read at the other topics

[gfweb]

I loved your response about" not coming to buy tuna". Mine was similar when I was offered a dawn tour a few years ago. Jet lag plus hangover nixed the trip. Good judgement I think.

[Bu Pun Su]

Haha - more than that maybe because I was just lazy

However, I was talking to a few people about it - even some locals said that Tuna auction at Tsukiji market was great experiences

The challenges were simply too much for us: it's 4 AM or earlier, cold weather at 5-7 C (40-45 F) in late autumn this year plus there's no guarantee we could get the auction tickets if there were lots of people showed up

Edited December 2, 2013 by Bu Pun Su (log)

[Bu Pun Su]

In the “third installment” of my Japan trip, we will begin to go beyond Tokyo and its vicinity. To be more precise, we also visited Kyoto, Japan’s old capital

Okura French Toast

I was supposed to include this in my last review. We don’t usually have breakfast in a hotel unless it’s included in the package or a must-have thing like when we’re staying in ryokans. Chef Oshima recommended us to try the French toast (FT) at hotel Okura for breakfast, we did comply and it did not dissapoint at all. As a matter of fact, it’s the best FT I’ve ever tasted along with the one from Taj Camption SF. The FT was thick and perfectly prepared – sweet but not too intense; it’s crispy and light outside with beautiful yellowish-brown color and creamy & soft inside, producing melt in your mouth effect. A great way to start your day in Tokyo

Kikunoi

Kitcho and Kikunoi are probably the most well-known (kaiseki) restaurants in Kyoto. Given their famous reputation, ideally we should try the full course kaiseki menu at both places. But, our budget was not unlimited. Furthermore, I read that the food at Kikunoi was sometimes inconsistent. Thus, I decided that I would still visit this place but it would be for their cheaper option – lunch bento box. Guests who ordered the bento box were seated together in the main dining room that could easily accommodate 30 people and no seat was empty on that day. Honestly, I didn’t quite remember everything I ate here – let me try: the lacquer box was divided into 6 partitions, and then there were a bowl of soup dish and rice. I ordered the extra sashimi option (I think the raw fish was the best part of my lunch; maguro and tai). Our box: The grilled fish taste was alright, but the texture was a bit rough; small amount of ikura with “salad” – average; fried sweet potato, got a hint of oiliness, served together with ginkgo; dried skin tofu with mushroom and veggie; hassun: this was possibly the worst part – soggy fish and some tastless items, the best thing was salmon wrapped with squid; and lastly kobu. The soup was tasty though; it had fried tofu shrimp with clean dashi and yuzu skin. The rice was unusual; it had egg yolk, peanut sauce (nattou perhaps?) and whity sticky cream. At first, it was not too bad but the rice didn’t really go well with the the rest of the items in the box ... at least for me. The bento lunch might be not a fair way to really judge this place. It’s definitely not 3-star; 1 star at most based on the lunch box. Don’t expect any personalized service during lunch. Kikunoi’s full kaiseki meal would definitely be a better way to tell how good the restaurant really is. I took a peek of restaurants open kitchen; some cooks actually prepared plenty of snow crab. It will be a long way to go before we return here – Mizai and/or Ogata are on higher priority than this place

Gion Kinana

The ice cream place that has become popular recently. The shop is around Kyoto’s Higashiyama district, hidden in the secluded narrow road that not many people around the area actually know this place. It was a cold and rather windy evening; after returning from the Kinkakuji, we decided to see around Gion plus having a short break at Gion Kinana. Despite the cold weather, the restaurant was actually very crowded. We had to wait for about 10 min. before escorted to our table – even then, we had to share our table with 2 other groups, otherwise we got to wait even longer. Actually it’s kinda cool; we had a few chats with mother & son from Hyogo as well as a young mother with her child and parents – another opportunity to practice my Japanese. Personally, I was curious about its Fall parfait (containing chesnut) but apparently they only make 20 per day – for dessert place at this calibre, as expected they’re all sold out. Gion Kinana is famous for its dekitate (non-frozen) ice cream and I ordered kinako (roasted soy bean) flavor; I like its soft texture. It’s also creamy and not overly sweet. Any order here will come with hot tea to reduce/neutralize any ice cream’s sweetness I suppose. My wife ordered and enjoyed his parfait that came with matcha and goma ice cream as well as plain mochi and azuki bean.

Hiiragiya

Talking about the finest ryokan of all Japan (for sure in Kyoto), Hiiragiya and Tawaraya, its opposite neighbor, are definitely put into consideration. These two places are legendary for their old history and reputation – countless rich and famous plus some important government heads and retirees visited here. If someone would like to experience the traditional way of Japanese living style, nothing better than to do it in Kyoto. At the end, I picked Hiiragiya over Tawaraya for 2 main reasons: it seems to be more friendly with foreigners (you can book directly and they reply your inquiry fast even by e-mail in English) and the food is better (at least Michelin thinks so). The kaiseki dinner has 10-course including the dessert. Snow crab and fried wheat gluten began our meal nicely. During this trip, we pretty much enjoy good sashimi quality in both sushi and kaiseki restaurants – we ate maguro, tai and ika here. The hassun contained many ingredients I love but the execution was unfortunately a bit lacking; for instance the stir-fry awabi was too chewy, the ikura was hard and the boiled ebi with uni didn’t taste very fresh – not a disaster, but just average. Thankfully, the delicious grilled Sawara wrapped with leaf made me forget the previous feature dishes (hassun). The Kyoto beef, cooked medium-well (prepared medium should’ve been better), was oishii. The rice dish was cooked with Matsutake mushroom, but we hardly saw the mushroom on our rice. You cannot go wrong whenever you’re served with fresh and good quality Japanese fruits as the dessert – we enjoyed our persimmon, strawberry and musk melon. This dinner meal was for sure better than our kaiseki meal at Gora Kadan – the 1 star Michelin award was truly justified. But I was not impressed with the breakfast though; quality, quantity and variety wise, Gora beat Hiiragiya. However, the modern dining hall surrounded by garden was impressive. For more info and pictures about our meal, please check here: https://picasaweb.google.com/118237905546308956881/HiiragiyaKyotoJapan

[Bu Pun Su]

In this “fourth installment”, I will exclude Tokyo’s places for the time being. One of the themes would be my tempura experience as well as reviews of my short Osaka visit

Kyoboshi Kyoto

We were ‘busy’ with sushi and kaiseki when we’re in Tokyo. We didn’t have a chance to eat tempura until we reached Kyoto. I picked Kyoboshi, Kyoto’s tempura restaurant ran by a small family: Chef Toshinori Sakakibara, his wife and his mother. This marked my first elite tempura meal in Japan (previously my best tempura was “only” at Shinjuku’s Tsunahachi). I’ve learned that there wouldn’t be any usual “tempura sauce” we ate outside Japan. We’re given salt (refined and not too salty), lemon and grated radish to accompany our meal. Overall, the food was delicious and we had a good time here. There were about 20 items served including the refreshing ice cream with coffee-flavored liquor. Some of my favorite pieces were: the crunchy lotus root, hamo, carrot and sweet potato, specifically using fine sugar and cognac as the ‘sauce’. Tempura meal always began with shrimp-cake. Then we also ate prawn (3x), whiting, squid, seaweed, ginkgo, sweet corn, and tencha etc. The tempura was lightly battered and not oily; the presentation was quite artistic.

The dining room was simple. There were only 6 people eating during that night and we arrived last because it was not that easy to locate this place. Luckily, the chef’s wife was waiting outside on the street – just to make sure that we would not lost. The Chef seems to be very proud of his Michelin award; there was a picture of him in suit with Jean-Luc Naret, the guide director. From the name of the restaurant, I suspected that it would relate to Tokyo’s 7-chome Kyoboshi and apparently it’s true. Shigeya Sakakibara is Toshinori’s uncle. When we asked: why the Tokyo’s “kyoboshi” is very expensive? The Chef said he didn’t know. He also never visited his uncle restaurant. Probably, these two guys are not really in “good terms” with each other. Anyway, it’s a delightful meal even though I was not blown away by it. Some pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7124357@N03/sets/72157638550851293/

Yotaro Honten Osaka

2 days after my dinner at Kyoboshi, we had another chance to eat a good tempura again during our short visit in Osaka. We went to Yotaro Honten, serving Kansai-style tempura, and were seated at the counter. This way we can see the chef Ohiro in action; there was a glass window shielded us from the tempura’s hot oil. We ordered the lunch set and Taimeshi, a signature rice dish of the restaurant. The only condiment available was salt having powdery texture. We ate about 12 different kinds of seafood and vegetables during lunch (sweet prawn 3x). Generally, the ingredients were quite common & humble such as onion, kisu, carrot, egg plant etc. but the chef could elevate them to higher level producing light and crunchy tempura. The Sea bream rice was served with pickles and clam soup. It’s a nice replacement for the ten-cha/kakiage rice. The Tai was not rich and quite pleasant, nothing flashy in it. Me and my wife managed to finish up all the fish and about ¾ of the rice.

The tempura set lunch can be considered ‘cheap’ and very good – in fact, it has the best value of money of all the restaurants we visited in Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka. Personally I would recommend the tempura more than the Sea bream rice. Probably in dinner, you can taste more unique and expensive ingredients plus some sashimi/appetizers. Despite using simpler produce, the quality and taste of the tempura were almost as good as our meal at Kyoboshi. However, I don’t see this restaurant will ever get 3-star Michelin. Some pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7124357@N03/sets/72157638511431596/

Okonomiyaki

Osaka is proud to be the ‘heaven’ for Japan’s comfort food and snacks. As we strolled around Dotonbori areas, we’re recommended to go to Mizuno for a good place serving okonomiyaki. It was in the afternoon, yet we still had to wait to be seated. My wife and I shared yamaimoyaki (made with fresh taro) served with pork and squid – it’s nice, soft without being too overwhelmed; the normal one with extra noddles and egg was alright; the grilled chicken salad was quite disappointing. So, the next time you come here, don’t go for any side order. Don’t expect for any good service, all the male staffs hardly smile – they just cooked and got the job done. 1 hour before, we sampled takoyaki along the street, much better than anything we’ve eaten outside Japan. I was too full to get the gyoza since a couple of hours later, we will have dinner at Koryu

Koryu

I’ll try to complete the review sometimes before Christmas

[Bu Pun Su]

This will be my last installment from my Japanese trip in the Fall ’13 – mainly will be about French food and pastry

l'Effervescence

I tried hard to go all the way Japanese for all my meals, but I “failed”. My appetite for French food got the better of me, so I ate a lunch here (my choice: the head chef got to be Japanese). Except at Kitcho Arashiyama, (in Japan) most of the times we ate at a counter so it’s been a while we had a meal at such a spacious dining room with elegant atmosphere. My wife E and I ordered different “short” set lunch (6 courses including amuse and mignardises). I had ‘un detour’ and E had ‘a la montagne’. The only items that we could say very tasty were the main courses. I enjoyed my “apple pie idea”, the autumn version containing duck leg confit, foie gras, langoustine, chanterelle, leek etc. The result was a rich and balanced flavor, the pie was also well-made. I found the medley of salad with 60 different vegetables on the side was a bit too much – half of them would be just nice. Even better than mine was E’s succulent and ‘umai’ guinea fowl char grill roast served with its jus and burdock puree. The restaurant seemed to be proud of with its signature dish – whole cooked turnip. It was bitter, a bit crunchy and lacked any fragrance/appetizing smell. I think it’s over-done; they should’ve just cooked the turnip until it turned golden. It’s nowhere near as good as the turnip I had at L’Arpege such as in the turnip tart dish or as side dishes usually with lobster when Passard made the turnip translucent (I’m not sure if this would be a fair comparison)

The desserts were beautiful and creatively presented. Mine was butter confit pear with roquefort cheese cake while my wife’s was apple, calpico mousse and yoghurt sorbet. But then, taste-wise they’re just alright – not particularly delicious. Generally that’s what I found about the food here. The main ingredient often did not shine while the side items hardly made any impact – even though every dish often looked pretty. Some people raved about the head chef’s talent, but I didn’t find it anything too special – at least from this meal. My feeling was that l'Effervescence could take up to 5 years or more to reach its 2nd michelin star. Chef Shinobu Namae and his team would have plenty of homework to improve. The good thing was that the restaurant was still quite young (3+ years old if not mistaken) and this means it has plenty of time & room to grow. Outside the food, many things went well. The service delivered by the helpful maitre d’ was excellent; the setting was very comfortable with plenty of natural light during lunch; and it’s very hard to beat the price – our set lunch cost slightly less than Usd 50 per person. It cost 2x more for dinner with plenty more courses. With such price, I don’t quite get it how the restaurant could manage to afford about 7 staffs in the kitchen and more than 11 people for the front team (the capacity was about 30 people) – at least it’s unusual in Japan unless if you’re Robuchon or L’Osier. The restaurant’s area was probably more than 3 times of Ishikawa. Yet, it could keep going and looked ‘profitable’. Well, it’s nearly full during our lunch

Pierre Herme

Generally, I enjoy Japanese sweets in this trip however they still could not ‘beat’ my passion for French pastry. Japan was special because many western famous pastry, bakery or chocolate shops all over the world – they decide to open their branches here. Some that I like was Pierre Herme and Sadaharu Aoki, both are available at Shinjuku Isetan basement. Let’s begin with the former one. I ordered Ispahan (macaron), millefeuille and a few macarons. Ispahan was one of Pierre Herme’s most popular pastry – these days there were plenty derivatives from it (in Paris) such as cake ispahan, croissant ispahan, cheesecake ispahan and so on. Between the two macaron shells in ispahan (think of it as ‘giant’ macaron), there were a mixture of rose buttercream, fresh raspberries and lychee. It’s awesome, about as good as the one I ate in Paris several years ago. All the ‘fillings’ flavors worked well together: the rose petal cream was aromatic and more dominant; the lychee within the rose cream was mild and non-obtrusive; raspberries was refreshing and pleasant. And of course, the shells’ texture was just perfect. Another delicious big macaron that I could think of was Passard’s “Macaron au topinambour” with right chewiness & innovative flavor plus an excellent dark chocolate sauce on the side.

I also had the “old” edition of millefeuille as recommended by the staff. It’s essentially a creme caramel ‘napoleon’ and didn’t disappoint at all. It’s neither too heavy nor too sweet; the cream was balanced with flaky puff. It’s comparable to my millefeuille at Robuchon au dome, but not yet at the level of l’Arpege’s. Last but not least, the most famous of all: macarons. I sampled, as far as I could remember - citron, chocolate, strawberry and pistachio. They’re scrumptious with sweet and creamy filling. Herme’s shells were firmer than Laduree’s. Somehow, for me, the best macarons I’ve ever head was generally not from the pastry shop, but from the fine dining’s petit fours especially at l’Arpege (creative vegetable flavors), Ducasse flagship restaurants (coffee and pistachio) and Robuchon ebisu (yuzu)

Sadaharu Aoki

It’s not really new for me as I’ve been to Aoki’s shop in Paris before. I bought 2 kinds of pastry here (Tokyo): bamboo and eclairs (matcha and salted caramel flavor). The eclair was fine with balanced flavors for me, for some others might be slightly too sweet. Then came my favorite item: the Bamboo. It consisted of thin biscuit, matcha & ‘snow’ powder, a bit of alcohol as well as green tea-infused cream. It’s a sublime and aesthetic cake; I really loved the interplay of bitter and sweet flavors from the buttercream. Overall, it had subtle sweetness without any cloying after taste – delicious. The chocolate ganache was too weak however. Additionally, as expected, I bought a few macarons (not really airy though, more on the heavy side like in France). I enjoyed the tea and Japanese flavored macarons at Aoki such as macha, hojicha, earl grey, black sesame, yuzu and salt caramel. Truly a beautiful marriage of Japanese flavors with French technique

Edited January 7, 2014 by Bu Pun Su (log)

[gfweb]

I spent a week in Japan about 10 years ago and dined aggressively. The only bad meal I had was at a French restaurant in Tokyo. It was supposed to be a hot place and it just sucked.

[Bu Pun Su]

Did you remember the name of that restaurant? Any particular reason why it's "that bad"? It could not have been l'Osier right?

[gfweb]

I'm not sure I knew the name when I dined there. This was in 2001....long time ago. It was bad because the food tasted odd, classic sauces were not right. That's all I can dredge up.

[Bu Pun Su]

Observations:

1. Loyal customers

Different restaurant has different loyal customers and that’s normal. Each of them told me that “this restaurant” was either his favorite or even the best one in the nation. At Chihana, I met a Tokyo-based high level executive who often come down to Kyoto – for him, Chihana was not only Kyoto’s best kaiseki place but also the best place to eat in the entire Japan.

2. Gifts

I noticed that some of the loyal customers often brought gifts to the chefs in Japan. Is it a common thing? At Sushi Mizutani, the client brought sake; at Matsukawa, the guy bought matsutake mushroom to the Chef-owner. If you’re a regular, are you expected to do so? Perhaps as part of Japanese culture or custom

3. Michelin effects

The arrival of French’s famous red guide book to Tokyo in late ’07 attracted many international gourmands to visit the land of the Rising Sun. In addition to recognition, the star-rated chefs have enjoyed much improved business. While a few chefs went to the opposite direction (by refusing any of these awards), many chefs (Mizutani-san, the chefs of Kyoto’s kyoboshi and Osaka’s yotaro honten) I talked to said that the Michelin guide was arguably the most important guide for their business – a bit surprising they said that they didn’t find their restaurants’ performance at Tabelog too essential

4. Chef interactions

Unlike “western-style” restaurants we know of, I find the Chef-customer interaction was essential and enjoyable particularly when you eat over the counter. Though to be fair, some European chefs already began to often visit the dining room and have chats with their diners these days such Pascal Barbot, Alain Passard and Christian LeSquer. No matter how limited your Japanese is, the chefs would appreciate it. They would be even more in awe if you actually took the effort to learn/take Japanese classes prior to coming here. The “true” chefs love talking with customers who had some substantial understanding about food especially with regards to their own cooking style or methods. It’s also normal that most chefs would bid farewell and escort you out as you leave the restaurant

5. Finding restaurants

Someone may have mentioned it often. Mine would be – you need to have the following (whether printed out or on your mobile devices): have the address info in both English/your native language and Japanese; the restaurant’s entrance picture; a map showing metro station with respect to your dining destination at the same page; a zoom-in map revealing your restaurant’s neighborhood preferably in kanji, it’s very useful when you seek help from the locals. Lastly, to be safe – if you concierge were nice, inform him/her to tell the restaurant not too cancel the reservation just in case you’re coming late because finding a restaurant in Japan can be quite troublesome for first timer.