Tucked among several restaurants in an unknown building along the upper-class and chic Ginza area, it's probably going to be hard to find the place without the help of the locals. But enter the building and you suddenly find yourself in the famous New York Barney's store glitz and glam occupying the first floor.
The next course was a light broth with vegetable. Not just any vegetable it seems, but freshly flown in vegetables from Kyoto. Where the carrots are a vibrant orange and the cucumber, a perfect green. I most certainly approached this little refreshment with caution, but it wasn't too bad I have to admit. Refreshing and a suitable 'hot' cleanser to start us off.
The first of the pairings of the night was the duck foie gras on a pan-fried potato and a sliver of truffle. Now thats what I call fusion! The flavours were just so perfectly matched. And my absolute love for truffle was just tingled another notch up.
Accompanying the foie gras was a cute little spinach parcel garnished with caviar. Unique, but a tad too much green for me.
The next dish was also a big favourite. Flat fish served with parma ham, greens and pear! How odd the combination, but so yummy when taken together. The saltiness of the ham was neutralized by the juicy pear and the fish bulked up the combo trio with fresh meaty goodness.
After a--loo-t of good food, we had reached the bitter sweet light at the end of the tunnel. Bitter to see the end, sweet from the springy warm crab roe glutinous rice. This was similar to what we had at our first night at La Bombance but I would have to say the meat was sweeter, firmer and much yummier here. Well balanced between the sticky texture of the rice and the moist richness from the crab.
Nearing the end of our decadent dinner, the fusion shows no signs of stopping. Our palette cleanser was a superb one-of-a-kind sherbet. A mix of Cassis, Ginger Ale and Gin Tonic, 3 extremely unusual suspects, who would have thought would blend so perfectly to produce such an unexpected desirable effect. Brilliantly admirable.
For our last and final course - dessert - we each tried to choose something different. Unfortunately, fruit parfait didn't sound as appetizing as a Mont Blanc or cheesecake, so we had repeats.
The Mont Blanc came as expected. The hazelnut ice cream was light and the chestnut flavour wasn't too overbearing. But it was the cheesecake that was served with a twist.
I thought this was quite hilarious because it was served literally as 'cheese-on-a-cake" the generous slab of cheese on a light buttery cake was accompanied by a nice scoop of french vanilla ice cream. I think Hubby G was showing signs of slight disappointment at his choice. But he soon discovered...on their own, they don't taste anything special but take a good slab of cake and cheese and dollop that with a nice touch of the vanilla ice cream and all the flavours come alive. It's absolutely amazing, how a single chef can toy and experiment, with such a variety of simple ingredients, an entire menu of unexpected flavours and pairings. We were definitely blown away and commendable kudos to the Chef.
This was definitely a 'tasteful' ending to our gourmet experience and the last of our dinners in Tokyo.
Restaurant Yonemura
Kojun Building F4
Thanks for sharing. Enjoying the rest of the posts... slowly but surely.
ReplyDeleteIf you can go back for one more meal, would you choose Yonemura or La Bombance? Basically just wonder which meal did you enjoy more in these 2 places.
ReplyDeleteThanks Fourseasons and Josekin for your lovely comments.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to go back for another meal, I would choose Yonemura, although I prefered the dessert at La Bombance. And the wait staff at the latter made the experience more memorable.