TOKYO: Yakiniku Daichi Roppongi

HELLO! I am back after what seems like FOREVER on my week on. Goodness, these patients never stop coming, do they? It's like they all bought a cheap bus ticket and their final pit stop is the hospital but what's worst is that, they probably is alot of buses offering this cheap bus ticket because they just come one after another!

Anyway, I've been doing blogposts of our trip in chronological order, but I'm gonna mess it up a little now because our friends Nathan and PK are currently in Tokyo and looking for food recommendations! And I just thought.. instead of me typing out a whole list.. they can just pick and choose what they want here + pictures !

I am SUCH a huge fan of yakiniku, but looking thru my pictures I realised that I've actually hardly been to any yakiniku places in Tokyo apart from 2!. One is probably my all time favourite for a reasonably price lunch when you happen to be people watching in Shibuya - Hanno Daidokoro ( read more here). And the other is somewhere in azabujuban which I sadly have no pictures of - one of the surgeons from Nagoya University Hospital where I did my elective in came to visit me while I was on my solo trip 2 years ago and brought me there.

One thing I love about instagram is how it really helps you track down places you want to try, the bad thing is.. So I browse instagram every night and every night when I look at all these restaurants in Japan, I get so hungry, I can't sleep and I keep thinking why do I have to go to work the next day ):
One restaurant that has been popping up on my instagram feed quite alot if Yakiniku Daichi Roppongi - The quality of the meat is SO GOOD! Bonus: there is one waiter there, who is SO CUTE. Unfortunately he may not be working there anymore, he mentioned about going to France to study Fashion this year.

They offer both ala carte menu as well as course. We decided to opt for the ala carte because Nick says " obviously you want to have the BEST right? "

I'm a huge fan of beef tartare so I just had to order the 2 tartare they serve .
The top one is the their house specialty - salt tartare and the one below with a more orange tinge to the egg yolk is their classic tartare seasoned with special sauce.
I'm not really someone who likes my food with alot of sauces and gravy, I like it just simple and almost au naturale :p so salt tartare was the winner for me (:

If you order only 1 tartare, it's 1800yen each, but if you order 2, its 2600yen altogether. So obviously if you have some financial intelligence you'll go for the 2600yen one right...

 Ox tongue!

Got them to recommend their best cut of the day. The picture above is just lightly seasoned with salt whilst the picture below is seasoned with special sauce again.

 So impressed by this shrimp and radish salad - 900yen. very absolutely refreshing

AND FINALLY THE STAR OF THE NIGHT.....

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 2900yen 

I've been seeing so many pictures of this on instagram! To be honest, visually it really wasn't as appealing as compared to all the instagram post ):
 Because my cute waiter la.... seee, haiya. God is fair, you can't have good looks and be super good at what you do. He carried this dish so clumsily until my sea urchin were rolling off the meat -.-

BUT IT TASTES SO GOOD. I love sea urchin, I love wagyu beef and so when you marry them up....

YUMMMMMMMMM

Ok, so even though this shop is located in Roppongi.. Their english.. ( apart from my cute waiter ) really needs some improvement. We couldn't really make a reservation over the phone ( maybe it has improved now) but thankfully you can actually make a booking online. And it is very important that you make a booking because otherwise I can't guarantee you'll be able to have dinner here. It was pretty crowded when we went.

Unfortunately this online booking site ( click here) requires you to book using a Japanese name. wtf right. So we went with the easiest.....大山。 Dai Yama. We were so scared the shop would think we are trying to play a prank on them or something because... who's gonna be called dai yama right? hahahaha.
Anyway, all good, super happy that we tried this place ! Our bill came up to $200+ AUD for 4 people which I think is really reasonable for the quality.


Yakiniku Daichi Roppongi ( click to go to their website) 

Business hours 17: 00 ~ 24: 00 (LO 23: 00)

Closed on Fridays 　 　 　　　　　

Number of seats 36 seats (private rooms available) 　　　 　

Address 4-12-11 Roppongi Minato-ku, Tokyo Hidei Building 1F

Toei Subway Oedo Line Roppongi Station Exit No. 7 Exit 30 seconds on foot

Tokyo metro Hibiya line Roppongi station 4a walk 3 minutes on foot

Tel: 03-6804-2956

TOKYO: Sukiyabashi Jiro @ Roppongi hills

So the story goes.... We became obsessed about Jiro-san's restaurants after watching the documentary Jiro dreams of sushi. We wanted to book the original restaurant in ginza, but as previously mentioned we just couldn't get a seating. Thankfully we managed to get a dinner reservation at the 2 Michelin star roppongi branch, which is helmed by the son of THE LEGEND. With that, we were ready to experience the true art of edomae sushi.

Takashi-san gave us a choice of either sushi or sushi-sashimi. Being sashimi lovers, we opted for the sushi sashimi Omakase. 

We were led to some side tables for ocha before being formally seated. Nick is really excited now and can't wait for sushi to start ! 

The master Takashi-san appears. 

Flounder and akagai sashimi 

Boiled abalone 

Takashi San says that abalone is too chewy to be eaten raw and best served boiled 

Abalone liver. Forgive me, I may sound totally pompous saying this, but I've eaten many abalones in my life yet I never knew abalones had livers :o not really a liver eater, but can't ever say no to abalone ! Hmm, taste wise, if given to me blindfolded, there's no way i would not identify this as liver. 

Cured mackerel

Takashi san suggested I put the onions on the mackerel. Yummy ! 

That's the end of our sashimi course. 18 courses of sushi came next in quick succession. As an overview, all sushis are brushed with appropriate amount of shoyu on the fish, so no dipping is required. However should you require more shoyu, the option of dipping still exists ( not recommend tho ! ). The  flavour of the rice differs from that of other sushi joints we have tasted, with jiro 's having a slightly stronger taste of vinegar. However, we felt the added taste blended extremely well with that of the fish. 

Hirame/flounder 

Ika/squid 

Akami

Chutoro 

Otoro. I think I could die happy here 

Kohada

Mirugai/ geoduck

Takashi-san was super cute. I had no clue this was geoduck he kept telling me it's name in mandarin, Cantonese hoping I would know what it is, but yeah just no clue. Oooopps, sorry laoshi! I should have learnt my mandarin better last time :/

Saba 

Ikura

This ikura is house made. So fantastic, I can't even.... 

Kurumaebi

The time when the prawn starts to get cooked is extremely precise to suit the diner's meal pace, so that as little time as possible is wasted being already cooked before entering the diner's mouth. 

Uni. I could have died happy here again. I've had many uni, and I can confidently say this is the best. The texture was extremely smooth and creamy. 

Hamaguri 

Scallops 贝柱

His sous chef worked in australia before going back to Japan to train under  Takashi, he did a good job in both cooking as well as translating and interacting with customers. he was super Cute by the way, I thought this was hotate , and takashi san kindly corrected me, said something in japanese, and as usual I was clueless. So the sous chef took out a book, flipped to the page with a picture of this scallop and its mandarin name. Haha i still had no clue what it was but hey, I thought them how to pronounce the name in mandarin ! :D 

BEST ANAGO EVER. So creamy, it just melts in the mouth. And there was just the right amount of sauce as well. Takashi-san says that some customers were a little apprehensive to try the anago given bad experiences prior with hard and unfresh anagos. However, they all became converts after trying his anago. 

Sorry for the blur picture, such a shame I didn't get a good shot ): 

Their signature tamago. 

I loved this whole dining experience ! The fish quality was over the roof. The service was amazing. Despite being asian, and using the chopsticks for over 2 decades, I am hmm ummm yeah still not quite good with it. I dropped a couple of seaweed and onions on the table, but the thing is, within 5s, someone is there to clean my table up for me. How amazing is that ! I felt soooo apologetic ! 

And takashi-san is so friendly and nice! Oh, and plus point, a pretty reasonable command of English too! Nick always says that people were born with mouths to eat, but my mouth is made for talking. I feel really awkward not talking. And to sit thru a 1 hour meal without any interaction with the chefs, please kill me. Takashi san and his team were so accommodating with me, takashi san initiated small talks with me, answered my questions, he just made me feel so at home. 

Our bill came up to ¥65000 ( lunch is cheaper, ranging from ¥23000 onwards )  for the both of us! And We will definitely be back when We have the cash/special occassion hehe maybe with nick's first pay check as a doctor next year :p 

Sukiyabashi Jiro Roppongi 

6-12-2 roppongi, minato-ku, tokyo 1060032

TOKYO: Itamae Sushi @ Roppongi

KONICHIWA!

Nick and I just landed in the land of the rising sun. So in the next few days we will be churning out posts on our meals. 

Anyway, got out of Haneda really hungry, so we trained down to Roppongi after putting our luggages back at our apartment. 

We usually head to sushi Zanmai whenever we want a quick sushi fix, but I decided to give this other chain shop a try. 

Nick and I decided to get two sets both of which comes with possibly the yummiest salad and prawn head miso soup I've ever tasted.

We got the luxury sushi set ¥2980 and premium blue fin tuna set ¥2480

Left: Blue fun Tuna set 

Right: luxury sushi set 

The luxury set also came with this mega Saga beef sushi grade A5 which was so good !!!! 

Our bill came up to ¥5896, which is really cheap for such quality fish. Can't wait to take a hot shower and be well rested before we take down Tsukiji Market tomorrow. EXCITED !