Sant Pau, 2 Michelin star restaurants in Tokyo review

Life's been pretty hectic so far in Tokyo. Meeting new people and having fun is part of it, of course.

Anyway, today's post is on Sant Pau, a 2 Michelin star restaurant in Tokyo. It is located in Nihonbashi 日本橋, which has many offices and can also be a shopping spot as it has the luxury brands such as Hermes.

So here's the food.

Amber, jellyfish, turmeric, pork fat, green pepper

So many ingredients in just one dish! The taste was quite interesting

Crispy cornet, foal tartare, beetroot

Now, this restaurant really pays attention to it presentation!

 Sea urchin, violet carrot, courgette

To be honest I forgot what it tastes like!

 Scallop with lentils, enoki, green papaya

One of the best dishes of the day as I love everything on this plate.

 Ika

Pretty dish and the red heart thing is just cute!

 Sawara with winter leeks, mini onion, carrot puree

 Very generous serving I would say.

 Main!

 Fish with squid ink

 The rest had pork but I had this as I don't eat meat. Tasted pretty normal though :/ although it looks pretty. You can eat the black flower too, its like senbei.

 Garrotxa cheese with pistachio sponge and strawberry jam

Without looking at the menu, my first thought was like oh damn this is a Spanish restaurant so they will serve ham at least once. And since this is 2 star why not just try?!

But boy I'm wrong! It's actually strawberry jam!!! What a pleasant surprise! And it goes really well with the cheese and pistachio cake.

 Pre dessert

 Sakura mochi with lily bulb and white chocolate

Hands down one of the best desserts I have had in my whole life. But this restaurant is famous for their dessert so they really live up to their name.

The pink mochi is mixed with lily bulb so it really melts in your mouth. And the combination with the white chocolate ice cream is just out of this world. Oh and the flower is edible :)

 Iced lollipop

 Petit 4

Actually, not 4 but 10!!! Hahaha

 Mini crema catalana

It's like creme brulle

Nori and cacao, although the cacao can't be seen.

This restaurant really puts an effort in presenting their food. But to the honest some of the taste is quite mild, except for the fish dishes. And I didn't particularly like the fish with squid ink although I enjoy squid ink paella. LOL. But their dishes are quite innovative so I think they deserve 2 stars.

Traumatic 2 Michelin star dining experience @ Nakahigashi... So bad we spit it out

A few weeks ago I went to Kyoto again, this time with my family, and we tried a few fine dining restaurants. I went to Soujiki Nakahigashi which is rated as no.7 kaiseki restaurant in Kyoto and top 50 in Japan. In addition to that, it has 2 Michelin stars. So my expectation for it was pretty high.

Unfortunately, we did not have a good meal there. All the pictures of the food look good but man, the taste doesn't suit our tastebuds. Even worse, some of the food were spitted out. Not by me, as I respect the restaurant, but I guess spitting the food out will let the restaurant know that their food is not up to standard.

I forgot to say that I don't eat meat so they serve me wild boar meat for the hassun. Everything was edible except for that white thing in the middle. Its like mochi and had kind of a strong bitter and wasabi kind of taste. Really weird. I wanted to spit it out but just downed it with ocha as I didn't want to be impolite. 

Don't judge a book by its cover as its pretty but foulthy?!

By this time I was already disappointed so I didn't take note of the names of all these dishes. 

This second dish is another vegetable with strong wasabi taste. Inedible.

 White miso soup with some kind of mochi. Normal.

 The best course of tonight's meal. Fish meat, bones, head. Everything is edible. But it will taste better perhaps with teriyaki sauce? Unfortunately the restaurant didn't have it. (I actually asked LOL)

 Snapper sashimi with LOTS of vegetables. Not that I hate vegetables but this is way too much. And the sashimi tasted normal. Veggies were inedible.

 Second fish dish which is quite good. I must say only edible dishes are the fish dishes.

 Fermented saba. Wow, I thought, finally saba, my favourite fish. But with one bite, I wanted to spit it out. As its fermented, it had a really strong... foulthy taste?! What the he** I can't even explain it. OK this is disgusting.

 Soup.

 Normal bamboo soup.

 My family's main was deer meat. Although I didn't have it they said it was not nice... Tastes like bad innards of animals... OK so it is inedible.

 My simple main. Too many small bones that I almost choked :/

 Another vegetable?! Crazy.

 Last but not least the rice.

 .....

 Dessert was simple strawberries with amazake (sweet sake without alcohol). This is not special at all as amazake 甘酒 is a 200yen drink which can be bought during new year or at special places like Asakusa... So... I'm paying so much just for this kind of dessert? Unbelievable.

And I swear the 350 yen a pack strawberries are sweeter than their strawberries...

Coffee and cheese and some kind of sweet balls in the end. Edible. But kinda weird to be serving this at a traditional Japanese restaurant.

This fine dining experience had left me feeling traumatic to eat Japanese fine dining again, at least for several months :/ And it had such good reviews too...

3 Michelin Star; Osaka; Taian

Been away from Tokyo for almost 2 weeks, so I didn't blog. Kept on travelling these times :P

Anyway I went to Taian, one of the four 3 Michelin star restaurants in Osaka, and it certainly lived up to my expectations :)

 Hassun. Loved everything there except for the shirako :/

 Tai

 Maguro

 Sashimi. Dip in soy sauce or pepper

 Forgot what fish this is, maybe cod in black miso.

 My favourite! Uni spring roll with ginger.

 So yummy.

 Normally kaiseki restaurants serve white rice at the end but not them.

 Last but not least, persimmon and grape jelly as dessert. It's really beautiful.

 It's a pretty nice restaurant that is not too showy :)