Tokyo: Les Créations de Narisawa

Hello again!

I'm back with the next part of my "Tokyo food adventure".

Today's blog is about Les Créations de Narisawa! It is an amazing french restaurant located in Minato-ku run by chef Yoshihiro Narisawa, who has trained in Switzerland, Italy and even France. The philosophy of this restaurant is most definitely a celebration of nature and the elements, respecting the seasonal changes and transformations. Narisawa recreates these spectacular landscapes through food. Once you see the photos, you'll understand.

The restaurant seats around 15 people and features a viewing window, where you can see the kitchen. I requested we have a good view cos it's always fun to see behind the scenes. We were in Tokyo during late November so we had their Winter collection menu, the theme being 'Evolve with the Forest'.

And this is where the magic started haha! The top left corner of this picture is actually our chestnut bread, gently fermenting before our eyes with the heat of a small candle. They later baked it in a hot stone bowl right at our very table!

Our amuse bouche was Essence of the Forest, which was chestnut water infused with a taste of the forest. The flavour was a shock and was very intense, immediately evoking a sense of being deep within a forest. I think it was to prepare our palate for the dishes to come. There was also Bread of the Forest - Sumi. 'Sumi' means charcoal in japanese and is reflected in the black colour of our bread. Although not the most attractive , the bread was soft and fragrant and the onion inside extremely sweet.

Next was Saba Mackerel. The flavours were so vibrant and fresh, especially with the sauce on the side. 

This next dish is called Ash 2009 - Scene of the Seashore one of the most memorable dishes of the night.

This perfectly cooked spear squid was transformed before our eyes with a sprinkle of "ash" made from liquid nitrogen and paprika. The fog created is reminiscent of an eerie and cold sea but soon disappears leaving a great smoky flavour to accompany the squid.

This next dish was called Luxury essence 2007. A 6 hour chicken and pork broth with black abalone and winter melon. Such a strong flavour and perfect to be having during the winter. 

Unfortunately, I've somehow lost my pictures of our Langoustine and Snapper but I can reassure you that they were delicious.

Our next dish was called Sumi 2009, which is Hida Beef. The beef undergoes a very long process where it is coated in charred leek that is matured and cured for 3 days. On the outside the beef looks like a simple lump of charcoal but is then sliced open to reveal a perfectly tender, blushing cut of beef.

I'd also liked to share this as well. Narisawa even made something as simple as bread and butter remarkable. 

What appears to be a mossy rock was our butter! 

This was our dessert. Waguri, Chestnuts in Yamazaki Whiskey. 

The best was yet to come... The dessert cart arrived at our table and I could barely contain my excitement. After the waiter explained each dessert to us, we had to try them all so asked for one of each dessert! 

Included was an array of tiny delectable macarons! Each of them were different flavours or different levels of cacao. Macarons aren't my favourite but it was hard to resist trying them all.

My boyfriend and I had a wonderful night, filled with intricate and mesmerizing dishes. We were able to try dishes unlike anything we've tried before whilst discussing and appreciating the complexities behind them.

I can definitely understand why this restaurant was ranked 27th best restaurant in the world.

It's not as trendy or vibrant as L'atelier de Robuchon but instead has sophistication and minimalism. I really love how such an elegant restaurant with such a pristine and methodical kitchen produce such amazing dishes that celebrate the rawness and earthiness of nature. 

Thanks for reading, it's a particularly long but I'm trying something different and a bit more detailed.

Let me know if you like it....

See you for the next part of my Tokyo trip!

Bistro Vue for the Birthday Boy.

Hello Readers,

If you're still out there, I'm back with an exciting blogpost today!

It was my boyfriend's birthday on the 18th and so to celebrate I decided to take him to Bistro Vue. I'd recently been there for a tea class and we both love french food so I thought it'd be great for him to try their food. Chef Chris was apparently very excited that we came back! 

We started off with half a dozen Garlic snails with a parsley crust and some oysters. The waitress remembered me from my tea class and she was SO helpful and clever. We were trying to decide which oysters to order, when she suggested to just have one of each!

So the oysters are Label Rouge, Clair de lune & Rusty Wire. I liked the Clair de lune.

Next was Foie Gras baked in Brioche and a Steak Tartare. The Foie Gras was of course, incredibly rich but delicious and the tartare was perfect. It was so tasty, you don't even notice that you're eating raw beef.

Whilst we were waiting for our mains, we were surprised by a complimentary mushroom risotto from Chef Chris, he's such a nice guy! Risotto's never look very appetizing in photos but if you could taste and smell it, you'd wish you had a gigantic bowl of it all to yourself! The flavour was so incredible! 

My boyfriend had the Rotisserie Pork for his main, whilst I had the Lamb rump, pipérade and pommes fondant.

After the mains we were getting pretty full but there's ALWAYS room for dessert. Especially when it's a Souffle au Chocolat with a gorgeous cup of green tea (of course). 

Just when we'd thought the surprises were over, the waitress brought us out this lovely plate! It was so nice and considerate of them to do such a thing for my boyfriend, I really appreciated the extra effort. 

We were one of the last ones to leave the restaurant so after the dinner service was over, Chef Chris came out to say Hi and chat for a bit. He introduced himself to my boyfriend and wished him a happy birthday. I couldn't thank him enough for his generosity that night! Absolutely wonderful, I must go back soon!

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Bistro Vue is a gorgeously decorated restaurant, it feels as if you've been transported to Paris after walking through their doors. The accordion music played by a lovely gentlemen in the background really adds to the Parisian atmosphere, you just can't help but feel like you're in a romantic french film. hehe

That's all for now, the next blog promises even more food porn!

La Petite Creperie.

Bonjour mon ami,

If you're still out there, I'm back again with more food.

Uni has started recently so it's a bit difficult for me to find time and write a blog but i'll sure try.

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Today I ended up eating a lot of french food, which I absolutely love.

I met up with my two friends for lunch and we ended up at a delightful little creperie in Hardware lane.

I really liked this place, it was really relaxing to eat outside. Unfortunately they ran out of their bread so I couldn't order their Le Croque Monsieur so we ended up ordering a crepe called La Broceliandre. It was French Bechamel, Gruyere cheese and mushrooms with a choice of either prosciutto, ham and turkey in a buckwheat crepe. I chose the turkey.

A lovely golden brown crepe finished off with a lovely cup of French Earl Grey Tea.

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Right next door was a macaron place, called La Belle Miete. 

We noticed that there was a really long line coming out of the shop so I thought it might be worth a try.....

We bought 6 macarons, I tried 2, which were flavoured Passionfruit and Milk Chocolate and Pistachio. I absolutely loved the passionfruit flavour, it has a beautiful affinity with chocolate. The other flavours were Pink Grapefruit, Moet and Chandon, Caramel and Pomegranate. 

The macarons were exceptionally well made, they had a good size and  delicate biscuit and a good ratio of biscuit to filling. These are all the qualities I look for in a good macaron.

Even if you're not into sweets, the place has a really cute decor which is worth paying a visit to have a peek inside. 

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That's all for now, I'm having a taco night with some friends so maybe pictures of that will be in my next blog.

Au revoir~ 

It's been the most wonderful year.

Hello all!

I'm so glad that you've decided to read this SUPER EXCITING LOVELY blog.

I honestly am extremely excited to be sharing such a wonderful part of my life~

Lately the weather in Melbourne has suddenly turned really nice, so I think it's pretty safe to say Summer has officially and FINALLY arrived!

It's perfect 'cos it's matching my mood lately as well. 

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Basically the big news is that on the 10th of November it was our first anniversary. This was my first ever anniversary so It's a huge deal! 

Unfortunately my boyfriend had work on that day and I had somehow forgotten it was even our anniversary but I was delightfully surprised by a delivery at my door.

It was a dozen roses and chocolates. Thanks mum for the photo! I don't know why she wanted to take one...But hey! I could use it for my blog.

It was the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me, so I spent a bit of the day prancing around the house like a princess. 

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The best part was that the surprises weren't even over! The next night (Friday night) we planned to have dinner together but I wasn't allowed to know the restaurant. 

So Friday night comes and the surprise restaurant is......Vue de Monde. It's a french restaurant on the 55th floor of the Rialto Tower, you have to catch a special elevator just to get to the restaurant! 

So needless to say, I was VERY surprised and happy because I was under the impression that they were fully booked for the next 2 months due to previous attempts at going.....

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The restaurant is gorgeous, everything is so stylish and the view was quite good too!

The food there is so unique and delicious. We decided on a 7 course meal, which to our surprise included a few things in between courses as well. 

I loved this place because It's not just your normal, bring the food out and you eat it kind of thing. Everything is practically an experience. The stones and twigs on the table are rearranged according to your course, they rest your cutlery on them, they hide the salt and pepper! It was just so fun to see what was going to happen next! 

Here are so photos from the Vue de Monde website of just a few of the dishes we had.

Spanner crab, avocado, lime and caviar

Pine mushrooms, walnuts, bird’s cress and cona infusion 

Marron, corned beef and butter emulsion

Now this was a really cool in between dish. This was a refreshing sorbet to cleanse our palate. It involves liquid nitrogen though! There are flowers and herbs, they freeze them with the liquid nitrogen and then you crush them and then it's mixed into your sorbet. It was really sweet and refreshing!

Four petit desserts. 

Our second dessert was a chocolate souffle with dark chocolate mousse and a vanilla injection, something along those lines. 

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Probably one of the things I enjoyed most was that we opted to have a kind of tea expert, match a particular tea with every course we had. It was a brilliant idea, I LOVE TEA and it was just so lovely to try all the different teas with all their gorgeous Japanese cups and teapots. Most of the teas we had were from Taiwan but there was also Sri Lankan and Indian and Chinese teas.

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So here are some of my own photos, you can kind of see the view and our first Taiwanese white tea in it.

The stones from our table.

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That's all for now, I'm just going to end this blog by saying I'm so happy to have spent an entire year with someone so amazing and I can't believe how lucky I am.

See you next blog!

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