Early this year we combined an awesome snowboarding holiday in Niseko with a few days before and after in Japan. Originally it was meant to be 1 night at the end of the trip but since Jetstar cancelled our return flight due to ‘flight rotation’ we scored a few extra nights in Tokyo. Woo hoo!
Whilst planning our trip I read an interview with Matt Moran in which he claimed the best meal he ever had was at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas. After a quick google search I discovered Joel Robuchon has a few restaurants in Tokyo. I read this food bloggers and Chubby Hubby‘s review and decided we must go. Chubby hubby also recommended to go at lunch since it’s cheaper.
What a great idea that was! I got a 3 course meal at a michelin star restaurant for about ¥3900, about $50. FDB! The Menu du Marche had 3 different options for entree, main and dessert. My husband chose the menu du jour, which was 4 courses for ¥5400. He got a choice of 3 mains but the other 3 courses were set. The menu’s were in French and Japanese but the staff were extremely helpful in translating for us.
The restaurant was very informal and had a long sushi counter style bar where we we seated so we could see all the action. We were right in front of the dessert guy which I was pretty excited about. Since we had recently bought a Canon 550D we were very trigger happy and went a bit nuts, but didn’t feel wierd about taking photos at all.
The people next to us got the cheapest set menu. It was Y2950 and had 3 courses served on the one plate. You didn’t get a choice of the courses but it was such good value. If only we had more time in Tokyo…… I would eat this for lunch every day.
Brett’s first entree was the crab and avocado mousse with tomato and potato.
Brett’s second entree was foie gras with duck and parmesan risotto.
My google translation of my entree was the half-cooked egg and light cream mushroom ham. Hmmmm I don’t remember it tasting hammy.
My main was fish. I can’t remember what type of fish it was but it was lovely.
Brett’s main looks like chicken but none of the translations of the menu say chicken and he can’t remember what it was.
Seeing as we were dining at a nice restaurant I decided to try a new wine and selected a lovely glass of French wine. I took a photo so I would remember the name. It was divine.
and of course dessert….. OMG!!!! This dessert was right up there with Quay’s 8 texture chocolate cake. It was freaking Ahhh mazing!!! It had chocolate sorbet, crumbled oreo’s and a thin disk of chocolate covering a bowl of chocolate heaven. The picture at the top of this post shows the heavenly goodness.
Brett was very happy with his dessert too. Even though he always claims he’s not a dessert person he always ends up eating dessert. It was a caramelised pear and cinnamon tart.
Of course our meal finished off with some petit fours. Bonus!
This is the pastry chef right in front of us.
I was shocked to hear about the devastation in Japan 6 weeks after our trip. I’m sure the country will bounce back and I encourage you to travel to this spectacular country and enjoy all it has to offer. No trip to Tokyo would be complete without dining at this restaurant. It was definitely a highlight of our holiday. It is located in the massive Roppongi Hills shopping centre and I would recommend making a reservation and going for lunch. More info about Joel Robuchon and his restaurants can be found here.
