Narisawa

If you look closely you can see the restaurant name above my head.

We weren't able to be together for my actual birthday, but we finally get a chance to celebrate in Tokyo at Narisawa.  It's a 2 star Michelin restaurant and has been ranked as the #2 restaurant in Asia (not a country, not a region, but for an entire continent!).  And what's so cool - it's a five minute walk from our apartment. 

Tonight's menu

The restaurant's philosophy is to bring nature to the plate, so that made some interesting servings!  It's a kaiseki style dinner, so we have fifteen courses, and we elect to have the wine/sake pairings with each course.  Luckily, they are small portions, so you can enjoy the entire meal!

Beautiful "place mat"

Essence of the forest - first course

Our bread, rising at the table

The finished bread product - with our moss covered "dirt" (parsley & black olive coated butter).

Horsehair crab

Steve is determined to get every bite!

Our favorite of the drinks - yuzu sake

We're able to pick our main meat entree, and we decide on pigeon because neither of us have had it before.  The waiter assures me they did not come from the park where we walk the dogs. (Though if they did, Tahoe would be happy to help catch them.  Apparently there are no squirrels in Tokyo, so making the pigeons fly away is her new favorite "chase" activity.)  

This is supposed to illustrate the struggle of life and death (with some help of raspberry puree)...but I stopped listening to the waiter's explanation at that point.  The presentation was a little too graphic for me, and I didn't want to add audio to it.  It didn't stop me from eating it though - and pigeon is pretty tasty!

We ended up with three dessert courses, though only one was on the menu. 

Strawberries

I've forgotten what this is - but it's good!

Then the last course - the dessert "buffet," delivered to our table.  Every item is explained to us, then we could pick as much (or as little) as we wanted.  Naturally, I had one of everything.

Final dessert course!