Tokyo Blond: My New Favorite Tokyo Restaurant

In the States, the Zagat guide was my best foodie friend. But they don't have Zagat here in Tokyo, at least not in English. Here they have the Michelin guide. For those of you who don't know the story, (I didn't), the Michelin guide was created by the owner of Michelin tires back in 1900 to aid his customers who might like to tour France. At that time there were barely 3,500 vehicles on the road and the guide was free. Now, over 100 years later, the Michelin Guide is considered the authority of gourmet and earning a Michelin star is the Academy Award of culinary art.

Did you know there are more Michelin stared restaurants in Tokyo than there are in France? No joke.

You can get a better, flakier, fresher croissant in Tokyo than you can in Paris. Mon dieu! It's true!

Seriously, stop by the Burdigala bakery in Hiroo and see for yourself. The almond croissant is absolute heaven!

I've found the Japanese will take a subject, like croissants, or economy cars, fixate on it, and perfect it.

Recently Russell and I stumbled upon my new favorite restaurant. The ironic thing is I originally discovered the restaurant, called Chez Tomo, in my Michelin guide as having a location in Hiroo. I called and to my surprise got a reservation. Everything I had read about the restaurant indicated it was a hard reservation to get. When we showed up at the designated time we found out why it had been so easy. It wasn't Chez Tomo. The restaurant had changed to Atelier d' J. It was owned by the same people but our look of perplexity let them know it wasn't what we were expecting. They were very nice and offered to call the Chez Tomo location in the Ginza and see if they could get us in right then. We thanked them and decided to stay put. We were rewarded. The food at Atelier d'J was great. The sausage and duck cassoulet with white beans was especially satisfying. But it wasn't Chez Tomo.

Then a couple of months later we were walking through the Ginza on a Sunday night during the holidays. We were actually admiring the two million dollar gold Christmas tree at the Tanaka jewelry store when I happened to look up at the building next door and there to my surprise was Chez Tomo. Thee Chez Tomo we had tried to go to before.

Out of curiosity we ventured in. The place was beautiful. It reminded me of an L.A. restaurant. It was high style. But while L.A. restaurants tend to be all style, little substance, Chez Tomo was both and more. It was our lucky night, they had two seats left at the counter. We took them.

The food was sublime! We especially loved the restaurant's signature vegetable plate. That's right -vegetable plate. This surprised me, a staunch meat eater, as it may you. The course featured over twenty five different vegetables, prepared individually, on a stunning glass plate.

And that's not all, maybe the best thing about Chex Tomo is the value. It's actually affordable, relatively speaking. They have several pre fix menus, including an all you can drink (good French white or red wine) menu for $120. That's right people, I said ALL YOU CAN DRINK. Well, at least for 120 minutes. I'm not kidding. That comes to a dollar per minute and includes an amazing five course gourmet chef's menu. Russell and I figured we could kill a bottle each in 120 minutes, no problem.

Since it was Sunday we didn't actually indulge in the All You Can Drink menu. We bought a bottle of Sancerre and both chose a different tasting menu. A six course pre-fix dinner only cost 5,780 yen or about $69.00. That's an amazing deal in Tokyo! The food and ambience including a great view of the Ginza, not to mention the excellent service, was so good we would expect to pay around the $500 mark for a meal like this.

But the real test was when we recommended Chez Tomo to our friends Nancy and Brian. There's always a risk when you rave about something to a friend. It's like hearing all the hype about a movie and being disappointed when you finally see it. Sometimes the experience you have may differ dramatically from someone else. Like the time we discovered an amazing wine on our tenth year anniversary trip in Tuscany. For some reason it may not taste the same when you recommend it to someone else and they drink it with KFC on a Thursday night. Hmmm, maybe it had something to do with being in ITALY! Hello?

But Nancy and Brian LOVED it. You will too.

Damn, now I'm craving it.

http://www.chez-tomo.com/ginza_e/index.html