Gastrolust

My fantastic meal at Kisaku has me thinking back to a very special experience I enjoyed in Tokyo a few months ago.

Much of my activity was centered around the Shinjuku Station area. It’s an especially hustle-bustle area of the city—not necessarily suited to my preferred pace. But it’s where many of the business travelers and tourists stay in Tokyo, and therefore an interesting place to research restaurants. In between meals with mother-in-law (some of the best food in Japan, naturally!), I was exploring what the area offered. Imagine the contrast when one day I’m buying bowls of rice and meat at fast food joints and cafeterias, and the next I’m invited to dine in style at Kakou, the Hyatt Regency’s Japanese restaurant.

With ka meaning good/elegant, and kou meaning fragrance/flavors, lunch in one of the restaurant’s private little rooms held great promise. Kakou is a contemporary restaurant offering kaiseki cuisine, which I knew would mean more than just good flavors, but incredible plating as well. I’d be eating with my eyes as much as my mouth, and to ensure full focus on the food, the room had a sleek but minimalist feel—just a few natural colors, no art, and only the faintest music in the background. I was so close to the chaos of Shinjuku Station, but in a tranquil place that felt a world away.

Kaiseki meals feature a multitude of courses using seasonal ingredients. Throughout the meal the goal is balance of taste, texture and color; the garnishes and plates add to the spectacle. Capturing it all on camera was a challenge. And complicating matters: While I ordered a kaiseki meal, Akiko wanted to try a lunch set menu for comparison. This led to somewhat staggered dish delivery, but our servers handled it with quiet and confident finesse.

The (I’m-still-just-learning-to-use-my-camera-at-this-point) photos in the gallery below (click to enlarge) tell a thousand words, but in just one word, I can tell you that the food was phenomenal. The dishes were like works of art; I just wanted to step back and admire them instead of putting my chopsticks on them—at least for a few moments. But as the servers continued parading in with plates, between admiring and photographing them (the plates, that is), I found I had to eat pretty quickly to keep up. Plates piling up, though, only added to the panorama of the affair. This was truly a feast for the eyes—and the stomach. The menus:

Sansui Kaiseki (sansui is “water on the mountain”): 6,500 yen (almost $70)

• Appetizer: Mushrooms and mountain caviar, gingko nuts w/pine leaf, squid sushi, yuba shinjo (fishcake)
• Clear soup: Hotate shinjo (scallop fishcake) with vegetables
• Sashimi: amaebi (sweet, raw shrimp), maguro, tai, shiso leaf, shiso sprouts
• Takiawase (braised dish): furofuki (boiled) daikon with yuzu miso, grilled duck, red pepper, fried onions, bok choy
• Grilled dish: kinmeidai (golden eye snapper), renkon (lotus root), fuki (butterbur)
• Fried dish: kibinago (sardine-like fish), eggplant, red pepper
• Rice, soup and pickles: takikomi gohan (chicken and gobo, or burdock root)
• Dessert: chocolate mousse and fruit

Kikyo Lunch Set (kikyo is a flower): 4,800 yen (about $50)

• Appetizer and seasonal plate: grilled salmon with yuzu, yuba, ankimo (monkfish liver), saba, ebi, tamago, renkon, eggplant with miso paste
• Tempura: shrimp, shitake and maitake mushrooms, green pepper
• Rice with crab, uni, ikura, maitake, and snow peas
• Sashimi, clear soup, pickles, kosode-zushi (braised daikon with rice, topped with kabocha and baby bok choy)
• Dessert: fruit