One of my students, Natsumi worked at one of the restaurants in the Hilton Hotel Odaiba and I had been meaning to go there one of these days to eat at her restaurant. Well she recently told me that she was changing jobs soon so the decision was made to go and have lunch at Sakura restaurant at the Hilton Odaiba. I asked Tetsuya if he was willing, being a former chef, he is always willing when there is food involved.
I met Tetsuya at the hotel and we made our way to the restaurant and were lead to our seats. Now the Sakura restaurant has 4 different areas. The main restaurant, the teppanyaki counter, the sushi counter and the tempura counter. Natsumi had recommended the tempura counter as it was the one with the best view. She certainly wasn't wrong!
Soon after being seated our tools were placed in front of us!
Soon after came a small appetizer.
Tetsuya asked what it was and the answer came back, "Shirako" with no other explanation. I had heard this word before and I was wracking my brain trying to remember what it was. "Don't ask," Tetsuya said, "just eat". Suddenly I remembered that my food and wine writer friend, Eriko (my gourmet tour with Eriko can be found here) had recommended that I try this food. Now if only I could remember what it was. Suddenly I remembered.........fish sperm....... Tetsuya and the restaurant staff looked with bemusement at my horrified realisation and continued watching intently as I picked up half of it and slowly put it into my mouth. "How was it" I hear you asking. Well, it kind of tasted like fishy cheese. Just that sample proved to be enough for me though...
Next, the chef brought out a sample of what he would be cooking up for us. I nice selection of seafood and vegetables.
Now I am not a big lover of shrimp / prawns so he had included some extra fish for me. As he began cooking, Tetsuya asked him how long he had been working in this restaurant. "22 years, since the hotel opened". Wow, our food was certainly being cooked by one impressive chef!
First up, Tetsuya was served some little tempura shrimp legs.
while on my plate, whiting (シロギス).
Now whiting are a hugely popular fish variety in Australia and they have a very delicate, light taste. This took me back to my childhood when I used to catch whiting with my Uncle and Grandfather!
Next up was some canola flower.
These had a nice fresh, herbaceous, light oily taste to them. This was my first time to eat these and they were good.
After that came some lotus root (レンコン).
Lotus root is a vegetable that I love, the starchy crunchiness was wonderful so this disappeared pretty quickly!
At about this point I realised that the chef was preparing each ingredient separately and timing the serving with perfection, a short wait after the previous one, just like a good sushi chef does. He would start preparing each one as we were enjoying the previous one.
Next up was a scallop (ホタテ貝).
I am not a big eater of scallops so I am not really qualified to comment on the taste of this one.
This was soon followed by a slice of onion (玉ねぎ).
Now, I had never had tempura onion before now, so this seemed to be a strange choice, but it really worked. The onion had been cooked to perfection, retaining enough juiciness and crunchiness that, combined with the crisp tempura coating, made this one of the highlights!
And here's another quick shot of the onion (with that wonderful view....).
Next the chef serve up some lightly battered squid (いか). As with the shrimp and scallops, I don't eat a lot of shrimp but the crunchy texture of the batter contrasted nicely with the chewy texture of the squid.
Next was a little piece of shiitake mushroom.
This was followed by some tempura eggplant (ナス).
This was so soft and tender, the chef had cooked this one to perfection. I noticed at this stage that he was watching us eating and starting to prepare the next item accordingly. Each required different cooking times and he was timing everything to perfection.
Next up was a Japanese favourite, loved by so many people here, sweet potato (薩摩芋). The chef told us not to season this with anything, just to eat it straight. While not a big fan of sweet potato, I would have liked to dip this one in a sauce, but I'm sure fans of sweet potato would love it!
After that came some saltwater eel (穴子). Freshwater eel (鰻) is more common in Japan, but this one was a good match for tempura. Soft and tender and with a delicate flavour.
With that item, we had reached the end of our course but suddenly Natsumi came out and told us that the chef wanted to prepare us an extra dish for free! We settled on a rice dish with chopped up tempura pieces mixed in.
The condiments were seaweed, yukari (dried, ground shiso leaf) and sesame seeds. These were promptly thrown in top of the rice bowl.
After polishing this one off, we were served with desert, mochi balls with sweet red beans (sorry, couldn't find a Japanese translation).
And just like that, it was all over. It had been an amazing dining experience. The chef was an utter professional and delivered a complete dining experience. My thanks goes to Natsumi and her chef at the tempura counter at the Hilton Hotel Odaiba. We had a great time!
Well, that's it for another post. I highly recommend going to the Hilton Odaiba, Sakura restaurant for a high class dining experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Thanks for reading. Please leave a message below and sign up for email updates on the right side of the screen. Also, please share the post if you know anyone who would like to read.
Take care, and see you next time.
Cost: tempura course - 5,000 yen.
One of my good friends here in Japan, Sayaka recently suggested that I start doing example walking tours and then blog about them. I was telling a coworker about this and she said "Find me a night time walk!". Well, Katie, here it is!
Most weekends I teach English to an adorable group of kids at Odaiba. To get to Odaiba (a man made island in the middle of Tokyo Bay) you catch a driverless train across Rainbow Bridge. On my many trips across the bridge I had often noticed people walking across the bridge and had thought to myself that it would be interesting to do exactly that one day. Well, recently, that one day arrived.
I finished teaching my kids and went and had lunch at La Salsa Mexican restaurant at Decks shopping centre (5th floor, thoroughly recommend it!). looking out of the window of La Salsa, I was staring at Rainbow Bridge an decided that today was the day that I was going to do the bridge walk!
Construction on Rainbow Bridge began in 1987 and was completed in 1993 and it stretches for 1523 metres. At night time it is often light up in the colours of the rainbow.
Basically the bridge is open from 9 am to 9 pm during the warmer months and from 10 am to 6 pm during the colder months.
Heading from Odaiba Kaihin Koen station on the Yurikamome line down to the beach, Rainbow Bridge stood tall in front of me.
Not knowing how to get on to the bridge, I just started walking along the beach in the direction of it.
When I took the photo, I didn't notice the guy running excitedly across the beach!! I wish I knew what he was chasing!
A little further on, the path forked and I decided to take the low path.
I came across a couple of vending machines
and decided to stock up on liquids for the walk ahead.
This is a view of Tokyo Bay looking towards the port area. A couple of seconds after I took this photo a flying fish flew out of the water and glided through the air for a few seconds. I have never seen a flying fish anywhere else except for Tokyo Bay!
Getting closer to the bridge I contemplated walking out to the park in the middle of the bay, but decided against it as I was running out of daylight.
I arrived at some steps on my right and it looked like it was the way up to the bridge so I went up
and sure enough, there was the entrance to the pedestrian section of the bridge.
Walking past the guardhouse the walkway starts it's way up to the bridge.
Just beyond this point there is a big information board with info about the bridge in both English and Japanese.
There are actually walkways on both sides of the bridge so you can get two uniquely different views of Tokyo.
A little further on is where you have the chance to choose which side to walk across on.
I chose the north side, facing the Tokyo skyline and started making my way across the bridge.
I was pretty impressed with the initial views.
Odaiba and the surrounding areas will be central to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games with many events taking place in the area. Construction has started on some of the facilities in the area. I think this construction site may be where the athlete's village will be located.
Not too much further on from this is a spot where you can actually cross to the other side if you want.
I decided to head over for a quick view of Odaiba and Tokyo Bay.
The water in the middle of the first picture is where the marathon swimming and swimming part of the Triathlon will be held during the Olympics. That is a little concerning, however, as on the beach there are signs that clearly say, in both Japanese and English, no swimming and no naked flames!
I decided that I liked the north side better and crossed back under the bridge to the other side and continued my walk.
Running through the middle of the bridge with roads on either side is the train tracks for the Yurikamome line, the train with no driver and every so often the bridge would vibrate as the train rolled on past.
Pretty soon, the side railing was replaced by a full cage fence sadly, but I was still able to get my camera up close enough to the links to take clear photos.
About halfway across you have to pass through a room which houses an elevator for staff to get to the top of the bridge for repairs I guess.
Coming out the other side, I continued my way along admiring the skyline. For a guy who was born in a tiny country town with a population of about 750, sights like this are breath-taking and certainly very different to what I grew up with.
I was now nearing the other side and started wondering where the way back down would be as it wasn't very obvious.
Then suddenly a door appeared in front of me with an elevator inside so I figured that this was the way down and went in.
Finally outside I followed a path down to street level and started making my way to nearby Shibaura Futo station on the Yurikamome line to go back to Shinbashi.
Suddenly I saw one of those "only in Japan" sights. A guy was standing playing the trombone on the other side of the street while his girlfriend held his sheet music to play to!
Quite a random sight! I guess he didn't want to disturb his neighbours!!
So to get to Shibaura Futo station, you come out of the building, walk down the green path and when you get to the street you turn left. At the next T-juction,
turn right and walk for about 5 minutes
and you'll reach the station.
Getting back on the train I went back to Shinbashi and wandered over to nearby Ginza where my favourite little standing bar is, Three Hundred.
and settled in to enjoy a couple of 300 yen happy hour beers.
This post doesn't finish here though. As I was walking across, the thought struck me to do the walk at night time, so a couple of weeks later I got in touch with Sayaka, who had suggested doing these walks originally, to see if she was interested in joining me for a night walk. She said yes, so we met up at Shinbashi to do the walk in the other direction.
We arrived at the place where the elevator is to ride up to the walkway and the bridge was looming in front of us..
We went up to the walkway and stepped out onto the bridge (we went over on the north facing side again). Now I have to apologise here as I use my mobile phone camera to take my photos and the clarity is not so good at night. As a result, the photos I have taken do not do the view that we witnessed justice. The view was simply incredible! To see all of those city lights shining bright in the darkness was spectacular! I will try to select some of the better photos that I was able to take to give you an idea.
It was simply stunning. Soon we were nearing Odaiba.
The walk across had made us pretty hungry so we headed for Aqua City to go to their ramen street inside the shopping centre and along the way we saw this guy!
Realising that we were no threat to him, he let us pass and continue on to the ramen street. At the ramen street there are 7 different ramen shops, representing the different kinds of ramen. I went with a spicy Tan tan men and Sayaka with a tonkotsu ramen (at the back of the photo).
Feeling satisfied, we walked back to the train station to make our way back home.
I hope that you enjoyed that. I thoroughly recommend the walk during either day or night, or even both so that you can experience the different views of Tokyo. Thanks to Sayaka for joining me on the night walk, and for suggesting these walks. This will be the first of a few different suggested walks.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time.
