I was wandering around trying to decide what to have for lunch when I happened to stumble on a branch of Igrek. It’s on the 6th floor of the Uniqlo building near Daimaru. I’d already eaten a pretty filling first round, and it looked like a casual sort of place, so I went up thinking I’d have something light. As it turned out, it wasn’t really the kind of place where you eat light -_- So I ended up overeating, not entirely by choice..
Taking a seat..
I hadn’t booked, so I had to wait about 10 minutes. The vibe is very modern, nothing like the Uniqlo image at all. You could think of it as more of a Daimaru-side restaurant. On the table there’s a card saying they even serve gibier. Venison and wild boar weren’t available that day, though.
Cauliflower soup
The theme of the day was “keep it light”, so I ordered the cheapest menu (about 2,000 yen) + dessert (about 500 yen) + mineral water (about 400 yen). This is the soup that came with it, and whether or not they used some magic cauliflower, it was wonderfully smooth and nutty. A place only deserves to be called truly great when even the cheapest menu is satisfying, and in that sense this place has the fundamentals down.
Mineral water
Apparently it’s water from Mt. Rokko, the mountain behind Kobe. Again, it was the cheapest drink, but it was clean and good. Wine would have gone better with such good food, of course..
Unlimited bread..
Not especially tasty, but you could warm it up in an automatic toaster.
Today’s main, a fish pie
Soup + main is a very, very, very modest lineup. It didn’t look like much, but it was really delicious.
Inside, a huge piece of fish..
There was a big piece of fresh, tasty fish inside, and the pastry was baked perfectly. I could have paid extra for the steak, but this was hugely satisfying too.
Chairs and table
The design is really modern and stylish. It doesn’t look like a cheap place at all. Casual-ish, maybe, but not the sort of place where you just grab a quick meal. It seemed good for a date or a quiet get-together. Coming alone like me, there isn’t much to do.
Crème brûlée with wine-poached pear
This seems to be their signature dish, and the portion was generous too. It was a high-level dessert, but compared with the crème brûlée at A Tes Souhaits, it falls well short. The trouble is, once your palate goes up it never comes back down.
Eating this well and paying just under 3,000 yen makes it a place that’s expensive if you think so and cheap if you think so. Pay another 1,000 or 2,000 yen and you could eat really well, since the 4,000-yen course comes with dessert. But even the cheap menu was high quality, so I’d say the satisfaction was about the same as the 4,000-yen course. That said, paying 3,000 yen to eat alone feels a bit of a waste, so I’ll definitely never go there alone again.